Sonic Youth: Classic or Dud/S&D?

I was listening to Goo and Dirty the other week and man, did Kim's lyrics get on my nerves. Esp. "Kool Thing" and "Swimsuit Issue," the latter of which I could not hear without thinking of the Ben Stiller parody. Made me think a lot of her book, too, which I really didn't like.

Those albums both still sound awesome, though.

xp that is a very good point tyler

I dig Rather Ripped, "Rapture" and "Rats" are two of my "late period" tunes

("late peroid" is post-Washing Machine for me, it's interesting how subjective this is but I personally place it at the start of the SYR series)

I think that's a fair dividing mark. Washing Machine felt like the last (fruitless) gasp of any external commercial expectations, and the last recorded in an outside studio, iirc.

Yeah:

A Thousand Leaves is the 10th studio album by the American experimental rock band Sonic Youth. It was released on May 12, 1998, by DGC Records. A Thousand Leaves was the band's first album recorded at their own studio in Lower Manhattan, which was built with the money they had made at the 1995 Lollapalooza music festival. Since the band had an unlimited amount of time to work in their studio, the album features numerous lengthy and improvisational tracks that were developed unevenly.

SY to me has early (80s), middle (90s), and late (00s) periods.

yeah i think the SYR series is a good demarcation point...
also — there's a ben stiller "swimsuit issue" parody?!

The “mid-period” LP that I like best is “EJST&NS”... there’s something about the tight, minimalist, bluesy sound of that era that appeals to me. (I guess it’s also their “indie rock” album, haha, based on what Wikipedia says about its background.) I’ve also always really liked “Psychic ❤️s,” which has a similar aesthetic, I think.

It feels weird to lump their earliest, more no-wavey releases into the same “early” period as crowd pleasers like daydream nation.

yeah, I'd personally define "mid" as Daydream thru Washing Machine

but I could see purists starting "mid" with Steve Shelly, i.e. EVOL

xp – me too; exactly the same

These are some interesting tidbits (from Wikipedia):

Re: Dirty

After recording was completed, the album needed to be trimmed down from 18 tracks. Moore, Gordon and the band's A&R person, Gary Gersh, agreed that Ranaldo's song "Genetic" would be removed. Ranaldo did not react well to the decision; coupled with personal issues he was facing at the time, it led him to consider leaving the group. After a few weeks, the matter settled and Ranaldo stayed with the band.

Unlike on previous Sonic Youth albums, Ranaldo did not write or sing any songs because he did not like how his compositions were treated and assembled for Dirty and its predecessor Goo.

Gordon's book drives home that it was always Thurston's band first and foremost. I figured the ratio of songs per author/singer was under his control.
Ranaldo's tunes are generally well spaced on their albums. I always welcome them, but don't really want more of them.

don’t have the book on hand, but the “goodbye 20th century” biography delves into that stuff a bit more if memory recalls.

yes, it does - definitely recommended reading for fans

I'll put in a good word for Silver Session for Jason Knuth. I guess it's the outlier release among outliers - maybe their version of Metal Machine Music? Thurston's liner notes:

we didn't really know jason knuth -- its possible we had met him, or had been in the same room as him, but we didn't recal... we heard about his passing on the internet -- a flurry of grievous and surprised reaction -- people were asking us if we were aware of how much he identified and championed our music -- as music director for kusf he seemingly used sy as a standard for playlisting -- indeed at his memorial his friends played 'the diamond sea' in acknowledgment of his enthusiasm towards us -- he was affectionately referred to as 'sonic knuth' ...here in nyc, so far from the sf community, we were touched and more than intrigued. we learned jason was a vibrant, well loved guy on the music scene w/ a completely genuine exhuberance towards art & music. his demeanor obviously shroued a complex inner life which led to suicide. what jason's feelings were towards his own human existence we may never know but we do know he will be missed by many as a companion. sonic youth wanted to make some gesture towards him as well as focus on suicide prevention. proceeds from this cd will help fund the san francisco suicide prevention hotline (415-781-0550). it is manufactured and distributed by revolver, a company with close and personal associations with jason.

a note on the music: silver sessions were taken from an evening when sy had to do vocal overdubs for 'a thousand leaves' -- the band upstairs was hammering out some funky metal overdrive and we couldn't "sing" properly (?!) -- we decided to fight fire with molten lava and turned every amp we owned on to 10+ and leaned as many guitars and basses we could plug in against them and they roared/HOWLED like airplanes burning over the pacific -- we could only enter the playing room with hands pressed hard against our ears and even then it was physically stunning -- we ran a sick outmoded beatbox through the p.a. and it blew out horrendous distorted pulsations. Of course we recorded the whole thing and a few months later we mixed it down into sections, ultra-processing it to a wholly other "piece" -- in a way, it's my favorite record of ours -- I hope jason digs it. --- keep on keep on keep on --- thurston/sonic youth/nyc 1998.

