Female Mechanic Now on Duty
 

This song slowly went from one of my lesser favorite ATL songs to in my top 5 all time favorites. The exasperated growl kind of turned me off at first.

One thing sy is good at is holding tension to make a cathartic release.

I love the dualist nature of the lyrics. It is like two songs that would have felt incomplete on their own stuck together for a grander statement. The first half is all empowerment. Aggression that feels pointed at the individual. The second half is feminine, motherly. It feels like it embraces and attunes to all things. The bridge being "modern women cry, modern women don't cry" feels like it is saying these two halves are a complete woman. That you can be feminist and powerful and fight, but also still retain a certain feminine fragility, and both are important.

Totally agree.

At first, I didn’t care for it. Then I freaking caught the bug. It’s been one of my favorite songs on one of my favorite albums.

It moves like a gentle storm, too. Love the flow of it.

same here!

still my least favorite track off ATL. maybe someday I'll join the club.

I swear ATL is my fav SY album, and Kim is at her absolute peak on this album.

It was my favorite for a while — at least, my favorite of the post-Sister and DDN albums — but I think Murray Street got the edge on it at some point, and I’m not sure how ATL, with its various silly moments (“HE’S JUST A KITTEN!”), can compete with Murray Street’s perfection.

It’s one of those instances where certainly ATL has more high, but also more lows. Murray Street doesn’t waste a second or miss a note, and everything fits together perfectly.

ATL > Washing Machine and Dirty and EXST&NS, etc. though. For sure.

You're all crazy.

If I sat down and did a top 5 worst sonic youth songs this would DEFINITELY be in there somewhere. Awful song. Kim's vocals are the big one for me on this one. For the most part I love her voice, but by god this is her at her most nails-down-a-blackboard.

Even if I agreed, that objectionable affectation lasts only until the three minute mark.

Then some noisy fun, "modern women (don't) cry", the "thousand leaves" ending chunk.

It's a 7:43 minute song, so removing the first three minutes still leaves a solid, satisfying track. (Or even more so, if one hates the beginning)

I'm almost certain that I am Contre Le Sexisme's biggest fan. I fucking love that strange and beautiful thing. I always remember how it hit me on first spin. What a great way to start a record!!

Sacrilege. Washing Machine is one of SY's most defining moments..it's a flat-out masterpiece. The only thing lower than ATL in their catalog is NYCG&F. All of that faux beat-poetry and hippie nonsense on ATL and NYCG&F is embarrassing. Worst SY-era, hands down...

Funny. I rate both ATL and Washing Machine highly (WM is my second or third fav), but Murray Street never grew on me. It leaves me inert.

Gotta agree with this one. I'm actually baffled at how people can say it's their best album.

However! The irony is that Sunday is actually one of my all time favourite Sonic youth tracks

I think it's time for a 2018 Rank The Sonic Youth Albums thread.

Ok, I’ll start...

1. Sister - 10/10
2. Daydream Nation - 10/10
3. Washing Machine - 9/10
4. Dirty - 9/10
5. Murray Street - 9/10
6. Evol - 9/10
7. Sonic Nurse - 8/10
8. Goo - 8/10
9. Confusion Is Sex + Kill Your Idols - 8/10
10. Bad Moon Rising - 7/10
11. Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star - 7/10
12. The Eternal - 7/10
13. Rather Ripped - 7/10
14. Sonic Youth - 6/10
15. A Thousand Leaves - 6/10
16. New York City Ghosts & Flowers - 5/10

Im bored. Why not?

Washing Machine
Bad Moon
Sister
EJST&NS
Evol
1000 Leaves
SYR 1
White(y)
Daydream
SY EP
Murray
Dirty
Confusion
Goo
Nurse
NYC Ghosts

Ripped and Eternal are garbage. (Sorry but not that sorry)

Washing Machine is great, but it’s not better than ATL.

WM was a re-entry point. Is it definitive? Absolutely. But it is musically inferior to ATL on the whole. Less expansive, less daring, less beautiful. ATL sounds like a “Diamond Sea” played in slow motion for an entire album.

No disrespect to WM, but ATL is better. For me anyway.

1. Sister or DDN
2. DDN or Sister
3. Evol or Murray Street
4. Murray Street or Evol...

You get the idea.

The Eternal is their worst. Not because it’s bad, but because it could have and should have been much better.

Wait... wait... wait... I'm not the only one who thinks all that Allen Ginsberg crap is pretentious b.s.? Thank goodness

specifically the ginsberg song taints the album for me. if not for that, atl might be as high as number 2 on my list.

Of course it’s pretentious, and I didn’t like it at first either, but now I do.

ATL is a *tremendous* headphone-walk-in-the-city listen. I really dig the bohemian vibe of that album and that era of SYR releases.