[d.sound]

well sonic youth is wrong then. sister has a more special place in my heart. daydream can't match the raw intensity of songs like catholic block and pipeline. (to be honest i'm splitting hairs. how do you compare things that are both nearly flawless, and distinguishably different from one another?)

[Severian]

Originally Posted by d.sound

well sonic youth is wrong then. sister has a more special place in my heart. daydream can't match the raw intensity of songs like catholic block and pipeline. (to be honest i'm splitting hairs. how do you compare things that are both nearly flawless, and distinguishably different from one another?)

Yeah, this. Pretty much.

Again, "favorite" vs. "better." I'll always prefer Sister for my own reasons. That world beating chorus accompanied by absolutely grotesque lyrics on "Tuff Gnarl," and the incredible experience of "Schizophrenia" from start to finish. The beauty of "Kotton Krown." And so on and so on.

I really think SY is best considered in phases. Sister was the absolute apex of the '85-'87 era. They kicked off something new with Daydream Nation. That album is probably an era in itself, although I do see Goo as a sonic continuation of it. But it's hard to measure SY at one perfect moment against SY at another. Sister and Daydream Nation just happened to back-to-back script flips. But Sister was still a punk album (or a no wave album, or whatever you want to call it), while DDN was something else entirely.

But lucky us! Our band dropped these albums, and it doesn't really matter which one is better. Both are incredible and unmatched.

[d.sound]

this thread made me want to actually re-listen to these albums. i found that on daydream there are only 4 songs that totally blow me away: teenage riot, the sprawl, the wonder, and hyperstation. on sister there is only one song that doesn't do it for me: hotwire my heart. everything else is gold. please don't be all like WHY YOU NO LIKE DAYDREAM. i love daydream!

this absolutely:

Originally Posted by Severian

But lucky us! Our band dropped these albums, and it doesn't really matter which one is better. Both are incredible and unmatched.

[Severian]

I think Sonic Youth faithfuls are very lucky indeed. Those of us who really love all eras of the band have an almost unparalleled (in the rock world) and totally massive body of work to dig into and feast upon. Few bands get around to releasing as many albums as SY did, let alone great albums, and that's not even taking all the EPs, SYRs, collaborative albums and solo works.

It's not a Dinosaur Jr kind of situation, where the band existed at its best for a few meager years before turning into a caricature of itself for a decade and a half, only to kind of return with some albums that are better than the the worst Dino, but ultimately just sound like lesser rehashings of "classic" Dino. We're much more lucky than, say, Nirvana diehards. I love Nirvana, but if they were my favorite band I'd be frustrated as all hell. Three proper LP's, that's it. Can you imagine? We're absolutely rich by comparison.
Yeah, I was fortunate enough to see them play, but that was a lifetime ago. The memory is not enough.

SY didn't have on-again off-again band dynamics. They were the best version of themselves for decades, and we're still getting caught up with the their archives. They had enough power and sonic diversity over the course of their run of LP's that it's very hard to get sick of any one album or period, let alone the band itself.

Guided By Voices may have a bigger catalogue, but it's also mind numbingly redundant. Flaming Lips may approach Sonic Youth's diversity and lifespan, but they had a few major flops along the way, and now they seem to be a bit stuck. Even the Beatles, whose catalog rivals Sonic Youth's, spent the first quarter of their career playing pretty bland stuff, and didn't get interesting until they were halfway done.

SY is a behemoth. It's awesome that we can have a five page discussion about two albums released in succession that are so completely and utterly different in sound and scope. It's all fucking brilliant though. We're really rather spoiled if you think about it.

[noisereductions]

Well said.

[Mortte Jousimo]

Well, today´s artists may do few albums and then disappear or start to repeat themselves, but in the sixties-eighties I have quite lots of favourite artists who has done a huge catalog great albums. In the nineties there were also Thinking Fellers & Trumans Water who released quite many great albums. And I don´t want to call Beatles first albums bland even of course their greatest career started in Rubber Soul. There are great songs like Please Please Me, Hard Days Night, And I Love Her, I´ll Be Back, Eight Days a Week, I feel Fine, Every Little Thing, Help, You´ve Got To Hide Your Love Away, Ticket To Ride, It´s Only Love, Yesterday etc.

Also it´s quite odd that sixties there came three great albums in a year from some artists, today many of my favourite artists release album in a four or six or even longer years. But of course it´s greater to wait great albums than have a miserable every year.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Mortte Jousimo

Well, today´s artists may do few albums and then disappear or start to repeat themselves, but in the sixties-eighties I have quite lots of favourite artists who has done a huge catalog great albums. In the nineties there were also Thinking Fellers & Trumans Water who released quite many great albums. And I don´t want to call Beatles first albums bland even of course their greatest career started in Rubber Soul. There are great songs like Please Please Me, Hard Days Night, And I Love Her, I´ll Be Back, Eight Days a Week, I feel Fine, Every Little Thing, Help, You´ve Got To Hide Your Love Away, Ticket To Ride, It´s Only Love, Yesterday etc.

Also it´s quite odd that sixties there came three great albums in a year from some artists, today many of my favourite artists release album in a four or six or even longer years. But of course it´s greater to wait great albums than have a miserable every year.

