Honestly I've never understood ANY of Sonic Youth choices of covers but as Rob said, I think that's always kind of been their point.

To me there is no SY Golden era, I love all of their albums! Of course some are greater than others & my favourite albums are made eighties & nineties, but I don´t think their quality of albums has ever get low. I think Eternal is as great as DDN (DDN is really not one of my favourites).

Bubblegum is ok song (quite typical b-side single song of SY), but not fit at all in EVOL. Hotwire...well, it´s not as great as the other songs in album, but somehow I think it belongs into Sister (maybe because I have listened it with the whole other album from the beginning). Of course they could have put Masted-dik instead of it, but I think Hotwire fits into Sister better than Master-dik. It´s a shame the band version of Master-dik is not in the Master-dik-e.p.

I think Bubblegum is originally just bonus in the EVOL-cd, like there are bonus material in the BMR-cd & also Master-dik is in the Sister-cd. EVOL-cd came after vinyl. Those days people in record business seemed to prefer cd to vinyl. It was said that vinyl will disappear wholly. I remember there were record collectors that changed their vinyls to cd. I am glad this prediction never happened.

I agree with mortte

"Bubblegum" was the Starpower b-side and is not on "EVOL" proper, only as a CD bonus track. If anything, it's more of a Ciccone Youth track (recorded with Mike Watt alongside "Into the Groovey").

As for "Hotwire My Heart", who fucking knows. When I finally heard the original version, I realized there's a bass note in the chorus that actually saves the melody. Too bad Kim didn't bother playing it.

EVOL is my favorite.....shit is so boss!


I legit think tht shit is flawless. Starting it off with gtom violence is awesome. The first strum of the guitar just gives off this eerie feeling which stays for the duration of the album...love it to death.

Dig...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0ApgnE2RK3w

do I need to actually say it's my fav Sonic Youth album or do you guys all know that already?

It's a nice 'riff'....

I also love every Sonic Youth album I've heard, all of them are great albums in their own way. Nevertheless, most of my SY favorites (top5 SY albums) are from late eighties and that's why I consider it as golden era. Another great(er) phase in their career is from SYR1 to Sonic Nurse. I still don't mean other phases would suck.

My favorite SY album, without a doubt, it's just demented, almost like made in some twisted parallel universe.

One little detail came to my mind from EVOL. When I got EVOL & Sonic Death same time, I already then noticed there were those "cave shoutings" in both albums: in the begin of Marilyn Moore in EVOL and in the end of Early American in Sonic Death (cave shoutings are also in Flower in Smart Bar-version). Also there is strings loosening part in the begin of I´m insane in BMR & in the begin of She´s not alone in Sonic Death. Maybe these all are just coincides, but on the other hand SY has later used same ideas again (for example part of the loop cat is in the Karen revisited).

Also when I heard first time She´s not alone from the first album (I got Sonic Death before first album) I was quite suprised how soft it was comparing the versions in Sonic Death.