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Yeah, I’m not nuts about the tracks you mentioned either. Well, I do like “Hot Wire...” but it was unnecessary. Should have been a B-side, along with “White Kross.” But I had an insane, terrible acid trip to Sister once (to SISTER... can you imagine? Being in a bad place already, and on LSD, and then letting the weight of “Schizophrenia” sink into your fucking brain cells?) and not even that could ruin it for me. Evol is super goddam good though. Shit man. But I’m weird because I think Bad Moon Rising is goddamn near perfect. No, it IS perfect. Evol no. Sister no. Daydream, yeah. Sister’s still my favorite, warts and all. |
Evol is Def better than Bad Moon. Don't get me wrong, both 5 star albums. But Evol has such a tone to it. A warm drone. And the SS Beat Control. I just think the highs are (slightly) higher, and more sustained as a whole.
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I love your review of EVOL. Of course both of these are favourites of mine. But Sister feels more just like a collection of songs, but a /tight/ collection of great songs. But EVOL, there's just something special about that album for me, even if song-by-song it may not stack up as well against other SY albums. Bad Moon Rising has a lot of the same sound as EVOL, but in my opinion just feels unfinished/ half-baked. There's good stuff there, don't get me wrong, but it's one of their weaker efforts. |
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yeah, that's sort of maybe how I think too. Like Sister is full of great songs. The whole time I'm like "Schizophrenia, great! Tuff Gnarl, great! Cotton Crown, great!" etc. But Evol is just like... this really perfectly cohesive thing. This singular ALBUM (ignoring "Bubblegum" that doesn't even belong there haha) that just hangs together like a pink cloud around you. Try as I may - I doubt I'll ever fully be able to put into words what it is about this album, but there's really nothing else quite like it to my ears. Where as Sister, is yeah, a bunch of great Sonic Youth songs. Period. It's obviously not a knock or put down or anything. I love Sister. But Sister isn't Evol. Nothing is. Quote:
I still love BMR. But I feel like it's got a super strong A-side and then a bit lesser B-side but ends with "Death Valley 69" which is so outstanding that it sort of makes up for that slightly weaker b-side. As I mentioned when I talked about BMR a couple of weeks ago, really my fav song on the album would be "Halloween" which wasn't even originally on the damn record. |
Fucking BMR is not half-baked you chodes! :)
It’s kinda what SY was all about af that time, and continued to be all about even after they developed a more rockist sound. The transitions on BMR make it all bleed together gloriously. It opens with one of the greatest five-or-so minutes in the SY canon (“Intro” > “Brace Men Run”) and hidden in the gaps between proper songs are infectious ass grooves and moments of glorious tsunami noise. “Society is a Hole” grabbed me by the bits more than just about any other SY song on first listen, if I’m honest with myself. I heard it and never forgot the drone, or the lyrics. When a droney, stony mess like that can get stuck in your head like a pop song, you’re fucking on to something. The end of “Justice is Might” is revelatory. Takes some patience to locate those moments, but they’re totally there. “I’m Insane” is one of their most kickass songs, period. “Halloween” is perfect. That groove, and Kim’s delivery, are quintessentially SY through and through. I feel like a lot of people, surprisingly, listen to BMR only for “Death Valley ‘69,” which is badass and everything, but it’s not even one of the best songs on the album (or on the reissued album with the bonus tracks, which I’m considering “the album” since it’s the only thing I’ve ever know). BMR is top tier Sonic Youth. So is Evol. So is Sister. So is Daydream. I feel like the top tierness of BMR is not even debatable. It’s part the best sequence of albums of the 1980s. Also, it’s fall... this is BMR SEASON. No album sounds better against a backdrop of falling leaves and increasingly chilly winds. |
You guys do have me playing Evol against Sister in my head and wondering if I’m not more of an Evol guy at this point in my life, though. Doubt it, but it’s worth investigating. And I don’t actually think Evol is more cohesive than Sister. I think it can sound that way because it’s more compressed, and it’s mixed and mastered in a way that gives it a more level feel. Sister is much more dynamic, production wise, and has a rockier sound with sharper edges. So it sounds less like a well-kneaded dough and more like peaks and valleys. But that doesn’t mean the quality isn’t there. That doesn’t mean the sequencing isn’t spot on. As an album it’s goddamn electrifying.