That’s a cool story; but it also would have been cool if they had gone upstairs and jammed with the funk-metallers, and recorded that.

I love Silver Sessions and need to spend more time with it, I know some other ILXors are big fans as well (Raymond Cummings?)

silver sessions is great. friend from long ago was obsessed w/ that one

also — there's a ben stiller "swimsuit issue" parody?!

2:41 or so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY-KnJP5ZP0

sleeve is correct - Silver Sessions is one of my favorite SY releases.

(I'd never seen that Grungies episode - yikes!)

Lol, thanks for that. I even like the parody version!

“NYC G&F” is really good shit; and it seems like one of their least “Sonic Youth”-y albums, in a way. I read they made it after all their regular gear was stolen? Pretty great results from a “fresh approach borne out of necessity” (if that’s indeed what happened)...

I was gonna bring up the gear theft (during the Thousand Leaves tour) as another marker between eras.

https://pitchfork.com/news/47906-sonic-youth-recover-stolen-guitars-after-13-years/

Wild story

I seem to recall they didn't cancel any shows, and in fact did a multi-gig stand with rented gear in Austin right after.

I saw them the day after it happened, they were fantastic.

It happened between 7/2/99 in Berkeley & a festival in Orange County, CA on 7/4/99.

I saw their last show with their OG vintage gear (check this setlist):

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/sonic-youth/1999/greek-theatre-berkeley-ca-63d70e2b.html

I was also at that first show with borrowed equipment.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/sonic-youth/1999/oak-canyon-ranch-irvine-ca-43d91be7.html

The festival was called "This Ain't No Picnic." Lineup:

At the Drive‐In
Boredoms
Guided by Voices
Hovercraft
Mike Watt (who, if I remember correctly, did not take the opportunity to play "This Ain't No Picnic")
Rocket From the Crypt
Scarnella
Sleater‐Kinney
Sonic Youth
Sunny Day Real Estate
Superchunk
The Apples in Stereo
The Get Up Kids
The Promise Ring
Will Oldham

It was my first exposure to Boredoms. Ran right out and bought Super AE.

Yup, was at that very show/festival.

I’m mistaken in that case. I saw them shortly thereafter at Bumbershoot in 99, they were still playing with borrowed gear. In any event, they managed to sound like themselves, and put on a fantastic show at 11am.

I saw that show also! Very improvisational, in the big arena. Some kid in front of us said to his friend "I thought you said their songs had words, man"

they closed with "She Is Not Alone" iirc

I just listened to "The Destroyed Room" collection... that's some serious minor-key atmospherics right there!

"beautiful plateau" from that one is an all-time fave SY instrumental — i named this playlist after it: https://open.spotify.com/user/tywilc/playlist/5ma1sgJzXVU1NCc2vtnLpV

Thx, will give this playlist a listen^

Of the early albums, I think EVOL is the clear winner for me. There's something about its dark, ominous, echo-ey sound, with vocals that sound like they're being intoned from halfway across the room...

"Expressway to Yr. Skull" sounds like 5 or 6 different songs to me (in a good way) -- none of which I can identify. It probably influenced all of them, whatever they are.

something about its dark, ominous, echo-ey sound

I don't know, I really think they benefited from the warmer sound, especially two albums later.

I mean, I won't deny that Daydream Nation is a klassic; but I've owned it over 20 years, and have only listened to it all the way through a handful of times (at the beginning). Sometimes I'll start listening; go "yeah!" at Track 1; and then lose interest a few tracks later. It's just not my "style," I guess.

if you don't like listening to it so much, then it's not a classic for you, imo. no shame in that! i feel the same way about tons of "classic" albums (and there are a million threads about that, i think, so no need to list which ones)

it's not a klassic if you don't like it. fight the canon!!!!

(i love dn)

I'm the same way about Daydream Nation. I do like it, there are loads of good songs on it, but I like Sister & Evol and probably Bad Moon Rising more to listen to as albums (which tbh I basically never do, I've always been into individual songs more than albums and that just got more easy to do with mp3s)

i'm into daydream nation as an album. a couple of the songs work magnificently on their own as a hit it and quit it sampling - teenage riot and 'cross the breeze come to mind first - but most of album gains additional power in the context of the endless lurching between pretty ambience, noise, and pop. and a song like "hyperstation" just deserves to be heard as a climax to an epic journey (i was always meh about Eliminator Jr as the actual closer)

eliminator jr has a secret track vibe

I forgot I like "Candle" a lot, too...

teenage riot has to be one of the most praised songs of all time so i'm sure this is commonly expressed, but it might win the award for longest song that feels like the shortest song. almost 7 minutes and it just flies by

Man, The Eternal is really not good.

I take no pleasure in passing that judgment on their final album, but... the dropoff is remarkable.

Some of the grooves are OK, but the lyrics and vocal melodies are really bad, and the songs don’t go anywhere.