Psychic hearts go out to you.
 

I finally managed to get this album the other week - for £3! - and i've found myself listening to it quite a bit since. My perception of it is that although it's a solo album it seems a bit like a bastard child of sonic youth. Like I'm not sure why this material was released like it was and not put to the band to flesh out some more - when shelly was involved anyway. That isn't to say that there isn't a different kind of slant to justify it's existance - there's something more immediate and poppy about the production - which seems ahead of it's time. I've seen some critisim for Elegy for all the Dead Rock *s, maybe because it isn't Diamond Sea but I think it's awesome.
All in all I think it's an awesome album but should probably have been cut in half - but it puts thurstons genius or whatever you want to call it (it's an over used term) in focus.

Anyway, I thought it might be an interesting topic of discussion what with the new one coming out soon.

it's almost amusing to hear it in the context of thurston's subsequent work,
the contrast of pop vs. "noise composition" (or whatever the hell)...there's
an interview where he says his only real regret about the album was soaking
his vocals in effects for all the songs (i still think it was a good decision on his part).

what half would you cut, auto?

I was about to mention that vocal effect. I think it sounds really great as well. Really nice album. I like Hang Out, Feathers, Tranquiliser and Ono Soul. Female Cop is totally gorgeous as well.. sort of sad like a rain soaked leaf clinging to the pavement on a windy autumn day..

Contains a lot of my favorite Thurston tunes. Most notably, "Hang Out", "Cherry's Blues" and "Ono Soul".

Did you know Lee produced 'Female Cop'?

I need to get that record

Well, yeah I think it could be far more succinct. I'll say the tunes I'd definatly keep on there:
Ono Soul, Blues from Beyond the Grave, Feathers; Tranquilizers, Cindy (Rotten Tanx), Cherry Blues, Female Cop and Elegy.... then i think i'd keep one of the others too like Hang Out or something.

So actually that seems like I least favour the first half of the album... which might be a reason why people might not have such an easy time getting on with it.

psychic hearts is a rockin out mother of an album. hang out is an awesome trashfest of a song. the album should stand on its own merits and not be compared to sy material although that is gonna be unlikely.....
i heart psychic hearts...............

Ditto. Psychic Hearts is a masterpiece. I prefer it to Washing Machine which I believe came out at the same time.

washing machine was released in september 1995. psychic hearts
came out some time in the summer of 1995. i believe.

I like it, but gain, I feel that the songs would be ebtter with the full band, and that maybe some songs shouldn't have been included... I actually find the album quite depressing, I don't really know why. Its good though. I'm looking forward more to the new Thurston album...

September of 1995 is still the summer time. Like I said, Psychic Hearts kicked Washing Machines ass. I bet Thurston agrees ;)

sassy thurston wrote about 4 good songs for it.

I think it is an excellent album, just a fine pop album.

That has no baring on it being a good album or not though... though i'd agree it's not a very good 'album' persay - but there really are some fucking excellent songs on there.

Got to see that entire record performed live in Hartford....amazing show.

what does it being discontinued for years mean in relation to it being good or bad? it means nothing.

and for the record, that's one record -- along with pacers "amp" and chumbawumba's "tubthumping" -- that i see used EVERYWHERE.

psychic hearts is pretty bad.

Great album, though I don't listen to it often.
So much better than Washing Machine (ie, my least favourite SY album).

for a long time i felt like it was a half-assed sonic youth album, but lately i've gotten back into it, dug it for what it is. its got this grunge/glam/girlpower thing going on, but supremely weirded out, left to fade in the sun...

t-bird remembering high school and shit, methinks...

My girlfriend (yes, girlfriend:eek:) gave it to me for Valentines Day when it came out.....I was in 8th grade. Still love it, bitches!! Chan's version of Psychic Hearts is great too.

anyway it was barely worth the $3 i got it for at a pawn shop.

fuck sassy thurston.

actually the only real good thing about it is mark prindle's review of it...

"

