I should have said : EVEN IF (instead of "it's true") "on the strip" is the most erotic SY song etc...

no way, experimental is essentially one giant coital moan

More like a post-coital fart

I didn't know people didn't like Experimental Jet Set. I love that album.

But is there any SY album you don't love? Even if it's for one jam that totalyl blows yer mind? because even though I think Dirty is the worst SY album....I still love itt.

It is my least fave SY album, and the one that made me doubt the Youth's abilities when it came out. it felt, at the time, like a toss-off, barely formed songs, ideas stretched out too long, lack of variation in the songs. It is boring. It is full of filler.

EVOL, I don't love SYR4 haha. But I know what you're saying. But I'd still rank Jet Set probably higher than you might guess then.

Rob, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you don't like Pavement or Sebadoh?

i LOVE LOVE LOVE Pavement (except for that last shit LP) and Sebadoh!!!

If EJST&NS sounds like pavement or sebadoh then that is even more of a reason to hate it as the rip-off, un-thought-out pile of half-assed crap it is.

yr my boy, Rob. But you need to consider decaf.

Jet Set has a bunch of great tunes to my ears. It was recorded quickly, yes. The recording aesthetic was inspired by the bands they were playing w/ at Lolapalooza. But it doesn't sound like they were trying to write Pavement/Sebadoh songs. It's not a ripoff. It's just a realization "hey we could make this album and not jam on it for months. Just make it w/o overthinking."

I mean that's what made SY great. They were ok w/ trying new things and seeing what worked. Obviously you don't think this did work. But I love it.

At this thread there has been more loves than hates to Experimental. I love all Sonic outputs except in the fishtank. But I listen even that sometimes.

I think what made SY great was that each band member brought something different and so any song idea was cycled through all four sensibilities several times until the song became something altogether new, something that only "Sonic Youth" could create. That is why I have always felt a bit "meh" about Psychic Hearts. It needed MUCH more input and work from Lee and Kim and the songs ended up very one-note, simple idea but nothing clever to make that simple idea stand out kind of thing.

There are some good tunes on EJSTNS but nothing worth me spinning that LP.

"Androgynous Mind" is the shiz.

I agree RE: Psychic Hearts, tho.

Agree all other but not your EJSTNS-opinion (I used to think same way few years after it´s release but now I am thinking it very enjoyable SY-R´N`R-record, I think it should not be taken as serious as other sy-records). In some interview about Psychic Hearts Thurston told how he has brought some of his songs into SY-rehearsals and others twisted them almost unidentifying. But I have a feeling of all Thurston solo material that he should arrange them much more. They´re all ok, but they´re really not just as great as SY-material. I think Lee´s solos have been closest SY material maybe just because Lee seems to arrange them carefully.

I will spin EJSTNS in my old age along with Chelsea LIght mOving and the coma-inducing Trees Before the Academy.....

Nap Time at the old folks home.

ugh you sound like such a snob when you get into this stuff, man.

Nothing "snobby" about loving energetic nosiy rock and being bored by quiet introspective music about leaving your wife and fucking a woman 1/2 her age and the feeeeeeelings that engenders......

a "snob" holds their opinions to be better than others. I never do that. They are mine and mine alone, and do not apply to you nor anyone else. Feel free to love on what you like.

fair enough.

I just feel like you like SY to sound like one specific thing and that's it. And what I always loved about them was that they went thru various phases, explored diff facets of that thing.

Every creative person is free to experiment in whatever way they feel like. Sometimes the experiments are failures in my eyes.

Some people love the Murray St. era of Sonic Youth music and absolutely detest Confusion is Sex, Bad Moon Rising, and Evol.

Others love the big loud bombast of DDN, Goo, Dirty but fucking hate Murray St., EJSTNS, and NYC Ghosts..., (and vice versa)

To each their own.

I agree. Again.

I guess it just comes off a little bit like you're saying "hey you dinosaurs like Murray St? You're boring!" when you get in these kicks. Maybe you don't mean it that way. Probably I'm oversensitive. Definitely it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of life. haha.

I have also felt through the years here has been people who think SY has to satisfy their primal needs and when they don´t they are traitors. And also those fans who like all their outputs. Some years ago people were really mad about RR & Eternal. Recently it has been much peaceful here. Of course I have had bands that haven´t give me nothing anymore, but I just stopped listening them, not keep on complaining about them in their sites.

Mortte, the situation you descfribe results from the fact that for years and years, the ONLY band making music that satisfied a specific noiserock mashup primal need was Sonic Youth, and when they stopped doing what they do so well, no one else will come and fill that void.

Like all singular musicians. When Dylan dies there will be no more Dylan. When he switched to electric guitar and rock music the folkies went nuts, some felt betrayed, sure, but most I am certain just felt that, "Oh fuck, now we have no one making the kind of intelligent, dense, folk music that Dylan mastered."

I can understand how people feel that way about bands like SY when they make albums full of sad, rainy day songs, or albums full of poppy, peppy 3 minute rockers...

it is all subjective bias of course, but that is all we have!

So what do you do? Stop listening to all other bands because Sonic Youth are the one and only?

Nope. I mourn the passing of the one band that makes the sounds that match exactly the random noise in my head all day every day, and go listen to sad Neil Young songs....

I kind of have actually. Not being sarcastic. I've found that pretty much after SY's 'breakup' that I've not really been interested in much new guitar music. I mean, I have some singer/songwriters I'll still pay attention to (Beck, Ryan Adams) and maybe a handful of bands that I've liked forever that I'll check out new albums (Smashing Pumpkins, um...) but for the most part I just don't seem to be interested in many BANDS anymore. Listen to more jazz, hip hop and even pop singers than bands proper. Hmm.

