Urban Hat€monger ?

I remember it well , it was the late summer of 1991.The Pixies had just released Trompe Le Monde and Kerrang magazine gave it a real slating saying that 'indie bands shouldn`t try to make metal albums' The same magazine has Jon Bon Jovi on the cover.Needless to say I never bothered buying Kerrang again after that.Although it wasn`t due to them slagging off the Pixes it was more a combination of all the awful bands they were raving about at the time.
It was a few years later that I got into the Pixes , maybe around 94/95 .Maybe it took me so long because I was disillusioned with American music at the time and with Britpop in full flow the only thing that seemed to come out of the U.S. was these horrible grunge bands.To be honest Kurt Cobains glowing praise of them put me off more than anything.Having said that I would go as far as saying that The Pixies are a huge influence on Britpop.The Pixies always had a lot of success in the UK in the late 80s, and you had people like Thom Yorke , Graham Coxon , Badly Drawn Boy , Damon Albarn & a whole host of people who would make British music great again in the 90s going to those gigs.
My love for the band started one day when I was browsing through my local record store with a few quid in my pocket with nothing much really grabbing my attention I found myself drawn to this album & Bossanova , more out of desperation than anything (I hated leaving empty handed back then) Took them home , realised how wrong i`d been about this band and was totally blown away. Needless to say Surfer Rosa & Trompe Le Monde were bought the following weekend.
I would tell you which songs are my favourites on this album , but thats impossible. This album basically has 15 singles on it. I can`t find one single weak point on it. The opening salvo of the first three songs , Debaser , Tame & Wave Of Mutilation ..... just WOW. Hearing those for the first time just stunned me. There is absolutley nobody on earth that you can compare the the Pixes to, they are totally unique. Nobody sounded like them in the past , nobody sounds like them now. Lets be honest how can you not enjoy a fat balding bloke in a pringle sweater screaming about slicing up eyeballs. But it`s not just that , it`s Joey Santiago`s surf guitar , And the legend that is Kim Deal who`s backing vocals I could happily listen to all day.It doesn`t matter what they try , whether it have a country flavour (Here Comes Your Man) , pure pop (La La Love You) loud shouty rock tunes (Tame , Dead) or ballads (Hey) they stamp their authority on every single tune and make them their own. You can tell a Pixies song the moment you hear one , shame there are not more bands that easily recognisable.
A totally totally unique band.

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adidasss

i'm going to see them this summer...

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“Think of what a paradise this world would be if men were kind and wise.” - Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle.

Last.fm

Urban Hat€monger ?

A lot of people say Nirvana broke the underground....
Nahh
At least not with me anyway.Although technically I owned Nevermind before I owned Dirty it was that Sonic Youth album that got me into 'indie' I still consider Dirty to be the first indie album I ever owned (And yes I do realise it came out on Geffen , so shut it).Quite simply if it wasn`t for Sonic Youth I wouldn`t have discovered Husker Du , Pussy Galore , Nation Of Ulysess , Dinosaur JR , Big Black , Galaxie 500 , The Pixies , Black Flag , Redd Kross , The Flaming Lips and many many more at the time that I did. Sonic Youth made me realise there was more to rock music than what i`d already heard , it was them that made me want to discover the underground , Nirvana for me were no different to most of the other rock bands I was already aware of.

Sonic Youth for me are very hit & miss . perhaps THE most hit & miss band out there For every great album they`ve ever made (This one , Goo , Dirty , Sister)They`ve also made some totally unlistenable crap (Bad Moon Rising , NY City Ghosts & Flowers) But I guess you have to respect them for it , there`s not many bands that can spend over 15 years on a major record lable and spend the whole time doing what the hell they like with their music without outside interference.

I think this is their best album , it seems more focused than most of their stuff. There`s hardly any of the usual Sonic Youth thing where they break the song down in the middle & fill it with 3 minutes of tuneless jangly guitar bits (Sonic Youth fans know exactly what I mean by this).There are a couple of weak points on the album , Providence is Radiohead`s Fitter Happier a decade earlier, a simple piano peice in the background with phone messages rather than Thom Yorke`s Steven Hawking impression. Also Rain King is a bit of a tuneless duffer but the quality of the rest of the album more than make up for those.