The only thing I could really do without (speaking of the CD versions here) is “Master-Dik.” I take back my comment about “White Cross.” I love that song. It should come before “Kotton Krowb,” but as a song it totally belongs on the record. Just maybe not in the place it occupies. That album should close with “Kotton Krown,” y’all. We know it. |
Yes, "Intro/Brave Men" rules. And then you mentioned a couple more from the A-side. Then one from the b-side. Then a bonus track which I already said would be my favorite song on the album - had it originally been on the album.
BMR is great. It was great then. It's still great. But Evol is greater. |
the best BMR songs are "Intro/Brave Men Run," "Death Valley 69," and "Halloween."
The best Evol songs are... the 9 songs that make up the album proper. ;) |
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No, the best Evol songs are “Tom Violence,” “Shadow of a Doubt” “Madonna, Sean and Me/Expressway...” and “Starpower.” :) |
btw, I'm not a huge audiophile but Evol is mixed really low on CD. I crank that fucker and it doesn't get loud enough. Anyone else ever notice that? I look forward to a remaster just so I can shake my car windows.
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Yeah, I’m not sure I noticed it was mixed low, but the mixing is off. Not as satisfying as Sister imo, not as dynamic. |
Prob cuz of Sister's studio really.
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Nurse With Wound - Psilotripitaka 4xLP box
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Breaking Benjamin - Forget It. I love this group!
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Well, I think we can all agree that all of these albums are absolutely integral parts of SY’s evolution, and part of one of the best album runs in the history of music. It really doesn’t matter where you start — whether it’s with self-titled or Confusion, or BMR — every release from this period just flowed perfectly into the next, and built on what was there before while also branching off into strikingly different territory every time. They didn’t really take a step backward until Goo, and I actually think that’s more of a step sideways. Sounds exactly like the band that made DDN, only on a major label budget. I don’t know about you guys, but I really like Sonic Youth ;) |
i am with Severian on this one. BMR is perfect album.
I can't never decide between Evol and Sister, both are great equally, but man, BMR is mindblowing. |
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THANK YOU!!! |
check out tom barman's new project, taxi wars..
have been obsessed over it for some time now.. it's great - deserves its own thread here... |
The Smashing Pumpkins
Adore 1998, The Pumpkins were on a streak in the 90's that made me feel like each new album was instantly my new favorite Pumpkins album. Adore was no exception. Except Adore sounded very unlike their previous records. With Jimmy out of the band it seemed like the only obvious replacement would be a machine. And so SP found their inner Depeche Mode. Or I guess they just started rubbing elbows with Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor via the Lost Highway soundtrack. Yup, this would be marketed as their 'electronic' album. But it's really not that gimmicky. Somehow layering synths and drum machines over sparse acoustic guitars and piano feels totally organic here. It sounds like Smashing Pumpkins while sounding like nothing they'd really done before. "To Sheila" is a lovely opener with a soft finger-picked guitar, washes of ambience and vocals layered to eternity. I still love the single "Ava Adore," and "Perfect" is fine even if it's a rather dull sequel to "1979." Deeper though we get varied awesomeness like "Pug" which rivals the b-side "Eye" in my mind as their finest electronic-era moment. "Shame" harkens back to the shoe-gazey sound of Gish while still feeling like it belongs on this record. "Annie-Dog" is a killer upbeat piano stomper. Eventually the record comes down with the somber "Blank Page" and then "17 Seconds," which is pretty much just what its title says. Make no mistakes, this album is a bit of a black sheep. But it's also maybe secretly the best Pumpkins album. |
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My opinion: this is SP trying to capitalize on OK Computer and Downward Spiral and Fat of the Land. Rather listen to any of those albums. This one’s a stinky boy. But hey... I watch a really pathetic interview with Corgan and Marilyn Manson a few years ago (oddly, Marilyn Manson cane out looking like the cool and smart one) and Billy Corgan was just SUPER bitchy about Trent Reznor. I don’t know why this is. Do you? Is it just simple talent and success jealousy? Or maybe the fact that a half-jock, half-programming nerd managed to out-art-rock a pasty theater wank like Corgan? Is it Oscar envy? Lol. No, seriously... I don’t know what the beef is and as far as I know Reznor has never spoken ill of his developmentally disabled inbred cousin from Chicago, so why all the hate? Just made Corgan look like an even bigger wanker than he already was. |
I honestly don't know. I don't really pay attention to stuff like that. Didn't MM and Trent have a falling out around then? Like, "Starfuckers Inc" and all that? Wait, did Trent attack Billy in that video? He attacked a bunch of musicians didn't ? Ah, I really don't remember. I might be making this up.
