Sonic Youth

  On 8/30/2012 at 1:49 PM, TVHEAD said:

Interesting fact about Washing Machine is that there is no bass on 8 or 9 songs.

though some of the songs feature guitars that have all strings tuned to the same pitch.

very spacious, well-produced album. exp jet set - washing machine - thousand leaves are golden

  On 8/30/2012 at 10:46 PM, barbara planar said:

very spacious, well-produced album. exp jet set - washing machine - thousand leaves are golden

Totally agree! I remember most of the SY fans I knew had lost track after Dirty.

  On 8/30/2012 at 11:05 AM, LUDD said:

85-88

Basically this, four great albums one after the other. There's good stuff on most Sonic Youth albums but between Bad Moon Rising and Daydream Nation they were impeccable.

We seem to be parking our cars in the same garage a lot lately Mr C.

Some songs on "Confusion Is Sex" are plain creepy.. same as "EVOL"

I got Murray Street in the vaults I may have to dig it out as I remember there werei indeed some great tracks on this.

i heard this track yesterday from a fellow watmmer, thought it was pretty dope!

some day i will have to check out these sonic youthsters

I think Sonic Youth have always suffered from the 'hit and miss' syndrome, some of its great, some of it is complete shit. They rarely do the 'all killer, no filler' syndrome as it were.

Grandmaster Lord Ooze post has reminded me of this great track by them, found on a Carpenters covers album (If I was a Carpenter) of which my mate lent me a long time ago. I was like 'What the fuck is this shit mate...' and he just grinned and told me to play the Sonic Youth track. He was right. It's fucking brilliant!! But it's dark, very dark. An interesting track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbr2PxWUMLM

  On 8/31/2012 at 10:34 PM, beerwolf said:

I think Sonic Youth have always suffered from the 'hit and miss' syndrome, some of its great, some of it is complete shit.

Totally agree. I think that's what makes them difficult to get into. Had I gotten into them during my teen years, I may feel differently. We're more accepting of the shit that surrounds the gold at that age.

hit and miss, but when they're good they're amazing

i don't think there is any shit on bad moon rising, evol, sister or daydream nation

Good news for mid-80s-SY lovers: http://70.32.78.35/sonicnews/?p=3267

Posted this in the Stupid FWP thread, but it should really go here. Help me:

People hail Daydream Nation as Sonic Youth's masterpiece, but there's this terrible crackle all over the guitar tracks and intro song that ruin the whole thing for me. Like I can't even appreciate the music because my ear is constantly drawn to these crackling sounds that shouldn't be there. The album sounds like one big mistake to me. Are there any versions out there that don't have the horrible crackle, or was it just that badly recorded? I'm hoping it was a mastering issue on this particular pressing, and that there is a clean version out there... though since the crackle is present at notably quiet points in the album, I'm thinking this is not the case. No other Sonic Youth albums have this problem (going through the discography now).

  On 7/7/2016 at 9:38 PM, Zephyr_Nova said:

Posted this in the Stupid FWP thread, but it should really go here. Help me:

 

People hail Daydream Nation as Sonic Youth's masterpiece, but there's this terrible crackle all over the guitar tracks and intro song that ruin the whole thing for me. Like I can't even appreciate the music because my ear is constantly drawn to these crackling sounds that shouldn't be there. The album sounds like one big mistake to me. Are there any versions out there that don't have the horrible crackle, or was it just that badly recorded? I'm hoping it was a mastering issue on this particular pressing, and that there is a clean version out there... though since the crackle is present at notably quiet points in the album, I'm thinking this is not the case. No other Sonic Youth albums have this problem (going through the discography now).

Crackling like digital clipping? I never heard anything resembling crackling on Daydream. How are you listening to it?

P.S. Daydream Nation is absolutely brilliant.

Edit: Listening to Daydream Nation for the first time is one of those teenage defining moments for me. The intermingling dual guitar work between Moore and Ranaldo blew me the fuck away.

First I listened to it after ripping it from CD to 320 kbps mp3s, on my phone. Thought perhaps there was either a translation problem in the conversion somewhere (never been a problem before), or there was something fucked up happening with the settings on my player. But then I played the CD on my computer and the crackling was still present all over the place. It's on almost every track, but usually just on one of the guitars. It's not a clipping distortion thing -that wouldn't bug me- but an actual crackle, completely unmusical. It's the sort of thing that often occurs on albums that are mastered way too loud, like Metallica - Death Magnetic, but Daydream Nation is not a loud album. I think whoever was engineering the guitar session just fucked up and either no one noticed or cared... though for a $40,000 production you'd think someone might care. It's weird that the crackle issue doesn't tend to come up in discussions of the album, because it's definitely present all over the version I have. One guy did mention the crackle on the intro track being present on every version he had heard. I swear this isn't some subtle thing though.

I'm listening to it right now and I'm not noticing anything like a crackle, just distorted guitars. But I've been listening to this album for 25 years, so I'm probably forgiving of anything technical.

I remember reading an interview with Moore where he was relearning the songs on Daydream for ATP in 2010 and being appalled with his guitar sound, so maybe there is something there?

Oh yeah? I'm curious to read that interview. Perhaps it was his guitar that got the shitty engineering treatment. The other guitar and other instruments are unaffected as far as I noticed. But since they're such a guitar driven band, it's hard for me to ignore. I really want to enjoy this album as much as everyone else does. But it's like I've got a slice of pizza from my favorite joint, and it's covered in sand. I can't eat that.

I love going round some days and loudly (but in a cool friendly way) yelling to people I know

You got your head in the treeeees!!!

ahhh the simple things in life

Sister is my favorite Sonic Youth record, followed by Goo, Dirty, and Experimental Jet Set. I like Daydream Nation, but I honestly never figured out why people hail it as being their best.

I actually rarely listen to SY, as they're kind of a "mood" band, but just about the only songs of theirs that I can listen to anytime are Catholic Block, White Cross, and Master-Dik.

First time I heard Sonic Youth was in a Toy Machine skateboard video...it totally stood up for me then...

Yeah, skate videos were a major source for discovering music growing up pre internet. First time I heard Dinosaur Jr must have been in Speed Freaks, for instance.

bad moon rising + flower/halloween. they get very tedious after that.

Confession: I'm a decent SY fan, have about 10 of their CDs, but I've never heard Daydream Nation.

I only got into Sonic Youth because Jim O'Rourke joined them, Murray Street is brilliant. I went back and checked out Daydream Nation after that, it's pretty good too.