This album is so Thurston POORE, it makes me want to take it out of the Thurston DRAWERE and throw it on the Thurston FLOORE. Then I might even grab the Thurston BORE and kick it out the Thurston DOORE and go down to the Thurston SHORE to pick up a Thurston WHORE. Let me tell you what you have in Thurston STORE if you decide that Dirty and Goodbye 20th Century CDs aren't sufficiently rotten to the Thurston CORE and you need some Thurston MORE to. oh. That was already - OK next slide.
Submitted for your approval: Sonic Youth features THREE different songwriters and STILL can't put out consistently good albums. So how do you think that ONE of those songwriters would fare when deciding to create a 15-song solo work? Well, Lee Ranaldo decided to create an album that's just a bunch of noises with locked grooves - "infinity" he calls it - HA! Can you imagine the art? Unfortunately it didn't translate very well to CD, what with "locked groove CDs" not...uh... existing. The first track sounds like --- HEY! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO TO MY REVIEW, YA DAMN "READER"???
As I set out to say, when Thurston Moore decided to create a solo work, he ripped off "He's So Fine," added a "bonus disk" of the worst jamming garbage you will ever hear, battled a burglar in his home and eventually sadly succumbed to the cancer that had - HEY!!!! GOD DAMN AMERICA FOR MAKING MY ATTENTION SPAN SO SHORT THAT I CAN'T EVEN COMPLETE THIS SIMPLE ARTICLE ABOUT THE YANKEES FOR MY SPORTS NEWS WEB SITE!
Thurston Moore's bad habits: (A) Performing songs whose vocal melodies are exactly the same as the guitar melodies. You've heard "Iron Man," right? Not the smartest-sounding song around, is it? (B) Just "saying" lyrics in an attempt to come across as "sassy" and "cool" - often double-tracked and/or through a distortion effect. Like an especially whiny version of Lou Reed. While we're on the subject, am I crazy or does Lou Reed seem to be especially fond of himself? (C) Using the exact same simplistic songwriting style in every single song (think of his tracks on Experimental, Jet Set, etc. - every song on here sounds just like those but worse -- unbelievably simple power chord sequences with slight finger ups-and-downsy changes repeated over and over and over again). And (D) Coming up with absolutely atrocious, ugly, amateurish, boring "hooks" with no positive qualities for miles around. Which is to say that if you like his Sonic Youth output, there's at least a CHANCE you'll like this too, though don't be surprised if you find your opinion of the man sinking pretty low after giving it a spin in the washing machine.
Woman: Did you say WASHING MACHINE????
Man: I sure did, SISTER!
Woman: Oh man, dat's COLD man - dat's EVOL!
Man: Sorry about that, baby! Look, to make it up to you, how about if I let you stroke my DIRTY MASTER-DIK til I shoot my GOO all over those NYC GHOSTS AND FLOWERS?
Woman: I'm confused.
Man: Of course you are baby, because CONFUSION IS SYR 3 FEATURING JIM O'ROURKE.
Woman: Don't GO there! You ain't getting' none of MY stuff unless you pay me A THOUSAND. (LEAVES).
Man: Hey! Come back! This is BAD because the MOON is out and my penis is RISING!
(Curtain)
There are four pretty great songs on here (the intriguing feedback-drenched "Ono Soul," an interesting little arpeggiated minor chord piece of melody called - ironically enough - "Pretty Bad," a sassy generic Sonic Youth style rocker called "See-Through Play/Mate" that has a really awesome double-guitared third chord in the riff, and this really fast "Hang Out" song whose ugly chords actually come to really grow on a guy if he's forced to listen to them over and over inside an echo chamber full of bugs. All crawling in and out of his eyes until he GOES INSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNEEEEEEEE!!!!!!)
The rest of the album sucks a dick though, and I betcha any other member of Sonic Youth, past or present, would say the same thing. I hope that SOMEHOW this review is only taken as a bitch piece about this particular CD though, because I made some personal attacks on Thurston in my Sonic Youth reviews (which are several years old, btw) and that is NOT AT ALL my intent here. He's just a guy who creates the kind of music that he likes. And a ton of other people like it too. I just PERSONALLY feel that his weak rockers need the counterpoint of Lee Ranaldo's screwball art-minded brain to keep them interesting and varied. Otherwise they sound underwritten, amateurish and extremely samey. And I think the same of Lee's ambient mood pieces - without the rock structure of the rest of the band, that guy's output is a total bore too. So please - I like Thurston now, and greatly respect how he has kept his band together for over two decades, for the most part giving us lots of really good songs to enjoy. But I can't help it - this CD really really does honestly suck a lot of balls out of my mouth.
"

oh i just pulled out psychic heats and gave it a listen while cleaning my cock.

the song "pyschic hearts", simple and ridiculous as it is, is really good!!! i love when he goes "i don't even know you that well."

reminds me of that song by the fall that repeats one chord for 8 minutes. oh wait..

psychic hearts is hands down my favorite song thurston moore has penned....

Free City Rhymes/Empty Page are a close Second/Third.

I love psychic hearts. It took me a bit to get fully into it. but you gots to bow down to the queen of noise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I never actually noticed the vocal effects til i read this. Good album, although I only recently got it, so I'm not fully used to it yet

well i dunno about that statement... however psychic hearts is thurston's precursor trademark guitar sound for albums A Thousand Leaves through now, its the beginning of when he started using the Pavement tuning (CGDGBB and now CGDGCD) that tuning was probably still quite new to him so he was probably just thrashing about new riffs, now he has obviously found his nitsch in that tuning and come up with better riffs/progressions. and also i kinda look at it as a combination of SY and early Catpower (remember Tim Folijan who played on the first few Catpower albums is on Psychic Hearts, same goes with Steve) this was when Chan was more rocking...

Anyways if i have to say I've prefered to listening to this as opposed to the album EJST&NS and boy i must say that EJST&NS overall is just lacking there are some decent tunes but then there are some really weird and unfinished sounding songs that don't make any sense other than just fragments.

that's why I like EJST+NS.. it's damn weird

and damn inconsistent.

and sassy!

As far as i know, most of Psychic Hearts songs were written by Thurston for Experimental Jet Set but did not make on the album. So if there were not released, i bet everyone would get crazy just to hear them... I can't believe that someone could complain that he paid 3$ on a record...

i love this. Still sounds lovely and fresh. Love the T.Bone riffs, the simple Steve-o drumming and the perverted noise that's always in the background.
Beauty.

i love psychic hearts.... i'm gonna listen to it now

Id like to think that im a good person, and that i love my boyfriend… but i know, if my colleague wanted to screw me in the training room… id be there in a second….

The Amps - Pacer

brilliant record, actually.

Yeah, I like Pacer quite a bit!

I also always see the Titanic soundtrack at pawn shops.

Best find at a pawn shop ever was definitely Hot Snakes - Automatic Midnight in a pure red case (instead of the orange one).

Wait.. I take that back...

At the SAME pawn shop, I found Flipper - Generic a good 9 years ago.. and I sold it about 4 years ago for $40 ;)

Mine was an original of John and Yoko's Unfinished Music #2 Life With The Lions, for about a tenner.

Damn!!!!!

That album's great. I love both of those "unfinished music" albums a lot.

My hands kinda in the way, but you'll be able to see my favourite t-shirt in the whole damn world.

 

yes!