Sonic Youth: Classic or Dud/S&D?

(Manic Street Preachers opened for Black Crowes!? I COMPLETELY forgot about that - anyway, nevermind, this is the SY thread)

NYCGAF is to my ears their weakest between 1990 and 2000 but not at all terrible; it's vaporous where ATL had at least some grounding. I'm not sure why such an okay album proved so divisive.

The last time I saw them was in 2002 at The Metro for the Murray Street tour, the night after the show they put up on bandcamp. Honestly thought the show I was at had the better setlist:

Kotton Krown
Bull in the Heather
The Empty Page
Rain on Tin
Skip Tracer
Plastic Sun
Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style
Karen Revisited
Schizophrenia
Shadow of a Doubt
White Kross
Sympathy for the Strawberry

Encore:
Disconnection Notice
Kool Thing

Encore 2:
Tom Violence

Okay looking again at the previous night's setlist maybe not "better", but I had so much fun at my show.

I'm not sure why such an okay album proved so divisive.

I think the prevailing wisdom was that Goo and Dirty copped mainstream moves, Jetset Trash & No Star (which I also love) seemed a reaction to that trend and the often thrilling and abstruse ATL confirmed that it was Goo and Dirty that were the anomalies and that SY actually weren't going to play what Royal Trux described as"music for teens on skateboards in malls".

ATL is the point where the industry and their new fans had to accept that pop SY was not going to be on the agenda anymore.

But also it arrived at a point where the press, in the UK at least, turned away from experimental stuff, still high off the fleeting profits of Britpop, etc.

In retrospect the end was clearly in sight last time I saw them in 2010. They threw everything out from the major label era. I mean, this was the setlist:

Candle
The Sprawl
'Cross the Breeze
Catholic Block
Stereo Sanctity
Eric's Trip
Death Valley '69
Shadow of a Doubt
Hey Joni
The Wonder
Hyperstation
Shaking Hell
--
White Kross

I never really got that "prevailing wisdom". Dirty was the first I heard so that may have slanted my pov but that one and Goo don't seem that much poppier than Sister and Daydream Nation (on which they fully embraced rock song structures and beats) to me. Certainly not like the mainstream pop/rock of 1990-92 (the era of "More Than Words" and "Life Is a Highway"; maybe you could argue that there are some more hard rock/metal moves, in keeping with the popularity of GnR and Metallica...?) Jet Set also doesn't any less pop to me; if anything, there are a few songs like "Waist" that seem to come even closer to being straightforward pop-punk; it seems like possibly the least ambitious to me. Not really sure what would make latter-day singles like the "Superstar" cover, single edit of "Sunday", "Empty Page", or "Incinerate" less 'pop' than "Dirty Boots" or "100%", other than the relative popularity of alternative/indie rock at different times.

Tbc, I do think the SYR series marks an obvious move towards greater interest in improv and avant-garde composition, and I get why ATL is more sprawling and thorny than Goo, but the mix of rock tunes with expanded song structures, dissonant tunings, and guitar noise actually seems pretty consistent through the DGC albums.

Am I alone in finding Dirty one of their most disappointing and boring?

I saw them three times. The first time was at a WFMU benefit at the Ritz where the lineup was Love Child, Gumball, Dim Stars, Sonic Youth and Painkiller. I had been a Sonic Youth fan for a few years but was about to "progress" to being more into John Zorn's Painkiller. I barely remember Sonic Youth. Now of course I'd rather listen to Sonic Youth at their worst than Painkiller. The only other times I saw them were 1000 years later in the mccarren pool in brooklyn. Once with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and once with the "Slits." (I don't think it was actually the slits but Ari and friends?)

I had to email Byron Coley to get Thurston to put me on the guest list to the show with the YYYs.

xp I believe so, yes. I love it.

I like Sister and Daydream Nation a lot, and Murray Street and Sonic Nurse even more, but I've been catching up with the records in between and have found them all disappointing for different reasons (haven't heard A Thousand Leaves or NYC Ghosts yet). There's a couple of good songs on each but I feel there's a lot of confusion and trying to do things that don't come naturally.

Today was fun listening! Murray didn't really stand out too much until the last three songs, 'Plastic Sun' to 'Sympathy For The Strawberry' to 'Street Sauce' was reminded me of what I loved about seeing SY live and maybe the best of Kim's songs I've heard on these later records, until I heard 'I Love You Golden Blue' from Sonic Nurse. There's something bright about the sound of Murray St and even Sonic Nurse, almost a California feel, esp. 'Peace Attack.' Wasn't Jim O'Rourke a member/producing them? I'm not sure if I can hear his influence, maybe that's the sunshine I heard? Then I listened to Rather Ripped which I think next to ATL is my favorite of these albums, On 'Incinerate' I hear everything I loved about Daydream Nation and even Sister distilled into almost pop. I think I've listened to enough SY for awhile. I finished the drive home listening to Bad Moon Rising, which was my first album to buy. and I still get lost in it.

