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

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38. Shaking Hell
Confusion Is Sex, 1983
(183 points, 11 votes, 1 #1)

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

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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.

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36. Hyperstation
Daydream Nation, 1988
(191 points, 12 votes)

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The pictures are killing me

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35. Brother James
Kill Yr. Idols, 1983
(202 points, 13 votes)

jeez, i guess this is where confusion comes in. have to admit that i sometimes underrate that album. it's marred, imo, by a few lesser tracks, but otherwise up there with their best work. song for song, though, i think i prefer kill yr idols. had "brother james" in at #6, "kill yr idols" not far behind.

I usually forget which tracks are CIS and which are KYI tbh, cos I have them on 1 CD. Brother James and Shaking Hell are my favourite songs from that CD anyway.

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

I put my CD in a binder without the liner notes when I moved here but iirc it says "pastime" in the liner notes of the DGC reissue. Just checked a few lyrics sites that all say "pastime".

What Throbbing Gristle sounds like this?

I owe a beer to NNN for putting "Shaking Hell" at #1. I know I'm on the right board when all this no wave/industrial-era material shows up this high.

Oh, I didn't mean to say you were wrong, just that I misheard it all these years.

Although 'pipeline' makes more sense biologically :)

Kill Yr Idols is such a potent EP, makes me feel like if they'd written a few more songs in that era before beginning the BMR stuff it'd probably be their strongest early album.

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.

― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Thursday, May 16, 2013 3:46 AM (1 hour ago)

"scary" is a good word for early SY. back then, they often seemed intent on putting down the creep: confusion, bad moon and evol. they mostly dropped this angle on sister, though "beauty lies", "pipeline/kt" and "pch" might have found room on a more unnerving, horrorshow version of that album. by the time they got to goo, they'd traded disturbing for funny, noise and drone for hard rock. suspect that's why so many got off the bus at or by that point.

I had to almost force a goth rock-loving friend of mine to listen to CIS back in undergrad. He said he never thought Sonic Youth could be that good.

the "haw haw haw" bit at the beginning of "inhuman" sounds so much like (later) butthole surfers that it always throws me for a moment. actual lyrics ftr:

my body is a pashline
my body is a super sore!

lol, blew that one. uh, "mind" goes in there somewhere too.

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34. Disconnection Notice
Murray Street, 2002
(204 points, 10 votes, 1 #1)

wow a #1

the "haw haw haw" bit at the beginning of "inhuman" sounds so much like (later) butthole surfers that it always throws me for a moment.

Wow, I'd never made that link before but that's OTM.

maybe it was a ZZ Top homage like "Eliminator Jr." haha

This poll continues to impress me.

Disco Notice is one of mine, one of Thurston's best melodies imo. And the way it starts out, with that warm screech that almost sounds like a string section but ends up sounding even more like something off of Paik's Satin Black. Just a great way to kind of catch you off guard

"Disco Notice"!

Contendo first coined that in the voting thread

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33. Disappearer
Goo, 1990
(206 points, 8 votes)

Aww, way too low for my taste.

And the way it starts out, with that warm screech that almost sounds like a string section but ends up sounding even more like something off of Paik's Satin Black.

It always reminded me of a flute.

Ok yeah 'Disappearer' outside the top 30 gets the first TOO LOW from me.

it's a really good song, but i dunno, it's never felt A-list to me.

It's a bit of an oddity to me, a Thurston song that feels like a Lee song.

yeah, you or someone else said that earlier, and it's otm. i had a period where i was head over heals for "disappearer", but in the long run it feels a bit slight (appropriate, i suppose). i prefer "theresa's sound world", which more fully develops a similar idea. spookier, too. even on goo, it's overshadowed by "tunic" and "mote".

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32. JC
Dirty, 1992
(207 points, 13 votes)

amazing song, my #2. wish it was higher, but i guess that's pretty high.

Fuck, how are we already at 32? Damn. Good stretch. "Brother James" is too low though. The recorded version pales to some of the live ones, but it is such a relentless song, super powerful and rocking as hell. To me it's the pinnacle of that early style, before they tightened up and streamlined the approach on Sister etc. (guess Death Valley '69 is the real indication of what was to come).

Whoever said that "Disappearer" sounds like a Lee song is OTM. I still expect his voice to appear on that song sometimes.

lotta good stuff today, and from here on out I imagine.

Disappearer my #3, JC my #2. Both songs huge linchpins of my adolescence

"Brother James" is definitely the pre-Shelley song that got the most firepower out of his addition

^ version on Walls Have Ears, wow

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31. I Dreamed I Dream
Sonic Youth, 1982
(209 points, 12 votes)

sweet, was wondering when that would show up. cool how Lee and Kim both had their first vocals on the same song, one a record w/ otherwise all Thurston vocals.

Yeah, Walls Have Ears is a cool record, some day I will shell out the cash and procure a copy of it (the radio station I used to DJ had it and I would play the hell out of that thing). But agree that Shelley really beefed up "Brother James", it is more powerful at a faster speed for one thing. Forgot to say that I regret not finding room on my ballot for "Shaking Hell", glad to see it place relatively high. That is another song that I think is better live (totally devastating live actually), and agree with it being one of the most successful "scary" songs in the SY catalogue. Really glad that they pulled this one out live in some of the late-period shows, as well as "Brother James", cause they ratcheted up my fan-boy giddiness in absurd ways when trotted out.

sold my walls have ears ages ago :(

it is sad he was purple

i dreamed i dream was my #2

wish it were higher (of course), but just seeing it here makes me absurdly happy

Man, someone stole my vinly copy of the S/T record. Glad to see at least one song from it place this high (and maybe not the last?) Gotta say that the run "The Burning Spear>I Dreamed I Dream>She Is Not Alone>I Don't Want To Push It" is a helluva opening statement from a band.

I had JC at #19, admittedly too low even there

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30. I Love Her All The Time
Bad Moon Rising, 1985
(210 points, 12 votes)