definitely, i agree.

it's also the culmination of their transition into a band that wrote songs instead of dirges, a process that started with sister.

and dirty was my first sy album, it took me a bit to like it but by the second listen, i was into most of the songs.

sy's worst album, mostly because it sounds like rushed demos, is rather ripped, by far.

touche! to be fair though I didn't say i didn't like it, just that its a bit dull in places.

yeah rather ripped is also horrible.

this is the only "reassessing" thread where i didn't listen to the album while posting about it, which kinda defeats the purpose, but ... my thoughts on this album are pretty clear. i've heard it about 4 times. it's better than i had heard people saying it was , but worse than i wanted it to be.

One person's "shockingly bad lyrics" are another person's "incredible, stirring lyrics - some of the best Thurston's ever written." I like how Thurston brought together SY's experience of playing in a redneck cop bar in Chapel Hill with the conflict between the fringe/radicals and the Bush administration. And I find it very touching that Bob Sheldon got a good tribute. (And I think musically it's also a great song.)

As for the rest of the album, I find most of it utterly fantastic, except for Nic Fit, which is so obnoxious I have to instantly hit the forward button on the CD player.

Wish Fulfillment is a catchy song and I don't mind hearing it, it's just that it's far too conventional for SY. It sounds like a song another band could write, and I prefer it when SY puts their own unique bit into songs.

And I'll agree with the love for Orange Rolls--it's one of the occasions when Kim has put her unique voice to excellent effect.

This album's another one of their 'meh' albums.
i love chapell hill and purr, though.
they're songs that sound like the band was having fun.
but shoot is cringe worthy, and wish fulfillment is lee's worst song, should have been genetic.

I agree with both of you.

Dirty rules......eat my ass.

That's called rimming. That was easy.

But this album is my favorite, this is what turned me on to SY.

Dirty is such a beautifully crystallized sounding album to me....I'm kind of partial though because of the time and place that I heard the album etc. etc.

I'm kind of there with you. I really like listening to songs off of the record, but rarely want to listen to it all the way through. When it came out, I was thrilled to get so much new Sonic Youth all at once that I played it to death straight through, but these days I don't do that very often. It sound more like a big collection of songs than an album too. A lot of really great songs, but not a cohesive song cycle. I feel that way about EJST&NS too. Aside from those two records, nearly all Sonic Youth albums are albums first, collections of individual tracks second, so it does make me less into them.

Though of course "less into" a Sonic Youth record for me usually means "really like it" just not quite to "love it".

I don't get why the production is so bashed. In my opinion the record sounds great.

agreed!

Okay, Dirty is not Sonic best, but it is maybe because of this album that you can find all the Sonic discography everywhere in the world... it opened a lot of doors to a different music and this is good...
Moreover there are great songs in it ! 100%, Shoot, Orange rolls, Youth against fascism or On the strip... and the great guitar solo of Chapell Hill !
You can enter in Sonic Youth with it and then go further, there's no problem with that...

mmmm

scarlett.

well... belotte

I love Dirty, it is a great album. Kim totally dominates.

It would have been a much stronger album if Shoot, Creme Brulee, Chapel Hill, Youth Against Fascism, and Nic Fit were taken off though.

My main complaint about the album is it starts to teeter off on the 2nd half.

you know, actually, this one MIGHT be better than the one before it because it doesn't have "my friend goo" on it.

okay, wait.. looking at the tracklisting.. every song on here is worse than "my friend goo". how is that even possible?!

haha i know, i was kidding.

"MY FRIEND GOO JUST SEZ P.U." (lee/thurston/steve: "hey goo what's new") "MY FRIEND GOO JUST SEZ P.UUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" wasting such a good bass line. hmph.

This is true, but it was so the point. So I'll agree with "most annoying", but not "worst" since I think they achieved exactly what they set out to do. The video is actually pretty fun too as it's even more sophmoric than the song on it's own. The song is dumb enough to pass for new wave on an '80s night, which led for a bonding experience between me and Scotty the now deceased drummer from KARP back in Oly when I was djing at the dance club there.

karp. word!