Sonic Youth: Classic or Dud/S&D?

Nobody cares about 100% but 100% was 100% the perfect fuck you noise attitude song that I wanted to be as a teenager.

https://youtu.be/IASWmYTq6Xo

_ re: Dirty, the Untouchables cover is disposable and would've been better relegated to a b-side._

this is one of the wrongest sentences i have ever parsed in my life. that cover is one of the most ass-kicking songs in the world, dirty without it is unthinkable.

like Lee, I can't believe they chose that over "Genetic"

Wish Fulfillment is Lee.

sorry, you are right.

Zero reasons why this shouldn’t be 40 mins yet

i have said why nic fit and crème brûlée cannot be cut. let's turn this around. tell me the songs you want to get rid of and i tell you the reasons why they belong on the album. actually the answer is simple, there is not one weak track here. btw i still haven't heard any plausible argument why dirty shouldn't last 59 mins.

even world-class sourpuss alex in mainhattan is on board, do you see how futile this resistance to the dirty omnibus is going to be!!!

It was my first SY album and I love it and am “eh” in equal measure, but I’m behind you.
― circa1916, Sunday, October 13, 2019 1:41 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Basically posting to say a) I kinda love the path this thread has taken and b) I am 100% with circa1916 on this one. Still have vivid memories of seeing ads for this and buying it at 15 years old or whenever and not really understanding what it meant historically/their catalogue etc and loving it but .... even then thinking, holy fuck, this record goes on forevvvvvvvvvver. No other music I was listening to then stands out in memory in overstaying its welcome this way even though I adored it.

It's been a pretty long time since I've listened to this record - any of it - but then ditto EJSTNS/Goo/Evol and a few others probably.

What to cut from Dirty? No idea, but here's what is strong/indispensible in my memory:

Swimsuit Issue
Drunken Butterfly
Shoot
Sugar Kane
Youth Against Fascism
Nic Fit
JC
Crème Brûlée

Also, Kim KILLED IT on this LP.

ok let's see what is missing there.

• 100%: a perfect opener which sets the tone of the album with that beautiful choir of guitar distortion, absolutely indispensable, leaving it off the album would be liking cutting off its' head
• theresa's sound-world: an almost dreamy start, and then we take off to noisy wonderlsnd, you are right it is quite longish but it pays off to stay tuned until the end.
• wish fulfillment: the only ranaldo contribution, the sound experiments of the second guitar in the background are pure bliss. listen to this on headphones and you will rethink your decision to scrap it.
• orange rolls, angel's spit: this must be the song where kim sings as if she vomits into the mike as someone put it upthread. i love her shout, she really is evil here, and the following lalalalalalala's, the track is quite experimental and free-form, essential stuff.
• on the strip: gorgeous tune, wonderful, sexy singing by kim and an intricate net of guitar textures. cutting this would be like abolishing heaven. the middle part where they jam seems a little superfluous but it isn't. it gives the listener some time to breathe.
• chapel hill: a solid, bass dominated and almost slow song, i love it as again it has got a dreamy quality but then destroys expectations and speeds up nicely in the second half before finishing on a peaceful note.
• purr: i quite like this rather conventional song but i could actually live without it. you would gain a little more than 4 minutes, not really worth it, i think.

Funny story: this was the first SY album I ever heard and it blew my mind. However, what I heard was taped onto one side of a C90 and so only consisted of the first 45m of the album. I was surprised when I got the CD and there were all these additional songs.

I had that with Daydream Nation - I never heard 'Exterminator Jr.' until I got the CD years later.

Anyway, the problem with Dirty is the sequencing, not the length. 'Purr' and 'Creme Brulee' feel like bonus tracks after 'JC', which would have been the perfect album closer.

Might be its own thread but when my friend gave me a copy of the Beatles' White Album it was missing "Yer Blues" (I guess she hated it?). Very weird hearing this missing track when I bought the album years later, like a bonus track placed at track 2

Back on SY: I'd definitely find room for "Genetic" on Dirty, though I have no clue what I'd cut!

alex otm, none of the songs on Dirty can be cut.

re: Genetic, there's a POLL for that.

Dirty was my first SY album but never a favorite. That it seems overlong is odd given that there are several SY albums that are longer but arguably benefit from it (Daydream Nation, Washing Machine, A Thousand Leaves). I'd attribute it to the relative lack of sprawl on Dirty, which feels tight and constrained. Despite "Theresa's Sound World" and "Wish Fulfillment," there isn't much breathing space/interiority on Dirty — those Mike Kelley stuffed animals tear away at bedroom secrets. Experimental Jet Set goes even further in terms of constraint, but there the songs approach miniatures and are more abstracted and dreamlike; Goo is more pure fun and less relentless. The relentlessness I think serves Dirty as a political record; speaking for myself, if I find the experience exhausting it may probably bespeak a certain discomfort with the "work" of politics. (The exclusion of "Genetic," and Lee nearly leaving the band because of it, seems a mark of its political character as well.)

