Best Produced Sonic Youth Album?
 

Note this isn't a question of which album you guys think is the most technically proficiently recorded, its more about which record's production do you think was the best and added the most for the band.

Although I love 80s Sonic Youth alot of those albums feel stunted where a better producer could have given the songs more texture or kick. For me its daydream nation which says something about a huge budget because they definitely didn't have one for that yet it still sounds so powerful. Besides that Washing Machine's and Nurse's production made the songs stronger, like added this surreal dimension to the music.

Goo, Sonic Nurse and Washing Machine

Goo, Washing Machine.

I would have to say Nurse

Washing Machine

I think the production for NYC Ghosts & Flowers fits the tracks themselves perfectly. Indeed, Washing Machine, Nurse and Murray Street also have great productions. I'd have to disagree with Goo though... I think like this is easily their worst produced album, it has that heavy feeling that doesn't go at all with Sonic Youth in my opinion.

experimental jet set, murray street, nurse

edit: oh, and nycgf

washing machine, nyc and ATL.

ATL too.

washing machine. hands down.

Sister

1) sonic nurse (hands down)

2) A Thousand Leaves

3) Daydream Nation

Best = Sonic Nurse – sounds amazing
Favorite = Sister – sounds wonderful

Sister, Goo, DDN

Nobody wants to say 'Dirty'?

I second 'Washing Machine', 'Nurse', and I suppose 'Murray Street'... 'Thousand Leaves' sounds terrible all over, bad mix too. That's okay, they were just getting used to their studio.

Washing Machine, no contest.

ATL sounds very nice to my ears.

Clearly the answer is Washing Machine.

I also love Sister's. There's a certain charm of that record which helps it a lot.

~Jeremy~

i thought i might be alone in mentioning washing machine... what a relief.

From a pure "tecnichal" standpoint, I think I can agree with you, but both ATL and NYC sounds are, to my ears, pretty much fitting the songs.
ATL more "roboant" (?), NYC almost stripped down to the basics.
Can't explain this better, but I always loved the sound of songs like Female Mechanic, Hoarfrost, Karen Koltrane, Sunday... And, as widely known on here, I simply ADORE nyc on so many levels..
(On this matter, did you get my pm, Chris?)

kind of, it's how the songs have been recorded and how they sound as a result of that, think of the difference between the way the drums sounds on an 80s pop record (all boomy and synthetic) and the way they sound on a james brown record (warm and heavy) to how they sound on MBV record (quiet and far away)

that would be:

1. Nurse

2. A thousand leaves

3. Dirty

1000 leaves
ddn
evol

First album that came to mind was Sonic Nurse, great production on that record.

I would say the best produced SY album is SONIC NURSE. It just sounds like they are playing in my room.

I wish the sonic youth would trecord an album and let ALBINI DO THE BIZNASS.

My second fave produced album would be often maligned DIRTY.
Playing DIRTY on a monster system LOUD, you can hear all the skronk and all the riffssss

GOOD: Sonic Nurse / Washing Machine / NYC Ghosts

BAD: Goo / Rather Ripped

I can't really think of any time the production of a particular SY album has been unfitting for the band or the songs themselves. Like, some may argue the Confusion is Sex or Bad Moon Rising doesn't sound like the band did live, but I think in some instances (Shaking Hell comes easiest to mind, because of the live version at the end of the disc I have) where burying certain sounds that would otherwise be very loud definitely added to the somewhat creepy vibe the band's songs had in those days. Likewise, some might say Dirty sounded too "clean", but the band was moving more toward the mainstream in those days so it would be fitting for them to deliver a well-polished and "professional" sounding product.

The only time I feel any SY album wasn't very well produced (and I hate to pick on this one so much) from an objective standpoint was Rather Ripped. The vocals sound much cleaner than the music, which sounds somewhat muddier and muffled. I think the band was aiming for a "warm" sound there, but it ended up sounding like someone was singing in one room and the band was playing in another...

I get the feeling CIS, Bad Moon Rising, Sister and EVOL wouldn't be as enjoyable as they are if they had a professional production.

My favourite production is probably from their last albums.. the 'clean' sound.. though.. maybe it's only me, but I feel 'The Eternal' is too high on the bass rate.. I always EQ it.. it rocks.