I love that early-mid Beatles stuff too, really. I can listen to Anthology 1 all the way through with a huge dumb smile on my face. I love A Hard Day's Night, Help!, Please Please Me. Great stuff. But I think things got infinitely better on Rubber Soul, and continued to get exponentially better with each album until the White Album.

[d.sound]

sometimes those creative periods where artists crank out like 5 releases in a year are the best. i'm thinking specifically of thanksgiving and sean mccann. both had periods of insane output, got burnt, and tried taking their music in another direction to less success. adrian orange i'm pretty sure just went full brian wilson's smile trying to make a hip-hop record.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by d.sound

sometimes those creative periods where artists crank out like 5 releases in a year are the best. i'm thinking specifically of thanksgiving and sean mccann. both had periods of insane output, got burnt, and tried taking their music in another direction to less success. adrian orange i'm pretty sure just went full brian wilson's smile trying to make a hip-hop record.

Most of the artists who really crank the new releases out these days seem to be mid-level hip-hop acts, releasing "official" mixtape after mixtape to varying degrees of success (often with no success whatsoever, in my opinion.)
I used to be of the opinion that it was better to drop an album a year and take full advantage of creative peaks than to take breaks between albums. But that was a while ago. I can't remember the last time an artist put out multiple truly great LPs in the same year. Now I tend to think one really solid album every two years is pretty much the ideal pace for most groups and artists. Sonic Youth did this... like clockwork, almost. The little mini-albums and EP's and SYR volumes they dropped on the side were icing on the cake, a great outlet for the really out there shit they were playing with. It was a great setup, and I wish more bands would follow that kind of release schedule

I guess Parquet Courts had two pretty color records in 2014... But neither was brilliant. Both Sunbathing Animal and Content Nausea were were good fun, but I wouldn't say the back-to-back releases were entirely necessary.

I do love both the albums Frank Ocean has released in the last ten days, but Endless has a much more experimental vibe to it, which makes it hard to view it as a proper album, especially compared to Blonde. More like a companion EP or some shit.

I'd love it if a truly great band or artist would start cranking out truly great albums at a Beatles-like pace, but as far as I can tell, nobody's up for that. Bob Pollard seems to think he is, but he's not. I don't think I could sing a song from that multi-LP run he was on back in 2014/2015 if I had a gun to my head... even though I'm pretty sure I own all the albums in question.

[Mortte Jousimo]

Originally Posted by Severian

I love that early-mid Beatles stuff too, really. I can listen to Anthology 1 all the way through with a huge dumb smile on my face. I love A Hard Day's Night, Help!, Please Please Me. Great stuff. But I think things got infinitely better on Rubber Soul, and continued to get exponentially better with each album until the White Album.

What about Abbey Road? I know there are many who thinks it´s their best album. My favourites are Revolver, Sgt & Abbey Road, really hard to say which is the best, maybe Revolver if I have to decide. I have really loved White Album always also even there are those "mummy" McCartney songs Obladi, Rocky Raccoon & Honey Pie and that quite funny Ringo Don´t Pass me by. The rest of the album is just dynamite! Like many I long thought Let It be is much lower than those earlier albums and still think there came lots of greater albums in 1970, but few years ago started to love it also. Across the Universe, I Me Mine, Get Back, Let It Be and the Long and Winding Road are songs no-one making these days. And the rest of the album is not also bad.

This has been talked about but to me SY & Beatles reminds each other lot more than for example SY & Stones. Sy was kind of Punk Beatles.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Mortte Jousimo

What about Abbey Road? I know there are many who thinks it´s their best album. My favourites are Revolver, Sgt & Abbey Road, really hard to say which is the best, maybe Revolver if I have to decide. I have really loved White Album always also even there are those "mummy" McCartney songs Obladi, Rocky Raccoon & Honey Pie and that quite funny Ringo Don´t Pass me by. The rest of the album is just dynamite! Like many I long thought Let It be is much lower than those earlier albums and still think there came lots of greater albums in 1970, but few years ago started to love it also. Across the Universe, I Me Mine, Get Back, Let It Be and the Long and Winding Road are songs no-one making these days. And the rest of the album is not also bad.

I love Abbey Road. "I Want You (she's so heavy)" is one of my absolute favorite Beatles songs. But I think White Album is the best. I personally really love this "mummy" McCartney you refer to. "Rocky Raccoon"'is one of my favorites too, and I actually really love "Don't pass me by." I just think White Album was peak Beatles. That's just me though.

This has been talked about but to me SY & Beatles reminds each other lot more than for example SY & Stones. Sy was kind of Punk Beatles.

Totally agree.

[dasx]

Originally Posted by Everyneurotic

they both suck

Haha, nice troll...

[dasx]

Originally Posted by alyasa

In Sister, for the very first time, Sonic Youth became more than just a noise-rock band. They fused their avant-garde noise jam with the tight, structured, concise melodies present in the best pop songs. They rocked off their socks on Sister, that's why I like it so.

They had already made that in Evol.