But the good stuff, God it`s wonderful. Teen Age Riot could very well be the greatest album opener of all time , but i`ve probably said that already somewhere about other songs on here. You expect it to be a loud fist pumping anthem , but it isn`t. It`s a gentle slow building song with Kim Gordons (Age 70) breathy vocals easing you into the album before Thurston takes over and starts the album off proper .I do like Kim Gordons vocals in fact i`d say she`s in my top 5 of female vocalist. She manages to pull of sexy , agressive and vunerable all at the same time.Sometime I find it rather unsettling but always captivating. Silver Rocket is another of my favourite songs off the album and one of my favourite Sonic Youth 'ROCK' songs. In fact this is the song they played the first time I ever saw the band on TV. With Thurston Moore in bright green pants & the band surrounded by fairy lights. I always picture that in my head everytime I hear this song now.
By now on any other Sonic Youth album i`d figure 2 songs in so i`m bound to not like the next song , but no ... not on this album The Sprawl in my opinion is one of the bands best , yet most ignored songs. Kim Gordons vocals are bursting with sexuality & attitute , I could listen to that woman yelling '**** YOU' over & over again in the context of a song quite happily.It sufferes a bit towards the end with the usual '3 minute jangly bit' but you expect a song called The Sprawl to be a bit .... well y`know Sprawling? In contrast the next song Cross The Breeze is much the same in style only much harder and with Thurston on vocals this time the song doesn`t lose direction & is much
stronger for it.

The second half of the album is where the real strength lies , not that the songs on it are fantastic but because although some of them are obvious filler ,they are really really solid good songs. The likes of Eric`s Trip , Hey Joni , Total Trash or Kissability on any other Sonic Youth album they would probably be highlights. Not as good as the first half of the album but stick them on any other album & they would be. When you have filler tracks that good you know you have a special album. What the second half of the album has though is Candle. Make me write a list of all my favourite Sonic Youth songs and Candle would top the list , no question. Very much the same as Teen Age Riot in structure but much much more listenable. This is almost the nearest that Sonic Youth have come to doing a commercially sounding rock song.If anything I think it`s a huge shame they didn`t do much more of this. They did on 'Dirty' but not as good as this sadly.
The album finishes with the epic 14 minute Trilogy , which is basically just an excuse to stick 3 songs on as one. One of the things i`ve noticed about this song(s) is that the encapsulate Sonic Youth`s career in one song. The Wonder sounds like it could have come off their previous 'Sister' album , Hyperstation could be easily slotted onto the Evol album & nobody would notice.And the album ends with the punk rock blast of Eliminator JR which brings us back to the days of Kill Yr Idols /Confusion Is Sex era Sonic Youth.
And thats what makes this album special , the best of the past mixed with what was to come with Goo & Dirty. Their whole career in one album. And because of mainly this album i`ll always be getting whatever new album they come out with , even if I don`t like a single song on it , i`ll still get the album that comes out after it.

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swim

You make very happy that you put this album so high on your list.

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hookers with machineguns

What do you think about Washing Machine? The last track on the album is probably my favorite youth song. EVER.

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cardboard adolescent

I think Daydream Nation has too much filler for it to make its way into my top 10.

Urban Hat€monger ?

Yeah I do rate The Diamond Sea pretty highly myself , best song on the album by a long way.I just don`t rate the rest of the album very highly.

I think there are much worse Sonic Youth albums for that

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Urban Hat€monger ?

