POLL YR. IDOLS: The official SONIC YOUTH RESULTS thread!

mainhattan otm

On top of that, Goo features some of their most aggressive riffing. If you don't like riffing, then you fail at life.

half of Goo is basically Daydream Nation 2 (in a good way), half of it is kinda funny and half-assed. great album but i can understand why many underestimate it.

I didn't say that fun music in general is slighter than earnest music (and I would really question how earnest Bad Moon Rising is anyway). I just find the 'fun' punky songs on Goo to be slight. I guess this means I don't find them as uplifting as you do. I don't find the Beatles (or Mozart) slight when they do lighter, fun things.

xposts This sums it up for me: half of Goo is basically Daydream Nation 2 (in a good way), half of it is kinda funny and half-assed.

I don't dislike it (or riffs) btw. I just don't think it's their greatest work.

Yeah, I was laying on thick with the if you don't like riffing bit, but I think it actually cut to the core of what I like most about SY, and why Goo and Rather Ripped are my favorite SY albums. Lean and reasonably mean songs with hooks and punchiness, and very little ponderous experimentalism.

Goo only sounds weak now given what they've released since then.

I mean, I never thought of them primarily as an anthemic alt-rock band. I know many people do. What you consider "ponderous experimentalism" is probably what I often listen to them for.

xpost

I'm just being a smartass today. I'm cool with a lot of SY that's not "anthemic," but it at least has to groove a little instead of just sounding like a practice space where they left all the instruments on and walked out for a cigarette (which is what NYCG&F sounds like to me in a lot of places).

I like them in various gears, but some records a) fall flat or b) weren't on my radar at the time and I can't "get" them.

they had, at a minimum, a 4-album stretch of being one of the best loud fast anthemic rock bands in the world, which is better than a lot of bands like that manage in their whole careers, so i'm fine w/ them having moved on to slightly mellower pastures thereafter

I love Skip Tracer. It has so many golden lines of pithy genius. Its funny too. "twister, dust buster, hospital bed" "very I'm-in-a-band" "clothes flung out of closets, doorknobs falling off" "yes sir yes sir step right up" "hello 2015" etc. etc.

Fall flat = SN (largely), Evol (relatively speaking), Eternal
Can't "get" it = DN, Goo (largely), debut EP

Then there are SY albums that hit me on some special level for aesthetic or personal mythology reasons..

Mythology: WM, Dirty, ATL, SS
Aesthetics: RR, MS, SYR9, CIS

Of course there's definitely overlap between those categories

Xpost

mid-90s live set by Mecca Normal, the band that inspired "Skip Tracer":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4UACM1MpqE

Somehow I've still never listened to Mecca Normal

BMR and Sister would fall under aesthetic pleasures I think

Can't really believe that "Beauty Lies in the Eye" placed this high. So many better Kim songs. I get that it is a beloved record (and lol yeah 44 isn't THAT high) but still, many Kim songs already placed that are better than this.

― grandavis, Wednesday, May 15, 2013 12:07 PM (3 hours ago)

love "beauty lies": the weird watery guitar sound, the measured vocal & slowly building tension, "hey baby, hey sweetheart, hey fox, come here". you keep waiting for the "shadow of a doubt" style explosion that never comes. it's slight, but very cool.

four more today:

59. Eliminator Jr.
50. Youth Against Fascism
47. Pipeline / Kill Time
44. Beauty Lies in the Eye

i feel a little guilty abt "youth against fascism", but every time it comes on i crank it up & smile. the heart wants what it wants.

what's to feel guilty about?

lots of us voted for it -- it's a terrific performance

it's the hongro i date

Definitely down with "Beauty Lies...". Contenderizer captures the appeal well. Might even be the most durable Sister track for me, as odd as that seems as I type it. Looks like "Pipeline" was my only other track from this batch.

man people who act like Steve lost his touch after Dirty are missing out, Washing Machine is one of their best albums drum-wise, so many cool subtle performances

Favourites?

definitely mainly the 3 that placed today, also shaker section of "Unwind" and the cymbal crazy ending of "No Queen Blues"

definitely need to do my playlist of songs where Steve plays maracas/shakers. so far i got:

Dirty Boots, Bull In The Heather, Hyperstation, Karen Koltrane, Unwind, Anagrama, Female Mechanic Now On Duty, Sunday (SubUrbia version), i think some Made In USA tracks. what am i missing?

Wtf are ppl going onabout Kool Thing veing fun? That song is ferocious! Best single of their altrock phase. Major regrettable omission on my ballot. That part where Kim goes "What'd he say?!" at the end of one of the verses always gets m
Was a bit of a dry run for me then Halloween ushered in a string of my choices: Beauty, Karen, Washing Machine

Youth Against Fascism completely rules and I love it, but I cut it in favor of things I love even more. Conventional wisdom at the time among fellow music fans was that the new album sucked (something I have heard friends say about every single SY album since Sister), but I remember playing YAF once for a friend, who loved it and was like "dammit, Matt and Tony told me this record sucked!"

"Karen Koltrane" is fine but definitely a song that would've been on my ballot 10-15 years ago that wasn't considered for a moment now

Only "Brother James" from my ballot today. Really surprised how much from the mid-90s is showing up.

well i mean, if they stopped in 1993, there wouldn't be 100 songs to count down

wait, brother jams came up today? naw, you mean

49. Kill Yr. Idols (155 points, 12 votes)

which i forgot earlier, cuz yeah, i voted for that one too. up to nine!

http://www.melson.nl/ILM/sypoll/040.jpg
40. Inhuman
Confusion Is Sex, 1983
(181 points, 10 votes, 2 #1)

MY BODY IS A PASTIME MY MIND IS A SIMPLE JOY I LEARN MY LESSON THE HARDEST WAY

I'm genuinely surprised that so much pre-EVOL stuff is popping up this high.

TOO LOW

'Pastime'? I always heard 'My body is a pipeline'

http://www.melson.nl/ILM/sypoll/039.jpg
39. Bull in the Heather
Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, 1994
(182 points, 12 votes)

"We never said we were professional"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1JJmI1QhsM

Inhuman only really struck me during the ballot process. It made my list because it is AWESOME and because it sounds like Throbbing Gristle.

http://www.melson.nl/ILM/sypoll/038.jpg
38. Shaking Hell
Confusion Is Sex, 1983
(183 points, 11 votes, 1 #1)

Thanks to whoever put this as their #1. Scary, scary track.

http://www.melson.nl/ILM/sypoll/037.jpg
37. Stereo Sanctity
Sister, 1987
(184 points, 10 votes, 1 #1)

heh i was just thinking last night "could 'Bull In The Heather' be in the top 20? do i dare to dream?" oh well

Nice. Just goes to show: the early shit garners respect, even now.

Hehe. "Shaking Hell" was my #1. "Scary" also figured in my explanation of this choice in an off-thread conversation.

Yay for "Inhuman" as well. Confusion is Sex in general just sounds ever better with the passage of time IMHO. Inexplicably, I barely rated it back in my first flurry of fandom.

http://www.melson.nl/ILM/sypoll/036.jpg
36. Hyperstation
Daydream Nation, 1988
(191 points, 12 votes)

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f163/courtneykaehler/maracas.jpg

The pictures are killing me

http://www.melson.nl/ILM/sypoll/035.jpg
35. Brother James
Kill Yr. Idols, 1983
(202 points, 13 votes)