Tbh I'd probably get rid of Nic Fit and Creme Brulee, though I'd be bummed to lose that great couplet: "last night I dreamed I kissed Neil Young/if I was a boy yeah it would be fun" xp

relative lack of sprawl on Dirty, which feels tight and constrained

I think there is some confusion, I do think "Nic Fit" is a fantastic song, but the Sonic Youth cover is watered down & at a middle aged friendly tempo which shows the band's weakness (no offense to Steve Shelley & KimG, but that's probably the fastest they've ever attempted to play and it shows lol).

And reading some of the responses upthread, it may be may have been many people's first exposure to hardcore? So I guess that may be a net positive.

Mods!

we had that discussion on "nic fit" before. i have listened to the original and i don't think sonic youth's version is watered down at all. the original isn't faster neither, the shouting is quite thin, thurston's voice is much stronger. and sonic youth's version overall to me sounds much more powerful and "evil" than the untouchables one. just my 2 cents.

but that is what makes dirty so great. that it is focussed and not meandering. you are constructing a problem where there is none. dirty is not too long at all, at that time they were just overflowing with ideas they had to put on record. do you also reproach the beatles the excess length of the white album?

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

xp. i read your post up to the end but i must admit that i didn't really get that remark about dirty being a political record. concerning dirty i had always assumed the most political part of it was that it was their debut on a major. and "youth against fascism" of course. but i do not see what would be so bad about it. to my shame i must admit that i don't really think about an album being political or not. that is not a criterion for me to evaluate music. only when the political is too obvious, it usually turns me off. like certain protest singers.

something else. the best german translation of sprawl i could find referred to the open land being cluttered by new buildings, that is not exactly what you mean, is it?

that's bad sprawl—in the u.s. it happens when cities just expand into their outer regions by making inefficient use of the land and building flat and not organizing anything. especially commercial areas where they just string everything along a highway.

concerning dirty i had always assumed the most political part of it was that it was their debut on a major.

Goo was the major label debut.

there isn't much breathing space/interiority on Dirty

This sounds right to me, but I'm not sure why. It sounds to me like with the increased fidelity, there's more treble? Somehow, the analog warmth of Daydream Nation feels like it's gone to me, but it doesn't on Goo.

The Sprawl is a reference to Neuromancer (William Gibson).

I don’t think any SY records were digitally recorded but I’m prepared to be wrong. But Goo was overdubbed and mixed at like some 48 track high end studio (Sorceror Sound) after the Greene St sessions with Sansano. Daydream was also Greene St, but Sister was Sear Sound of course. They went back to Sear for EJSTANS (cf the legend that they recorded over the Sister master tape).

Dirty was recorded with Butch Vig at a studio called the Magic Shop.

Dirty has an undeniable political element; besides "YAF" there's also "Chapel Hill" and I def feel like "Swimsuit Issue" works as a protest song. But even a lot of the other story songs have potential political subtexts. That said, for all the dismissals of this album over the years as being lyrically juvenile, there's actually a ton of stuff going on here, only some of which are gestures towards a heightened political awareness

Goo was the major label debut.

― timellison, Sunday, October 13, 2019 3:49 PM (one hour ago)

Daydream Nation was released on Enigma which, by 1989, was distributed by EMI/Capitol who also had a significant stake in the ownership by 1988. You could argue that DN was the major label debut, and that their DGC debut Goo was their first under a major label contract.

xp i would like to say that 'political' has as much to do with the scale and form of the songs. (but i'm too tired to expand on how rn.)

Yeah, I don't know, Al. Maybe Daydream Nation had decent distribution. I bought it in an independent shop.

I bought the cassette at a Sam Goodys I’m the Livingston Mall. It had serous distribution.

I mean, I remember buying SST albums at the Wherehouse. I don't think of it as a major label release.

I got it at a mall in Columbus, MS, first SY record I'd seen in wide release.

I.R.S. was distributed by MCA, but there was a reason why R.E.M. signed to Warner Brothers. Same thing with SY on Geffen - I don't think there was a real comparison.

Daydream Nation, if not the major label debut, was certainly the breakthrough. I learned about it via a Rolling Stone review; I doubt they reviewed anything by the band previous to that. I imagine the EMI distribution helped in that regard.

Any cursory reading of the press around Goo at time of release would show that it was considered the major label debut, they must have addressed it in a dozen interviews.

I mean yeah DN was everywhere but the politics of Goo were quite the hot topic at the time

IIRC, Enigma screwed them out of royalties on DN, which figured into the move.

Daydream Nation had huge distro but definitely wasn't considered "major label". Goo on DGC was a big deal.

I would happily drop “Swimsuit Issue,” “JC,” and “Purr” from Dirty.

It’s a good album!... but does feel like a bit of a monolith.

monoliths should be worshipped!!

My denomination has excised “Shop-ping at Max Fields! Power for you to wield!” from the liturgy.

splitters!!

Are you really hating on JC in public?