Varies between Sec.80 and good kid though... right? Not TPAB and untitled, unmastered.

I have no idea how I'd rank them. I think good kid, mAAd city is my favorite, but it's quite an emotional rollercoaster. You're on cloud 9 for "Bitch Don't Kill my Vibe" and "Backseat Freestyle," then "The Art of Peer Pressure" hits and it's like "Devil in a new Dress" plunging you into despair with "Runaway" and then taking you to hell with, well, the entire rest of that album. Then you have "Good Kid" to get your shit pumped way the fuck up, and it all comes crashing down again. That's a rough album.

I think "Fucn Your Ethnicity" is my favorite SONG because it sounds... almost happy. But as for albums, it's hard to say. They all have pretty much nothing but strengths (though I could do without "u" altogether. Yikes.)

Anyway, Kendrick is the shit.

I listened to these bad boys this weekend on the hi-fi.

I haven't said anything about Summerteeth yet because I've been listening to it for three days...

great album.

As much as I hate Billy Corgan (in terms of face/head punchability, he's below only Drake and Dolanld Trump, and only because he's nowhere near as visible, important, or culturally omni-present), I do hav fond memories of listening to this album with my friends in junior high. For about 18-24 months, the Smashing Pumpkins were just about as big as post-Nirvana rock got, and there was almost a sense of "mania" to their output at this time. Like, every fucking single was a hit (no number 1 singles or anything, but this was the era of alternative and radio airplay charts -- they did have a few #1's in that context -- and MTV), from "Bullet W/ Butterfly Wings" to "Thirty-three," it just felt big.

I'm also impressed by the diversity of the songs, even the hits. Bullet is a post-"teen spirit" angst-rocker, but "1979" sounded totally different, with hints of (half-baked) electronica and an iconic video. "Zero" was basically a Nine Inch Nails song, but "Tonight Tonight" felt very poignant to 14-year-olds at the time. Even low-stakes final single "Thirty-three" was touching.

So yah. I do not like the band. I do not like the members. They aped a bunch of better bands, and acted like choads, and somehow managed to milk late '80s shoegaze, grunge, glam, glam-metal, and and pop culture world's need for a generationally representative traditional pop band comprised of three or four distinct personalities. They ripped off MBV, Ride, Jane's, Nirvana, fucking Boston, NIN, the Cure, and countless others, but for a while it was good to have them around.

I feel like in '95-'96 the only bands that may have eclipsed SP were Oasis (in terms of pop) and maybe Beck in terms of alternative omnipresence. Maybe I'm not remembering correctly. I was young and dumb.

You guys ever bother with th 2012 deluxe reissue?

I did not. But I feel like its cover art is a VAST fucking improvement.

WASHING MACHINE also came out in '95. Kinda obliterates the competition.

Anyone else into Sonic Youth?

yes. It was great. The stringless version of "Tonight Tonight" was f'ing awesome. Really, the super deluxeness of the package may have seemed overwhelming, but as a fan of that album for many many years there was some incredible stuff to unearth.

I don't really care what kidn of person Billy Pumpkin is, so I skipped the rant haha. I do love SP, though.

Tony Bennett wipes his ass with Smashing Pumpkins liner notes

Haha, you bastar! Of course it obliterates the competition... ESPECIALLY shit like SP and Oasis and pretty much everything else (except for maybe Red Medicine). I'm just waxing nostalgic on account of my bitchness. ;)

Hey! The Billy "rant" was limited to literally ONE sentence out of all that fingertip diarrhea I messed myself with up there. Don't skip my rants, brah! Rants are, like, ¾ of the Severian pie!

Now why would he do that when single-ply TP is a higher-quality product? ;)

There are plenty of albums from the era I like, a few I love and then there's Sonic Youth. Even if in a given moment I might "like" another group more, the critic part of me knows that, artistically speaking, SY is better.



I think I've listened to 450 of the 500 albums he (poorly) writes about in this kind of annoying book. After scanning every title, I shut the book and was and remain more convinced than ever that SY's artistic output is the most historically noteworthy achievement of this genre.

If I didn't agree, I probably wouldn't be here. I don't "fanboy-out" about an artist unless I consider it/them one of, if not the, absolute best of he best. I don't join groups or forums for groups that were good some of the time.

Sonic Youth has the strongest discography in contemporary music. Who's had a better, longer run? The Beatles, some would say, but Bad Moon Rising has a hell of a lot more to offer than Please Please Me. Fugazi has a pretty perfect run, but didn't realease as much material or cover as much ground. Velvet Ubderground? Nirvana? Neither lasted long enough or released enough to be in the running, great as they are.

• SY has the best discography, most incomparable, in guitar-based music.
• Aphex Twin has the best discography, most incomparable, in electronic music.
• Kanye West has the best, most incomparable discography in hip-hop.
• Coltrane has the jazz discography that makes everyone else's look like crap.
• The Beatles have the most best, most incomparable, culturally significant discography in "pop."

These are the artists I'd devote significant time to needing out over, basically.

Miles Davis literally CHANGED MUSIC three different times and recorded far more masterpieces, with a wider array of backing groups, than Coltrane. Just saying. 'Trane is as masterful as Miles but Miles discography beats tranes IMO.

I agree.

To put it another way, there are more Coltrane records that I fucking love.

But there are more Davis albums that I think are truly important and everyone in the world should be familiar with.

No I get that. I pretty much agree. I just prefer Coltrane personally.

I think Coltrane's discography is more consistent, but Miles has more landmarks.

well, that may be because 'trane died in 1967