Best Layered SY Album (gets better, more discoveries with repeat plays)
 

I was just curious about this. It seems like sonic youth put a lot of ideas into their songs and initially you might only hear the obvious parts of the song while missing out on other parts.I love how I can keep coming back and discovering new things on Sonic Youth's records.

I recently decided to replay Sonic Nurse and noticed a bunch more stuff i didn't notice the first time around. The wah-wah in "new hampshire" , that heavly ambience at the start of "i love you golden blue". I finally started appreciating "dude ranch nurse" too.



Which record do you think has the most layers? Or talk about things you noticed on further listenings to SY albums you didnt catch the first time around.

yeah, i only recently discovered that thurston is singing as well on paper cup exit. nurse is a such a beautiful album.

same with bad moon rising.. it's a very rewarding album. but you need good headphones.

Sonic Nurse is one of their most underrated albums.
I personally think it's one of their best.

Hell, yes!

What?!
I'll check this ASAP!

Interesting, when I saw the title of this thread, I immediately thought, "Well, for layered, I'd have to say Sonic Nurse." Even so, I'm actually mildly surprised there is such consensus agreement to it so far.

I don't know if it's underrated, because I know a lot of people who hadn't given the band the time of day in years who really like it, and even some people who never tried them before who do. It's certainly an awesome studio achievement, and though I'm actually finding that the songs on Rather Ripped are starting to stick with me the way the one's on Nurse did, obviously the older record had a lot more going on in terms of layers and levels of sound. I think O' Rourke had more to do with that than any of us seem to want to give him credit for, but I'm loathe to start that argument again. I remember from the live set that there were parts where he actually played guitar along with kim, so that there were four guitars and no bass.

Bad Moon Rising or Sonic Nurse.

It's a shame Nurse is so underrated...

I agree.

I noticed that layerthing in Murray Street too.

Murray Street and Sonic Nurse certainly, cause they are a five piece there, and here three guitar harmonies always brings something new to the ear

as a Four piece, i find alot of depth in Experimental Jet Set, I have been listening to it a bit lately, and it is alot more dissonant then i first thought it was when i heard it for the first time

ha! aint it funny. sonic youth seem to be a band that people take 3 years to appreciate albums. ive always love sonic nurse bu its had its fair share of detractos here.i supose sy are like a good wine in that sense......
to answer the question..... id say murray s or sonic nurse. rr less so. and also nyc g&f. anothr underated album!

My favorites are:
Sonic Nurse
Confusion is sex
Murray Street
NYC Ghosts And Flowers
well now that i think of it i cant say i dislike any of sonic youths albums. lol

..can i count the silver session in this thread???????????

Whats the silver session?

NYC Ghosts + Flowers totally.

Best sonic youth album ever.

Pitchfork is hilarious.

you really have to listen, but it's clear right around "one hell of a climb!" and the middle areas of the song.

possibly the finest sonic artyfact released!

http://sonicyouth.com/mustang/lp/ep45.html

love this record so much!

it's a pretty rad record.

i thought the folks on this board hated nurse. i think nurse is definitely one of the most layered. sure, 'dirty' kinda has that going on, but a lot of it is really obvious stuff that you can catch on the first go-round. it took me over a year to catch some of the pump organ stuff that happens on 'nurse' and even now i still have trouble picking up on it sometimes.

Bad Moon and DDN

um 1000 leaves?

1000 leaves definately...
i find that buying the records on vinyl and listening thru a good system really enlightens you to previously unheard sounds. i'm buying each album on vinyl, gradually building up a collection, and listening to each album on lp is certainly a new, interesting experience.
buying nurse next, who knows what hidden frequencys i will unearth!!

I have to agree with nurse, and I'm glad to see it being championed here.

The first song that really hit me in this way was stones, and I'd like to mention it because I haven't heard much about it. From 4 minutes onward it's heaven, and when the riffs kick in at 5:16 and 6:21 it just elevates my mood somehow.

I really have to check out some of these other albums. I feel like a dick for even posting since I haven't even heard 1000 leaves, murray st., NYCG&F, Bad moon rising, confusion is sex, or evol.

Holy shit that's a lot of albums :s

NYCG+F and Bad Moon for me. Wasn't so into them at first but now I like them a lot more than almost all of the 90s albums minus ATL.

Bad Moon Rising. I've had that for two years and still find something different every time I listen to it

For me it's simple.

Washing Machine !!!

I'm surprised noone has mentioned it yet.

I vote Nurse, Washing Machine close second, even if the "texturing" in WM is less subtle, while in Nurse it's ALWAYS there and kinda more hidden. Understood?

Goo
 

thank you groar. you made me put on a BECK cd out of fear that i don't have what it tkes to warp a thread so beautifully as you.

imho Goo is the best for layers, my lair and everything in between,
e.g. i visit the deli tonight for a coffee. i need coffee to get my
game on. and after i show the cashier the new diskaholics record i bought
i think of Dirty Boots. that was ''such a surprise." urban surrealism.

caged bird. you know knot of witch ewe speek!

Yeah! Funny thing, I discovered the exact thing this morning. I thought, in the "chorus" that too-sexy voice isn't Lee's...I thought it must be Thurston or I am going nuts?

going thru a sonic nurse love phase at the moment!
the voices get me on this. kim's singing voice on "kim gordon and the arthur doyle hand cream" is sublime. growly, but not grungy growly as on Dirty, just real beautiful.
thurston sings so wonderfully on it as well, eg. dripping dream, peace attack and new hampshire...
plus paper cut exit is the most melodic lee song. at first the
"sing, sing along" bit annoyed me, but it's sorta grown on me!

My time spent with Sonic Nurse was sooo brief. I can't remember much from it at all. Of their LPs released since Confusion is Sex, I've enjoyed every single one of them at least for a certain period of time, including NYC, but never this one. I don't know what I was expecting at the time (I bought it maybe a month after its release). The mood of it - if I remember correctly - isn't too different from A Thousand Leaves (my favorite of their 1990 releases); maybe it's more melancholy. I'll definitely check it out again, though. I think I'm "ready" for it now.

My favorite SY releases
Bad Moon Rising
Evol
Daydream Nation
A Thousand Leaves

I really liked Nurse. Still do. I still put it in SY's top ten records. easily. It's so much better than Rather Ripped, with or without Helen Lundeberg and Eyeliner. I'd say Washing Machine is really layeed too. I notice new things about Washing Machine (song), Saucer-like, SkipTracer and Diamond Sea all the time. On every listen, I find at least one thing new on there that I had never consciously noticed.

I'll have to go listen to all the reocrds I have, but I'd say that all their records from EVOL onwards are really layered, with the exception of perhaps Experimental Jet set, it's very bare-bones.

Murray Street is up there too.
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Ben Stiller - "How can I cheer up this orphaned kid? By showing him the DVD of Dodgeball? Well, sure, then he'll be happy for an hour and a half, but what then? Do I show him Dodgeball again? Of course, he'll get more out of it, because he'll spot new things the second time round. It's layered; it's written that way. But how many times can I show him Dodgeball? Seven, eight, maybe. Then what?"