Adore sounds nothing like OK Computer. Downward Spiral..... maybe, but this is half a decade later. I really just think that the NIN/MM "thing" was in at the time. But also losing a drummer lead them to dabble in drum machines... and then keyboards... etc. It was an easy point in their career to try something new since they had a reason to try something new. I'm surprised you don't like it tho. Most NIN fans who read Pitchfork every day seem to call it the one SP album they like. ;) |
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I wouldn’t know about that. There was beef between Reznor and Manson for a bit, after Reznor produced an album for MM, and then MM wanted to get out of the shadow of the actual musician who was actually talented and made him famous (and so began the decline of MM, but anyway). You have it backwards... MM and Trent actually made up for the Starfuckers video. MM was in it. Terrible song that. Just unforgivably bad. Adore sounds like a band who listened to OKC and thought, “ohhhh, let’s do something kinda like this or whatever. Kids dig quiet stuf now with flourishes if electronics.” But SP never had that in them. Sounds like wank. Wank, I say! |
I really don’t read Pitchfork every day. I check the site as part of my routine, but I almost never read a review. I read the 4:44 review, and some of the review for the new LCD Soundsystem, but they usually don’t write about what I want to read about.
And I’m not really a NIN “fan.” I respect Trent Reznor and have a ton of nostalgic connections to all of the music made under the NIN brand until the Fragile. Then I liked the Slip. Year Zero and With Teeth are ok, but I don’t listen to even my favorite NIN more than once a year. Er, I’m a NIN fan who’s moved on without shunning NIN. I don’t think they’d be in a top 25 bands list for me. Maybe not even too 50. But I still like the stuff I like. Shrug. I dunno. NIN > SP though. In my crazy pitchfork-drunk opinion. |
You will both burn in HELL.
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I get what you're saying sev, but don't hear OKC in Adore at all. Like at all. Besides electronics they are world's apart in tone. Shrug.
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I loved With Teeth btw. More than any other post Fragile NIN album.
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Weezer
Pinkerton 1994, Apparently Pinkerton was critically hated upon its release. And that led a bit to its cult status. I didn't know any of that at the time. I didn't really pay attention to reviews back then. But I mean, the band almost broke up after Pinkerton which would have been awful. When it was released I loved it. All I heard was like - Oh, Weezer made an album like their first one only with way more teeth. And feeling. We didn't really have the term emo back then did we? Pinkerton is fucking legend. It's a crazy heart on sleeve album about desire and desperation. It opens with a song about being tired of sex. I mean... wow. And that song kills. It's so dark and the opposite of "Buddy Holly" y'know? And then there's "The Good Life," a song about a 20-something feeling like an old man. It takes a certain type to identify with that, but I did... even in my teens. This is totally an album of self-deprecation. Not only is Rivers cuckolded but he's in love with a lesbian or fantasying about a fan in Japan. It's definitely a departure from the first album. Darker and more up-front. By the time you get to "Butterfly," the closing acoustic number you don't even know what to make of the soft delivery but its rather alarming lyrics. This is a record that is fearless, and to that extent almost imploded the band. Of course I'm glad that didn't happen even if it meant sitting through a hiatus. Eventually the cult emerged and the band realized they were on to something. Pinkerton is an absolute 90's classic. |
Foo Fighters
Pocketwatch 1992, So in 1992 Dave Grohl released a cassette only album called Pocketwatch under the pseudonym Late! where he played all the instruments. Because this would be the same circumstances under which the first Foo Fighters album was recorded a couple of years later, and because several of these songs have actually made it into the Foo Fighters proper setlists and even re-recorded for official releases, it's often been considered the first Foo Fighters album rather unofficially. It's also no surprise that since it was cassette-only and went out of print within a few years, it was bootlegged heavily on CD and always attributed to the Foo Fighters rather than Late!, and often under alternate titles such as "Pocketwatch Demos" or "Lost Treasures." Anyway, the ten songs sound great even in bootleg form. "Petrol CB" sounds like it could have been a Nirvana song, and "Colour Pictures Of Marigold" eventually was (and later it was released on a live Foo album). "Just Another Story About Skeeter Thompson" was re-recorded and released on the Melvins' King Buzzo album for some reason. "Winnebago" would go on to be a Foo Fighters b-side, while the gorgeous "Friend Of A Friend" would end up on a proper Foo Fighters album many years later. It's a humble collection of early songs, but its legacy is certainly interesting and it's totally worth hearing. |