After spending two days with these albums I had sort of dismissed, I think they are one of the greatest bands of my generation. The guitar tones on Rather Ripped, ATL and Sonic Nurse still recall the same sounds I first fell in love with the band for but are refined but more austere, no one does it in a rock song like this. There's beautiful moments on these records I wasn't expecting.

i saw them on the EVOL tour with My Bloody Valentine supporting.

setlist -

Marilyn Moore
The World Looks Red 

Star Power 

Death to Our Friends
Shadow of a Doubt

Tom Violence 

White Kross 

Shaking Hell

Expressway to Yr Skull 

The Burning Spear

And then twice on the Sister tour with Firehose supporting.

setlist -

Schizophrenia
(I Got a) Catholic Block
Tuff Gnarl
Pipeline/Kill Time
Expressway to Yr Skull
Pacific Coast Highway
Kotton Krown
Stereo Sanctity
Beauty Lies in the Eye
Tom Violence
White Kross
Hotwire My Heart
Brother James
I Wanna Be Your Dog

And then twice on the Daydream Nation tour with Mudhoney supporting.

setlist -

Brother James
The Wonder
Hyperstation
Eric's Trip
Candle
Kissability
The Sprawl
'Cross the Breeze
Teen Age Riot
Hey Joni
White Kross
Eliminator Jr.
Silver Rocket
Expressway to Yr Skull

and then one more time when they did the Don't Look Back: Daydream Nation tour which is the show Lance Bangs filmed.

i still kick myself that i didn't get it together to travel to London to see them on the Bad Moon Rising tour.

Dirty was my first SY but these days I can’t listen to it really. It’s just …. too long, too much. It could use a trim.

I saw them:

1. Lollapalooza ‘95/ early August, West Virginia
2. October ‘95/ something ballroom, NYC
3. Late summer ‘98, somewhere in DC or Philly

If I was editing Dirty down, the cuts would need to be near the middle. Wouldn’t cut a single Kim lead song.

Scratch that “Orange Rolls …” could go.

“Theresa’s Sound World” could go, too.

xps yeah O’Rourke was a member for Nurse. I saw them at the Enmore in Sydney on that tour, the single best sounding concert I’ve been to. Absolutely beautiful record too.

1. Lollapalooza ‘95/ early August, West Virginia
2. October ‘95/ something ballroom, NYC

I also saw them at Lolla and then (I thought) the Washing Machine tour... but checking this website, it was technically the next tour, in April '96 (apparently it was their Last known performance of "No Queen Blues," whatever that song is)

I saw them only once, in Seattle in a stadium opening for Neil Young in 91(?)

Wish I had clearer memories of the show

I saw them in 1986, Evol tour, Firehose opening

Marilyn Moore
Tom Violence
White Kross
Shadow of a Doubt
Death to Our Friends
Secret Girl
Green Light
Brother James
Expressway to Yr Skull
Star Power
The Red & the Black

(the last an encore jam with Firehose)

Still what I'd consider one of the best shows I've ever seen. I may have been on psychedelic drugs, but still. I saw them again in 1995 in their peak mallrat days and it was fine but not nearly the same.

That’s the tour I would have liked to see

I remember that they did their own light show, which was incredibly effective, very intense

I saw the London debut supporting SPK at the Venue in December 83. They went on much earlier than they would have liked. Danielle Dax wouldn't compromise about having to have a stage within a stage thing built. Turned out years later that I met one of the guys who built it when I was living in Dublin.
Anyway they were trying to get a slot late enough to accommodate the press that were coming down to review them. Nothing doing do they played a really intense 15 minute set blowing out a bass amp as they did so. Unfortunately nobody appears to have taped it cos I'd love to hear it again.

only time i got around to seeing them was towards the end at Prospect Park and Thurston made a few cracks at Kim that now feel telling.

holy heck stevolende! shame that SY didn't play for longer but that sounds like a fun bill. i guess they were all doing their own particular versions of noisy tribal pounding stuff at that stage

“Theresa’s Sound World” could go, too.

hard disagree. that song is like a huge pulsating boil of psychedelia, like a fairground ride of fluorescent noise.

I like tonnes of Dirty. It was my second SY, after Bad Moon Rising - I heard both in 92, after getting into Nirvana and then going in search of the source.

I don't know if I'd cut anything off any SY albums. They're not about concision to me, but radiating concentric circles taking you further out.

Saw them at the Castaic Lake gig on the Dirty Tour with Pavement, Mudhoney and a surprise appearance of Kurt Cobain. Still love the vibe of that album but agree it’s too long. Can’t really choose any favorite, all their LPs are great on their own and different way. I love the haunted mystery of the early years but the sunshine bliss of the O’Rourke years rock me just as much.

“Theresa’s Sound World” is one of my favorite SY bask-in-sound moments.

Saw them at CB's in 92 as Drunken Butterfly. They basically opened for Charles Gayle if I remember correctly and at the end of Gayle's incredible set (with William Parker on bass) Ranaldo and Moore came out and improv'd with him.

Also saw them at City Gardens and Maxwell's (both New Jersey) a few times in the 90s but the shows were only ok. A truism going around among NYC music heads at the time is that SY never played their best shows on home turf.