[dasx]

Daydream Nation was the album that kicked me in to Sonic Youth world so it's always a very special album for me. Sister was second SY-album I bought (and heard). I really like all Sonic Youth albums but Daydream Nation probably is the one.

[dasx]

Originally Posted by Mortte Jousimo

What about Abbey Road? I know there are many who thinks it´s their best album. My favourites are Revolver, Sgt & Abbey Road, really hard to say which is the best, maybe Revolver if I have to decide. I have really loved White Album always also even there are those "mummy" McCartney songs Obladi, Rocky Raccoon & Honey Pie and that quite funny Ringo Don´t Pass me by. The rest of the album is just dynamite! Like many I long thought Let It be is much lower than those earlier albums and still think there came lots of greater albums in 1970, but few years ago started to love it also. Across the Universe, I Me Mine, Get Back, Let It Be and the Long and Winding Road are songs no-one making these days. And the rest of the album is not also bad.

This has been talked about but to me SY & Beatles reminds each other lot more than for example SY & Stones. Sy was kind of Punk Beatles.

I think White Album is the best Beatles album. There's a couple of boring or lame songs (like Why Don't We Do It In The Road & Revolution 9) but mostly it is stunning!

Abbey Road is also great album like all albums from Revolver to Let It Be but White Album gets highest ranking in my head.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by dasx

I think White Album is the best Beatles album. There's a couple of boring or lame songs (like Why Don't We Do It In The Road & Revolution 9) but mostly it is stunning!

Abbey Road is also great album like all albums from Revolver to Let It Be but White Album gets highest ranking in my head.

Yeah, same here. After White Album, I'd go with either Revolver or Abbey Road, followed by Sgt. Peper's. But the White Album represented everything that was great about the Beatles.

Helter Skelter
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for me and my Monkey
I'm So Tired
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill (like a lost Sgt. Pepper track that one... Another top 10 Severian favorite)
Back in the USSR
Revolution
Glass Onion
Sexy Sadie
Dear Prudence

I mean, what the fuck? What gave them the right to be so goddamn good? That album managed to perfect guitar rock and completely dismantle it simultaneously. I think of it as a bit of a proto-punk record deep down. It will never NOT be one of my favorite albums ever made. That's a fucking promise.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by dasx

They had already made that in Evol.

I think Evol was still a bit out there for most audiences. It's a goddamn revelation, of course, and the first three tracks are on a par with the best of their work from before or after, but Evol, to me, was their last "no wave" album. It's disjointed. It falls apart. It's non-rockist. Less non-rockist than BMR, but still... I think it was something of a bridge between Bad Moon and Sister.

Then they were abducted by aliens or something, and they made Daydream Nation, which sounds like it was made by a group of Timelord punks who could see the curve of the universe and all things yet to come. (Yeah, I just compared Sonic Youth to Doctor Who. Deal with it. )

[Mortte Jousimo]

Originally Posted by dasx

They had already made that in Evol.

I also think they really found themselves in EVOL. I mean then came those absolutely wonderful and sad melodic guitars that has only some signs in intro/brave men run. But yes, there are some elements from the first three albums in EVOL that are very little in Sister and not at all in DDN.

[Severian]

Evol. Sister. Daydream Nation. I'm not sure three more perfec albums have ever been released in succession by any artist. I'd throw Bad Moon Rising into that lot as well. I actually prefer it as an album to Evol. Sometimes BMR is pretty much my favorite SY album.

It's easy to kinda toss Goo under the bus, and say it belongs to another era entirely and shows the band stepping out of the underground and into less intellectual territory. But I love Goo (except for "My Friend Goo"... man I fucking hate that song, it's just a pimple on the album) and I consider it to be a great follow up to Daydream. If you just listen to the music of both albums, and don't let the art and photo ops and difference in aesthetic get in the way, it really makes sense. And it kicks fucking ass too. Some of their best tracks are on Goo... "Dirty Boots," "Tunic," "Disappearer," "Titanium Exposé"... fuck man. If not for "My Friend Goo," I'd say it was their fifth perfect album in a row.

I could (and will, if I don't watch myself) talk about this shit all day and all night and never get a goddamn thing done. I could ruminate about Sonic Youth's albums ad infinutum. So pardon my rambling.

Now I have an insane urge to listen to, like, every Sonic Youth album we've mentioned. All at once. And pontificate endlessly about all of them. So I should shut up and go do real life stuff before that urge takes over.

[pepper_green]

all this Beatles talk just reminds me of how great Dylan is. he released "Subterranean Home Sick Blues" before "I can't get no Satisfaction" as a single. crazy! The Beatles hadn't yet released Help and almost a year before Rubber Soul.

not only did he changed things but he became the most historic nerd troll ever after Another Side of Bob Dylan. the dude 'played' his audience like no one before to end up on something grand and beyond the beat beautiful and settling on Blonde on Blonde.

Highway 61 is one of the biggest, nicest FU album in history. the absurdity of it all and the comedy.

"Desolation Row" is one of the most absurdly funny hallucinogenic retardedly beautiful songs ever. ironically he wrote some of the best 'wrong' love songs ever in this era.

pretentious dull poet looking for credit or smart ass stupid lyricist trolling big time? that's Dylan.