 Corin Tucker doing Roxy's "Editions Of You" — OH MAN it does not get any better than that! |
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First Foo Fighters album is almost all bangers. I don’t really remember Pocketwatch, but I will never forget self-titled. That actually felt like a fitting and logical thing for a member of Nirvana to release in 1995. It gave me a little hope to hear that shredding sack of sludge. “X-Static” could be on a Nirvana album, easy. “Alone + Easy Target” is a way better masturbation song than “Longview.” “Oh George” sounds like fucking Hüsker Dü at peak Düiness. Basically the whole thing is badass. Imagine how good they could have been had they not decided to be the alt-rock Van Hagar. Or whatever the fuck they are. The Eagles maybe? Every fucking album sounding like the last, only more watery and “not worth existingy.” |
I still like them. Surprise surprise right? New album is really good tho.
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I legitimately don’t know what to say to that. |
Have you heard it? Just came out a few weeks ago. I like it a lot.
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Dude no. No, no, no. I kept up with those guys out of stubbornness until One by One, after which they became one of the most appalling bands in the world. “Times like these” makes me vomit in my mouth a little, and every new album with the word “and” in it has just been more of that Grammy-nominated garbage. Nope. First album and about ⅓ of The Colour AND the Shape, and that’s quite enough. |
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alright. So then as I assumed you've decided it's not good without hearing it. That's fine. Do your thing. I like "Times Like These" myself. Shrug. I like pretty much all their stuff. Though One By One is certainly a weak link in their discography. I don't know, to me much of their post 90's work is just good straight forward rock and roll. It's not ground-breaking or anything, but it sounds good to my ears. At any rate Concrete And Gold is interesting because the Foo Fighters and Queens Of The Stone Age seem to have been hanging out quite a bit, bouncing ideas off each other while recording their new albums and I feel like the influence of the other shows in both albums. The new QOTSA is friggin' great as well, and I feel like it's "okay" to like them haha. |
I don't listen to Foo because I don't like Dave Grohl. Is that wrong? Yes, he seems nice and warmly gregarious. Too much so. Dial it back dude.
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lol he really does seem like a nice guy. And I've heard numerous people who have met him say that, yeah he's a super nice guy. But I mean whatever. I just like the way the songs sound haha. |
Sometimes I won't listen to an artist because they are a shitty person.
This is the first time I've avoided someone because the dude was too kind! But yeah. Intellectually I know the platters are all that matter. |
I'm genuinely trying to think if I've really ever avoided someone's music because I think the person is a prick. I don't think I do this, though. With any art really.
I kind of think in general that if I were to avoid myself of music/movies/books/etc because the creator was an asshole in real life... well, I'd prob miss out on a lot of good things haha. But yeah, the "too kind" Grohl thing... that is kind of funny, man. |
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I met him once. Briefly. Didn’t exchange enough words to get much of a sense of his character, but he definitely doesn’t seem like a bastard. Pat Smear was with him (seriously!) and Pat kinda did give me a bit of a bastard vibe. I have nothing against Dave Grohl other than his commitment to embodying the rock establishment and carrying on traditions that are best left to die. He is to this generation what Paul McCartney was in the ‘70s and ‘80s — just a fucking poster child for traditionalism and rockstarness. Hard to believe he was in Nirvana (or any of the other bands he played with) because he’s just so fucking MEH now. And has been for like 18 years. As a guy he seems fine, so I honestly wish I didn’t have to kind of hate his ass. First album was still great though. |
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