It's another music thread and on this one, I want to find out more about Sonic Youth. I have only 2 of their CDs in "Daydream Nation" and "Washing Machine" and although it has taken a little bit of time, I finally do like these albums. I am looking at getting "Bad Moon Rising" next although I also have "Goo" and "Sister" on the list as well. Would like to know what people's thoughts are on "Bad Moon Rising", "Goo", and "Sister". Also would like to know thoughts on "EVOL", "Dirty", "The Eternal", "Sonic Nurse", and "Murray Street" as well as any other one of their albums. If you would like, you can even give me your ranking of Sonic Youth CDs from best to worse.
1. Daydream Nation 2. Sister 3. EVOL 4. Sonic Youth 5. Confusion Is Sex 6. Bad Moon Rising 7. Washing Machine 8. Goo 9. Dirty 10. Murray Street - Rather Ripped I haven't listened to The Eternal much at this point. Their live shows are EPIC. Thurston plays a different guitar for pretty much every song (each in a different tuning). He's underrated as a player, but not as a pioneer/experimentalist. Very good stuff.
I have Daydream Nation, Sister, and the latest Rather Ripped, and have long since lost my copy of Goo and Dirty. Honestly, it's hard for me to rank them, as they're all good, including RR which is unusual since it was released so much later. I probably still like Daydream Nation the most, but they all have songs that I like for different reasons. DN opens so good and had that rough/smooth original sound way back when, but RR has stuff on it that it easily as good released nearly 20 years later. Sister is awesome and fully of energy. It's not my favorite, but it has things the others don't. I can't rate them all, since I don't have but a few, but I will say that for me and the ones I have or have listened to a great deal, I'd rank them like this: Daydream Goo Rather Ripped Sister I hear Sonic Nurse is made of win, but I've never given it more than a casual listen.
OP, instead of ranking, I'll just give you some thoughts. I own and listen to all of these, especially while wearing intentionally hip T-shirts and rolling my own smokes. BadMoon Rising: Maybe the harshest of all of them. Bob Burt (sp), a kind of experimentalist drummer, was still with the band at this time. I love this one, but they are still kind of kids. In this, EVOL and Sister, you particularly have to enjoy the "crescendo of noise" thing. And I have to admit, now an oldster, I don't hear these with the same fidelity I used to. EVOL: Maybe my 2nd favorite SY album, just for the variety and the extent to which each song is a gem. "Tom Violence" still might be my favorite song of theirs. I will bet other listeners disagree, and this may really be a case that the place of EVOL in my early life really skews my opinion. I'm pretty sure this is the album where Steve Shelley (sp) started drumming for them. Sister: Arguably where they started to turn into a band with a wider audience. The first track, Schizophrenia, is really catchy and excellent. It captures maybe the band at its tightest. But other than this, Pacific Coast Highway, and Catholic Block, I don't listen to much of it. Daydream Nation: Others can wade in here -- it is generally acknowledged to be their greatest. It's always hit me as a little bland somehow; it's almost like I don't like the engineering, the mix. I love Cross the Breeze and Eric's Trip as amazing and pure rock songs. There's also a lot of the noise doodling in this double album, but I don't think the noise doodling here is nearly as creative and interesting as in Bad Moon and EVOL (but again, it could be that I heard this album when I was older and more jaded... and more deaf.) Goo Goo was supposed to be their real commercial album and I think it's generally seen as a failure, but I think it's great. Some great production value, very listenable, still rocks hard, and it's just more fun than some of their albums. Very underrated, IMHO, and it has Chuck D in it! Dirty Masterpiece, IMHO. This is the one I come back to and listen to again and again, in the car, in the house, wherever. Just very solid, tight, well-written interesting rock. 100% and Drunken Butterfly are great songs. The sound quality and engineering are pretty flawless on this one. Murray Street This is kind of their 9/11 album to New York. It's very serious, to my ears, and gorgeous. Much less of a rock-out album than Dirty. Ones not yet mentioned that I think are worth mentioning: A Thousand Leaves This is definitely among my favorites and heavy-play SY rotation. I love love love the song Sunday, and the Karen Koltrane song also. Many sumptuous melodies and more careful noisy rifts in this one. Experimental Jetset, Trash, and No Star Maybe not a super serious album, but some great tracks. Mrs. B-Bob's favorite. Crazy and goofy in parts. And some more catchy-than-normal riffs. Washing Machine, Confusion is Sex, Rather Ripped... I would skip all of those unless you get obsessed with the band. Sonic Nurse is pretty good.
1. Daydream Nation 2. Sister 3. Bad Moon Rising 4. EVOL 5. Washing Machine The rest are hit or miss. I was really big into this band in high school. Goo had some good songs on it (Dirty Boots, Mildred Pierce) but it also has their worst song ever (My Friend Goo). Confusion is Sex is good, so is Sonic Death. Sonic Nurse is probably a bit more accessible. That's the last album I really heard, so yeah.