You won`t be finding OK Computer on this list.
Why? , well 2 reasons really
1. I think this is Radioheads best album
2. OK Computer wasn`t even the best album to come out in 1997 , What was? ... well you`ll find that out when I do the entry for No 4
Amnesiac seems to be a very misunderstood album. I think one of the reasons for that is nobody was really knowing what to expect before it was released. I think a lot of fans at the time were expecting something along the lines of The Bends. Given that the band themselves said that Amnesiac would be darker & harder there was a school of thought that all the experimentation would be on Kid A , and that Amnesiac would be more like the old Radiohead............WRONG!!!!!!!
I find it sad that some people view Amnesiac as a Kid A leftovers album , it`s nothing of the sort. I think it stands up perfectly on it`s own merits. It was always planned that there were 2 albums going to be released.
Having said that if you listen to Radioheads progression from one album to another it makes a lot more sense to listen to Amnesiac between OK Computer & Kid A rather than in the order they were released. It just seems to me that Amnesiac is more of a natural successor to OK Computer than Kid A was. I think the band screwed up big time releasing Kid A first , I think releasing Amnesiac first would have soften the blow so to speak about how people would take to Kid A. In fact i`m still not 100% on Kid A myself.
It took me a good while to get into Amnesiac , my reaction on hearing it when it was released was lukewarm to say the least. I didn`t hate it I just wasn`t sure if I liked it. Slowly I began to pick up on things , the first being Knives Out which is probably the most 'trad' Radiohead song on there.Then I Might Be Wrong , You And Whos Army and Pyramid Song soon became favourites.
I think releasing a live album of the Kid A / Amnesiac stuff really helped getting into this album , as did seeing the band live myself (Best gig i`ve ever been to ) These songs, although very technically enhanced , sometimes too much if i`m honest really work well in a live setting. Thats because the basics of these songs is great songwriting , great lyrics and a with good platform to build on. When you realise that then you realise that under all the studio trickery there are song really really great songs and that all the overdubs , samples , loops & all the rest of it just enhance them , on most occasions anyway. In fact thats how I discovered what a great song Like Spinning Plates was after hearing it live for the first time.
And thats why I rate this album so highly. Even 5 years on i`m STILL discovering new things on this album. In fact just listening to it today it suddenly struck me how i`d never noticed what a good song Dollars & Cents was.For some reason that song has always past me by , yet listening to it on it`s own without hearing the rest of the album to judge it by I was blown away by the sheer quality of it.

Anyway , I have a confession to make ...... I LOVE Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors. I`m sorry but it needs saying. I`ve seen this dismissed as being utter rubbish and I think it`s sad. I also think it`s the opinion of the 'idiot' contingent of Radiohead fans who think Creep is their best song (I hate Creep , just thought i`d throw that in) and who constantly go on about how the Bends is a great album (It`s good but it`s also really dated in my opinion). In other words Radiohead fans who also listen to Coldplay & U2 rather than DJ Shadow & Aphex Twin ...HA!!
Are these people deaf? it`s a f*cking great song. It`s funky as hell , it`s like the bastard offspring of Can & Kraftwerk for the 21st century and you know how much I adore Can & Kraftwerk .It`s a bloody highlight of the album not a detrement. You want a detrement listen to bloody Electioneering on OK Computer a song that smacks of 'I can see this album is going to be a bit challenging to some people so we`ll stick an riff based uptempo rock song to make them happy even though it doesn`t fit the tone of the album whatsoever and sticks out like a bloody huge sore thumb '
(I wonder how many people I can upset with this review)
It`s not a perfect album by any means ,but then again it would be No 1 in my list if it was. I`ve never liked Morning Bell much but it`s a slight improvement on the Kid A version , Hunting Bears is just a glorified intro to nothing & Life In A Glasshouse , well it`s a good idea having Thom Yorke sing something thats approaching 1940s style jazz , but I can`t help think his voice doesn`t suit it at all. But props for attempting it.It would be interesting to hear a better singer cover this , somebody like David McAlmont or Luke Haynes would be ideal.
I think if you take those 3 songs off and replace them with A National Anthem , Idioteque & Everything In Its Right Place you`d have the greatest album ever made. But on it`s own merits I think 5 does nicely.

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Merkaba

Nice^

You know what you could do Urban? When you've finished the 100, you could go through and tally up how which albums come from which year. We could see which years were most decorated with great albums.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

Thats a good idea I might just do that

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