Sonic Youth: Classic or Dud/S&D?

murray st and goo are definitely good-to-great. mostly great

Murray St is up there with Daydream Nation and Bad Moon Rising in my SY Top 3

re A Thousand Leaves: "Sunday," "Hits of Sunshine," and especially "Hoarfrost." The Gordon tracks are the weakest, actually.

"Female Mechanic Now on Duty" & "Karen Koltrane" are my picks from a 1000 leaves

Sunday, Wildflower Soul, Snare Girl are my top 3. French Tickler is nuts in a good way, too.

EVOL > sister > daydream nation as a trilogy is their peak. dirty and goo close behind for pop merit. everything else i wouldn't bother with now.

i think I prefer Goo to Evol and Washing machine to Dirty but yeah basically.

i think it's more that the record is praised for the moments that i find most boring— oh great, thurston's using a wah pedal again

hahahahah! Honestly, I think of Sonic Youth in terms of songs I like and songs that are ok and songs that are boring, rather than "which is the best album"

Top 3

Sister
Murray Street
Dirty

I have never understood why there is so much hostility to NYC Ghosts & Flowers. I love its sparseness, which is almost (almost) funky at times. Do people hate it because of the cheese/pretension of Thurston's and Lee's "poetry"? Because to me that's part of what SY is, and I love it for its corniness.

Lee's title track on that album is one of my SY favourites

"Free City Rhymes" is great imo, up there among their best. I do think the live versions of the songs from that album came together better than the recorded versions. Thurston's lyrics are particularly corny on "Renegade Princess" and "Small Flowers..." and the arrangements really foreground them. I think it was a pretty interesting attempt to integrate the ideas they'd been working with on SYR3 and SYR4 with their more song-based work. Overall, I'm not sure it was as successful as either those projects or the two 'song' albums that came afterwards but I don't hate it by any stretch.

Glad to have a little back up. Yeah I just listened to it yesterday and really heard the SYR records in them. I admit I was so annoyed by the discourse about Murray Street (redeeming the "disaster" of NYC Ghosts & Flowers) that I never really got into it. But I'll give it a spin today.

Saw then on on NYC Ghosts tour at the Troc in Philly right after Joey Ramone died. It was a great show, as were all the ones from this era.

I've always dug NYC Ghost & Flowers, I never thought it was their best record or anything but I've always been confused by the prevailing take of "oh it so obviously a terrible mis-step", plus yeah they were so great live when this album came out, the best I had seen them in a while.

It got decent reviews outside of Pitchfork, for the most part (and diCrescenzo has since recanted):

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/nyc-ghosts-flowers-190312/
https://books.google.ca/books?id=AlN-17xfY88C&pg=PA149&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://www.metacritic.com/music/nyc-ghosts-flowers/sonic-youth (the aggregate score is really pulled down by the 0 from Pitchfork; reviews are fine otherwise)

That diCrescenzo review is a classic of the genre, really one for the ages

These 40+ year olds continue to operate under the perception that they matter

re A Thousand Leaves: "Sunday," "Hits of Sunshine," and especially "Hoarfrost." The Gordon tracks are the weakest, actually.

I feel like one of the issues with Gordon’s tracks on ATL is that they come after Washing Machine where the little girl blues vibe of her tracks feels like the most perfectly realised manifestation of her schtick. By comparison the riot girl/ beat junkie meanderings on ATL feel... meandering. But I imagine Gordon may have felt that she had painted herself into a corner with WM.

re: alfred's list

i can't be the only one offended by the ranking of the eternal over confusion is sex.

SYNTAX FREE, TIM CAN'T CATCH MEEE

Saw then on on NYC Ghosts tour at the Troc in Philly right after Joey Ramone died. It was a great show, as were all the ones from this era

I don't remember this— I saw them on the NYC Ghosts tour in 2000 at the old Electric Factory, Stereolab opened and just blew SY out of the fucking water. I was 15 so remember it very, very well. i especially remember the two dudes in front of me eating some mushrooms and just *bopping* throughout the Stereolab set, something which I am now proud to say that I have also done.

blew them off the stage, so to speak?