I have only spun the Eternal LP once.

swan song LP's get me morose....

I'm glad I've been cheating on Sonic Youth for so long before they started doing the same wih each other.

that's sort of fair enough. Though when Eternal came out we didn't know it was the end. Also, I tend to think of SYR9 as their last album. Huh.

I listened nowdays mostly 60-70 music, but also 90-2000 albums of my old favourite bands (like Bad Brains). But it´s always a happy suprise when someone release some new great album (like new FSA this year, it has given me much same satisfaction as SY still gives me).

I've actually been listening to A LOT of 90's and early 2000's stuff this year as well. I must be getting old.

I am old.

I'm the person who posted the original thread saying I didn't like a single song on DDN or Dirty.

When I get around to writing reviews for the SY albums I have heard so far, I'm going to post them so you all can see where I'm coming from (though many of you will obviously completely disagree; some people love raw onions, I can't stand them).

I'm going to start with Dirty. To be nice, I rounded up to 4 on a couple of these songs, so you could technically say I lied about not liking any of them.

I can eventually give a song-by-song review of Experimental, but to keep it long-but-not-way-too-long for now, I'll just say that my overall rating for it is 4.7. I will also admit that I give 2 of the songs a lowly 3 stars.

My system is 1-5:
5: top-notch
4: stands out as a great song
3: ok, possibly "good", but nothing to be really proud of
2: not-so-good but there's at least something good about it
1: nothing good about it
Total score is the average of the top 10.

Total score for Dirty: 2.8

1. 100% - 3
Starts out with a good punch but the chorus is too dull.

2. Swimsuit Issue - 1
Sounds like vomit.

3. Theresa's Sound-World - 3
Starts off really nice and builds to that amazing guitar thing. Needs to do something cool after that, but instead goes back to the beginning.

4. Drunken Butterfly - 2
Starts off okay, and that cool guitar part is fantastic. The "I love you" chorus sounds like constipation.

5. Shoot - 3
Starts off nice. Doesn't go anywhere.

6. Wish Fulfillment - 4
Starts off sleepily nice, like many of the previous songs. But finally gives us a great punch of a chorus.

7. Sugar Kane - 2
That guitar at the beginning is great--and that guitar after the beginning is great. The vocal parts are mediocre.

8. Orange Rolls - 2
Verse sounds like vomiting while constipated. The short, fast chorus has no punch. That one guitar thing is really cool, though.

9. Youth - 2
There's only one small part to this, which repeats a million times. The vocals are rather annoying, but I like the music throughout.

10. Nic Fit - 2
Not much to this, really not so bad for what it is. Good call on making it less than a minute. The lyrics are a bit lacking for my taste.

11. On the Strip - 2
Starts off okay but the chorus sucks.

12. Chapel Hill - 4
This starts off great. That music is where it's at. And the vocals are fine. Believe it or not, the chorus is fine, too.

13. JC - 2
It's okay, but it's the same thing over and over.

14. Purr - 3
I like the intro, and the scream. The song ain't bad. There's obviously punch in there, but it's not sung with enough emotion to really bring it out.

15. Creme - 1
Yawn. Boring, repetitive.

I disagree with a lot, but i like what you are doing. Keep going, i am interested to read your thoughts on these.

This review makes me want to kick something. Dirty is on my top5 and you shit on all the best songs on it

JC is a masterpiece fuck what you think

If it makes you feel any better, that's the way I feel when I hear most people put down albums I love, like Radiohead's Pablo Honey, REM's Monster, Elvis Costello's Punch the Clock, and Smashing Pumpkin's Adore.

Tell me "Prove Yourself" sucks and we'll be even. It blows me away. Starts off soft and beautiful, and then WHAM! with that guitar... prove yourself! And then Thom pours his guts into the next verse. And I love "Vegetable" even more.

Maybe "okay" wasn't the right word for JC. I love how JC starts and the first minute of singing, and all the music behind it. At that point, I think JC is on track to be 4 or 5 stars. But it's the same vocals throughout, it doesn't go anywhere else. In my view the song is incomplete, which results in a score of between 2 and 3 stars, slightly closer to 2 and rounded down.

I definitely agree with the fucking what I think part, though. I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to stop liking raw onions just because I explain why I hate them.

This compromise is better, i knew even you knew you were being too harsh on JC

You is the best song on pablo honey.

I don´t like your review at all. You are repeating yourself all the time, I don´t think you´re saying much of Dirty except you seem to hate it. Comments like "sounds like vomit" or "chorus sucks" sounds schoolboy reviews to me. I think repeating things is quite big part of SY-music (like it is also in krautrock) I think there is also quite much repeating in Experimental. When reading this review from Dirty, hard to understand what you think is great in Experimental. But of course you can keep on writing your reviews, I don´t have to read them.

strange for me to read that because I like walking to the rythm of cymbals hearing at this song on earphones. but perhaps I don't go anywhere too when I walk. in all case you didn't convince me that it is possible to not love DIRTY. possibly I can understand to think of the first songs (till SUGAR KANE) as some kind of introduction to the second part of the album but from "orange rolls" till the end of the album the piece is so consistent that I can't understand not loving it

I absolutely love rehearsal instrumental version of JC. It has so much energy and it is so raw sound-vise. wow.