Maybe Dirty just needs a reshuffle? I dunno.

I do love a lot of it.

I saw the London debut supporting SPK at the Venue in December 83.

how were SPK? i saw them the year after but it was the more sanitised junk funk version. i bet they were better in '83. that gig sounds so great, danielle dax too!

'Theresa’s Sound World' is one my favorites, I'd love to make a Lee SY playlist.

Same. I did a Lee CDR 15 years ago but somehow it didn’t work that well

I thought "Theresa's Sound World" was sung by Thurston?

"how were SPK? i saw them the year after but it was the more sanitised junk funk version. i bet they were better in '83. that gig sounds so great, danielle dax too!

― stirmonster, Saturday, December 18, 2021 12:30 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink"

probably too late for them then too.
trying to be controversial by one of them swinging a metal chain around their head at their audience. & sending arcs of sparks out.
I think they did still sound about ok though the single of the time was Metal Dance which did sound washed out and overly commercial.
I think I had been listening to Leichenschrei quite heavily at the time but gave up on that after hearing the Throbbing Gristle I got into about that point and thinking it was way too close, got further and furtehr into Einsturzende Neubauten though .

Goo through Experimental Jet Set is really the only bad era to me (although I prob won’t ever listen to Sonic Nurse or anything after for the rest of my life either).

saw them in

July 86
July 87
December 88
summer 1990

they ruled my world in that era, nobody could touch them

oh and then I got to see them a 5th time at Bumbershoot 99 where they pissed off a large stadium crowd by mostly playing instrumental versions of the forthcoming NYCG&F album

Thanks Stevolende. i guess they were already headed that way at that point. i still enjoyed them but it was definitely metal bashing lite by the time i saw them. i do think time has been kind to Leichenschrei. i appreciate it more now than i did then, though it's probably a once a year listen, if that.

they ruled my world in that era, nobody could touch them

very true. i was going to gigs several nights a week at this point and SY would have blown every single one of them off the stage. so great.

Xpost - I remember not being really into the ‘98 show. The ‘95 shows were excellent.

You fuckers are convincing me to do a deep dive into Sonic Youth’s back catalog and struggle through all that goddamn SYR shit. SIGH.

to be honest I never listened to most of them.

Night Flight on USA Up All Night in 88 did a "take off on hardcore" and played the Death Valley 69 video. A little while later I bought Daydream Nation on tape. I'd never heard anything like that. Within a few months PBS showed Charles Atlas' Put Blood in the Music' and that was it. Within a short period of time I had all their albums up to Daydream, some easier than other as my older sister had Evol and Sister on a tape. She had the records but never really liked them.

I was a super fan and super excited by the time Goo came out, but had like almost totally moved onto other stuff and never even bought Dirty. It just seemed too poppy to me, and like they were acting more like some kind of post hardcore alternative rock band instead of the tape loops and deconstructed guitars birthed of no wave.

I liked Sugar Kane but ignored Dirty. By the time Washing Machine came out I was in college and going really deep and I wasn't interested. I was more into Skullflower and the Sun City Girls and the Dead C. But I still defended them, I remember a younger person at the record store I worked at, when I pointed out the DGC Confusion is Sex CD on sale, acted like I was trying to get her to buy Urge Overkill or something. I said you're not allowed to like the Dead C and not own a copy of Confusion is Sex.

After that I'd check in now and again but just didn't pay much attention. Sometimes that happens. I can't get into the last bunch of Stereolab albums either. Or The Fall post Extricate, though I know there's great stuff and I recently did that dive.

So now this thread is making me want to do it. After many years of "sonic youth changed my life" I suppose I should listen to all those albums starting with Dirty.

I do know a few of the later tracks because a friend made me a best of Lee mix that included stuff from that period.

fun going through the gigography. the shows I can remember:

7/15/86 First Ave. Dinosaur
11/15/88 Fillmore Mudhoney and Die Kreuzen
10/22/90 First Ave Babes in Toyland and the Cows
1/22/91 Target Center Neil Young and Crazy Horse
5/29/95 First Ave Dead C
6/9/00 Rock the Garden, Walker Art Center Stereolab
3/17/02 All Tomorrow’s Parties (SY curated)
8/19/02 First Ave Sky Klad
8/24/06 Minnesota State Fair Flaming Lips
10/1/10 Matador 21

I only saw them twice, but one of those was a short "secret show" set at Barrister's in Memphis in 1995, while they were recording Washing Machine. They did a 30-35 minute instrumental set opening for Lorette Velvette and a German band I can't remember the name of. None of it was recognizable previously-released material but the crowd was pretty receptive anyway iirc. (The other time I saw them was on the Goo tour in Memphis, with the Jesus Lizard and a Knoxville band called The Scam opening.)

Lorettte Velvette is great, saw her with Tav and also the Hellcats.

4/7/95: "perhaps jokingly introduced as Sebadoh covers"

http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/cc/040795.html

wonder who the unidentified all-female German band was.