There was a leg of that tour in the Spring of '01--I saw them in Austin.

interesting. had no idea.

Wait, Stereolab and Sonic Youth didn't play together in Austin in 2001, right?

I reacall seeing them separately at La Zona Rosa and Stubb's.

http://www.mtv.com/news/820973/sonic-youth-to-tour-with-stereolab-between-releases/

They played together at (the SY curated) ATP LA in 2002.

I don't remember any opening act on that tour in Montreal.

Cavernous Electric Factory would be a much better venue for Stereolab than Sonic Youth.

I saw the Stubb's show (also under the influence of mushrooms) and it was Curt Kirkwood doing a solo set before SY.

^^Yeah. Sorry for any confusion.

I also saw SY at Stubb's in 2002. Mary Timony and some really bad local band were the opening acts.

Hmmm, now I don't remember if the Sonic Youth show I went to was 2001 or 2002. Too old...

the one and only time I saw SY was at the hammerstein on the NYCG&F tour but the peter brötzmann octet opened instead of stereolab for some reason. they were about as loud as SY! i liked that album a good deal when it came out but have no idea what i’d think of it now, haven’t listened to it in years.

I'm still working my way through the SY catalog. Whoever said Dirty would be up my alley was spot-on - I think it even beats out Sister. Just really consistent and focused, great sound, even the bonus tracks.

I didn't like Goo apart from a couple tracks, even though there's a stylistic similarity with Dirty. I can't explain why some Goo tracks sound grating where similar Dirty tracks don't. But kinda feeling sarahell's pov, because every album has had at least one or two incredible songs (I'll single out "Dirty Boots" and "Disappearer" on Goo)

pretty sure SY played Stubbs for SXSW, I wanna say 2002? But I also feel it was later, perhaps just before Nurse?

Got to see a Stereolab + Sonic Youth show. Went from strength to strength in my opinion, both bands ruling and making for one of the better double bills I have ever seen. Sonic Youth was a fantastic live band at that time, so I mean Stereolab also ruled but both delivered a high-level version of what they were doing well at the time.

comprehensive SY resource for gigs, etc: http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/sy/

I don't remember any opening act on that tour in Montreal.

I definitely remember seeing Stereolab opening for them. The only time I ever saw Stereolab.

that Brent D review of NYC G&F is amazing

I definitely remember seeing Stereolab opening for them. The only time I ever saw Stereolab.

According to the setlist on the page tylerw linked, you're right. We probably just got there in time for SY then.

Sounds like we missed a good opening set, based on this thread.

I'm still working my way through the SY catalog. Whoever said Dirty would be up my alley was spot-on - I think it even beats out Sister. Just really consistent and focused, great sound, even the bonus tracks.

I didn't like Goo apart from a couple tracks, even though there's a stylistic similarity with Dirty. I can't explain why some Goo tracks sound grating where similar Dirty tracks don't. But kinda feeling sarahell's pov, because every album has had at least one or two incredible songs (I'll single out "Dirty Boots" and "Disappearer" on Goo)

― Vinnie, Monday, October 7, 2019 8:28 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Interesting, I think Dirty is my least favorite of their "good albums." Can't really explain it. (I also think "Mote" is the strongest track on Goo, tho, so what do i know).

agree with you table. Thanks to all who sent me back to NYC Ghosts - haven't listened in years, it's not in my top ten but I like its low-key spacious beatnik vibe.

Goo is their worst album, and Mote is the best track on it (closely followed by Disappearer).

No way, nyc g&f is insufferable, Goo is pretty good.

I would have agreed that it was insufferable but I listened this morning and tried to think of it like a SYR release. I've mellowed toward it considerably.

I returned to NYCG&F over the weekend for the first time in probably a decade ... and realized that it's actually a lot better than I'd thought, with some unusual textures and directions.

Goo is great, Kool Thing and Dirty Boots and Tunic are some of their best songs

also really like NYCG&F, not so much for the individual songs as the whole mood of the album

as Raymond said

the eternal is their worst album, until such time as i start really liking it