Oddly enough, I have never listened to much of Sonic Youth except for Daydream Nation and Goo. Although I'd have to say that for me, Teenage Riot is easily one of the top Alternative songs of all time
I have three albums; Daydream Nation Bad Moon Rising Screaming Fields of Sonic Love Screaming Fields of Sonic Love is a “best of” compilation, and very good, especially if you have had a rough go with a Sonic Youth album in the past. Most of the songs are from the earlier albums. Daydream Nation is held as far and away there best work, and is very good; if it took you a while to get into it I would recommend Screaming Fields of Sonic love. If you are not a big fan of the “noise” portions, or what a friend of mine refers to as “when they go sonic” then pick up this album. Bad Moon Rising is a good album; the songs run pretty cleanly one into another. Plenty of “going sonic” in the album, but not overly challenging to listen to. It shouldn’t drive you mad or make you want to chunk the CD out the window.
Wow! Didn't expect to see a SY thread here. My favourite album by far is Daydream Nation too. Out of your list the next album I'd recommend getting is Dirty, for me it's probably the most conventional of the lot. Before I listened to Dirty, I found their stuff too experimental/weird, but Dirty got me started listening to their other stuff. (I have not been keeping up with their newer albums though.) I saw them live years ago in Melbourne, was really cool because they chose a small club to perform at as they wanted a closer atmosphere with the audience on that tour. I think they were promoting A Thousand Leaves at the time.
I saw them open for Neil Young at the Summit back in the day. I much prefer them live where you get that visceral smack of their impact, but Daydream Nation, Dirty and Goo are excellent.
nice analysis b-bob - sounds like my regards for goo are similar to yours for evol - i was 15 when goo came out (1990) and its the first thing i heard from them so it will remain one of my favorites. i still tell new listeners to check out goo first - i think its the perfect bridge album b/t their 80's and their later work - good melodic, accessible tunes, elements of weirdness/noise, disappear!!! (probably my favorite sy song). lee ranaldo always gets 1 or 2 songs per album and they are usually my faves. top 6 #1 - daydream nation (this is a consensus if there ever is one) goo (see above) sister bad moon rising evol dirty a thousand leaves - definitely their most underrated album - lee ranaldo is a big greatful dead fan and it showed on this one. dont listen to this one enough, but its a good one (and really, really long) probably seen these guys about 5-6 times. one of the best shows ive been to was sonic youth/pavement/painteens at the unicorn in summer 92.
13.) NYC Ghosts & Flowers,2000: 1 Star 12.) The Eternal, 2009 - 3.5 Stars 11.) EVOL, 1986 - 3.5 Stars 10.) Murray Street, 2002 - 3.5 Stars 9.) Sonic Nurse, 2004 - 3.5 Stars 8.) Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star, 1994 - 3.5 Stars 7.) Rather Ripped, 2006 - 3.5 Stars 6.) A Thousand Leaves, 1998 - 4 Stars 5.) Washing Machine, 1995 - 4.5 Stars 4.) Goo, 1990 - 4.5 Stars 3.) Sister, 1987 - 5 Stars 2.) Dirty, 1992 - 5 Stars 1.) Daydream Nation, 1988 - 5 Stars Some random thoughts on the albums. Dirty is probably their most polarizing, but I would say its by far their most accessible (which might be the reason some people hate it). Butch Vig produced it in between Nevermind and Siamese Dream so the sound is immaculate, especially when compared to anything they recorded prior. The album opens with seven of the strongest songs they ever made, especially "Sugar Kane." NYC Ghosts & Flowers is the only album I did not like by them, and I absolutely hated it. Pretentious crap...but some Sonic Youth fans really like it. The rest of their 2000s output has been solid if not exhilarating like their 80s/90s stuff. Much more time seems to be spent on composition and a lot of the guitars have a cleaner sound with less noise/fuzz. I sometimes find myself more impressed with the newer stuff than I am actually enjoying it. It's kind of funny I rank their latest The Eternal as my 12th favorite Sonic Youth album. That looks bad, but I actually really like it. I'm a bit biased towards Washing Machine because it was my first SY album I bought (at 16) and thus one of the most influential in shaping my future taste in music. A lot of people don't rank it as high. Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star seems to be the album they spent the least amount of time making. A lot of the songs sound half-banked and recorded on a whim without many takes. In that regard it kind of reminds me of Pavement's Wowee Zowee, but the result is not quite as successful. It's still one of their most entertaining albums and has a spontaneity that they sometime lack (especially the newer stuff). Lastly, "Schizophrenia" off of Sister is my favorite SY song and one of the best ever made IMO. That is all.
Ancient looking video of SY performing 100% on Letterman around 92. I wonder if the crew was wondering what the hell was going on when Lee Ranaldo brings out the baseball bat from behind the drumkit. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iiqM-Ne5b10&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iiqM-Ne5b10&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
If you are talking Sonic Youth, you can't forget the monumental "side project", Ciccone Youth. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/RIbsS8rEdFI&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/RIbsS8rEdFI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> or Addicted to Love (Youtube's embedding disabled).
I agree with what b-bob said about the albums though I rank them slightly differently. My rtop 4 in this order 1. EVOL 2. DIRTY 3. DAYDREAM NATION 4. GOO - I am tempted to place this higher because it gets such a bad rap. But I like it a lot.