Well, for me the subwoofer is one of the greatest inventions of the modern era, so I like The Eternal's production.

*shoots SW*

what no props for the Eternal? Lee sings more. Steve and Mark together make for a stronger percussion section. Lee and Thurston's interweaving guitars and it's the clearest and strongest that I've heard Kim sing. While not my favorite album it seems to me like the best from a standpoint of the band sounding like one entity.

Sonic Nurse has the best production to date. I've been screaming this for forever. You can hear the space on Sonic Nurse so when it burns it REALLY burns! I was spoiled with the production on Sonic Nurse and now everything after it pales.

Yes, sonic nurse is really well produced, I just think it's more "normal" in a sense, like, "that's how things should sound", I don't think this adds to the songs, except focusing/making even more apparent the goodness.

At least, reading the first post I don't think we're supposed to say which is the best produced perdiod, but the best produced adding something to the songs...ah I'm lame, you got it I hope

well, for 'best production for the songs' it's DIRTY hands down. that record slays. yes, i'm serious.

i still can't believe 'a thousand leaves' is getting so much praise in this thread. i LOVE the songs, but the production and the finished takes always felt very unbalanced to me. some songs are perfect -- 'karen' (minus the tape running out ending), 'snare, girl', maybe even 'heather angel' but.. well, i've said this so much before, i probably anticipated that album more than any other SY record when it came out, i was just the right age where music was the entire world to me, and they were premiering all of the songs live a year in advance and i just had such high expectations.. i often wonder how i would've felt about it if i hadn't been SO familiar with the material prior to its release.

basically, i think several of the songs with the most potential just were not captured well at all. i don't know what the hell happened to 'female mechanic' but when you compare the PBS 'sessions' version to the LP version, it just CRUSHES it.. and it's HALF OF THE SAME PERFORMANCE!! the bass on this album sounds like a joke.. the mix is a little topsy turvy overall.. blah, i don't know. i hate to be so negative about an album so many people clearly love, and I love it too, but i was just so disappointed with how some of it turned out. ever since then, i made a point to not obsess over the new material inside/out before the album is out... which i think works much better in the long run as much as i enjoy documenting the progress of the art of songcrafting.

the scary part is, i could probably write another ten paragraphs on this very topic. and like i said above, i've come around to it in recent years.. and i DO love all the songs... but i'll take a '98 tour soundboard anyday.

My love for ATL is so overwhelming that I want to be buried with my
vinyl copy of it, yet...yes, the 5/29/98 soundboard recording is like
listening to a galaxy form.

Dirty's production is ace; the only song that suffers for it is "Wish
Fulfillment." I've heard Lee solo versions that get to the heart of what
that song is far better than the Vig/Wallace big wall o' crunch.

The drums sound so bad on Washing Machine--save "Diamond Sea" and
"No Queen Blues"--that I can never consider that a personal classic.
Which is sad, considering some of my favorite SY guitar work is on that
album.

Bad Moon Rising followed by Confusion is Sex.

I love Washing Machine and Sonic Nurse, and the production is certainly masterful, but I'm an avant garagehead at heart when push comes to shove.

I say yes for Sonic Nurse and Goo.

I think Dirty is bit too heavy sounding. Thinner sound world is better in Sonic Youth's music.

Yeah, her part (which is the primary riff of the song), along with the drums, is played in this real laidback, lazy kind of way on the record...no live version was ever played that way. No idea why they went with that version for the record. That song destroys live.

I love 'Washing Machine' but some of the mixing choices are a little curious (aren't the drums hard-panned in some of the songs? or the guitars are panned differently than normal, which shouldn't make a difference but kinda does?)...

Yeah, I think having the chance to hear the song "premiered" could influence quite a lot the opinion on the finished record.
Mind you, one of my fav "things" about "Female Mechanic" is exactly that sort of weird laidback mood running through the song.
Also I like when live versions are different from the record (especially for bands who have no particular problems having recordings circulating :D), I think I can love both versions in different ways, not considering one necessarily "better" than the other.
But my POV is obviously different from yours, as in I get the chance to see them once in a few years, basically supporting an already released album, and had no "live experience" prior to the "Goodbye" tour :( :( . Sometimes I wish I was older (or at least NOT in a near-to-death-bed with a fuckin' 41°C fever the days they toured WM, and near my hometown to add to my misery...)..