[screamingskull]

Originally Posted by jetengine

'Screaming Skull' gets in my brain and stays there.

hoooray for Experimental jet set trash and no star!!!!!!

Its was the 3rd SY album i ever bought, and i just loved it (why i am called screamingskull), i also thought they looked soooooo damn kool in all the photo's.

Thurston looks great here

 

and here

 

[Protectmeyou]

Skink is one of the very best SY songs. So atmospheric.

[andrei]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Androgenous Mind: This is one of those eternal can't decide songs for me.

It's my favorite Exp Jet Set song along with Tokyo Eye. I always wondered what is Androgynous Mind about? Is that about Cobain?!?

[Hip Priest]

In the Mind of the Bourgeois Reader is my choice track.

It's a good LP, probably not so popular because it came in the middle of a wonderful series of releases, and didn't quite match them for overall class. I wouldn't want to be without it though.

[Insignificant]

Jet Set... is the perfect example of the transitional album. It occurs between two major albums or eras in a band's history, in this case Dirty and Washing Machine. As a result, the album's overall identity is confused, oscillating between one extreme ("In the Mind of the Bourgeois Reader") and its polar opposite ("Sweet Shine"). While the songs are often quite good, and always interesting, only one or two stick out as single material, and even those are telling. Idiosyncracies appear (more resigned Kim vocals, acoustic songs) and disappear (the mandatory Lee song), if only for one album, sometimes staying on into the next "stage".

That said, I really like this album. "Skink" and "Starfield Road" are really underrated songs.

[Sheriff Rhys Chatham]

My friend bought it used today.
$6
and washing machine, same price.
Thanks to me.

[Pax Americana]

Originally Posted by andrei

I always wondered what is Androgynous Mind about? Is that about Cobain?!?

I've always thought that it was, but I can't say for sure.

[deadrockstar]

it's my favourite sy album. it was the first one i bought and i got it at the lowest moment of my life (so far - go homer!). maybe you've got to be incredibly low, introspective and open to connect with it. anyway, i got it out of a second hand shop for £3 or something, in mint condition with the postcards still inside - an absolute steal. it's so underrated. i even had the audacity to be disappointed when i bought my next sy album - bad moon rising. i took it back to the shop and traded it for washing machine in the end, but that's another story.

like someone said before - skink and starfield road are outstanding tracks, two of their best. the apex of kims career is skink, i think. i get the feeling that everything before this was a truncated offering on her part. in the experimental context of the album she finally put down a track as playgroundy as she wanted to. it's a beautiful piece of honesty. it's tender, you can't help but fall in love with her. she doesn't have to pretend she had balls the size of grapefruits, she doesn't need to grunt her confrontation with you - she's at her most open, beautiful and tonally articulate.

lyrically the album may not be great, but at least it's not cliché. i'm all for 'bad' poetry as long as it is playful and fun. you know, the meter and rhythm and all those other pieces of poetic-jargon crap are FANTASTIC on this album, i think people must object to the words themselves and the nonsensicalness of it all. they were having fun, doing what sonic youth do best - making cool sounds. it's a lyrical jam, no pretension of meaning or substance - just kick-arse sounds conveying the strongest emotional stuff sy have ever done, in my ever so humble opinion. the words don't so much tell a story as create an environment, an environment you can certainly pull meaning from. they're jazzy, in an ageless way (not classic, just free and childlike).

if starfield road was 10 minutes long it would be one of their masterpieces. the abruptness of its ending is one of my only disappointments on this album (apart from androgynous mind, which sounds like a throwaway from thurstons solo album). it reminds me, in so many ways, of mildred pierce. although, having heard the extended version of that, maybe it is better that they cut starfield road so abruptly.


bugger it. watch this.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=AOkRCPgfUVY

get mozilla, get unplug plugin, unplug this, download flv converter, convert it into your preferred format, stick it on your video ipod, watch it every morning on the train to work surrounded by hundreds of people. see if you notice them at all.


the people wondering if AM is about cobain - you know, i can't say why, but i've always thought a good part of the album was about cobain, especially AM. never heard anyone make reference to it before so it's nice to know others have that feeling too.

[Pessimist]

I always think the "and" in the title should be changed to "or".

[ahhavalon]

The first times I heard experimental jet set, i wasn't really paying attention to it- it was pretty much background noise. I listened to it enough times in that way until i had basically memorized the whole thing, then discovered what a great album it is.

[atsonicpark]

damn this thread won't die

[follow.blind]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuIidVMLTtM
'Rock'n'roll' upside-down, isn't it? So underrated.

[deadrockstar]

Originally Posted by follow.blind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuIidVMLTtM
'Rock'n'roll' upside-down, isn't it? So underrated.

oh yeah, self-obsessed and sexxee. another of their best tracks. reminds me of shoot, for some reason.

and what about screaming skull, in the mind of the bourgeios reader, bone etc. etc.

so many great tracks on this album. does anyone have a specific objection to the album? all i ever hear is that it's crap. why? is it the flow of the album? the tempo? perhaps it is just unfortunate to be jammed between dirty and washing machine (the later following very shortly afterwards). maybe people forgot about it more than hated it?

one thing i really dislike is when people say it is their quietest album. i don't get this, there are plenty moments of screaming guitars, lots of nice feedback. sure, there are a lot of harmonics - but then there is a lot of that on rather ripped. it's certainly more downbeat, but quiet only if you stop listening after winners blues.

maybe i'm just a fanboy, i wouldn't give any of their albums less than 3 1/2 stars.

[EvdWee]

i guess people call i quite 'cause of the production...

[ZEROpumpkins]

Proabably the most forgettable SY release, but it isn't bad at all.

[Toilet & Bowels]

if you don't love expjetset then as far as i am concerned you have no soul.
NO SOUL!

[therealglenstyler]

I love love love this one, sounds like airports and any record that sounds like airports is pretty spesh to me. J

[atari 2600]

Originally Posted by andrei

It's my favorite Exp Jet Set song along with Tokyo Eye. I always wondered what is Androgynous Mind about? Is that about Cobain?!?

Nice taste there.

I take it to be more about Jung's concept of the Anima and Animus, Taoism's Yin (receptive principle) and Yang (creative priniciple) energies, Blake's "Androgyne," or perhaps a little of all of the above rolled into a raw, rocking song.

Now "Junkie's Promise" on Washing Machine, that one, in particular and as you may know, is about Cobain. But, you probably have a point, andrei. The whole "and you were right" line sure does echo some Cobainisms...especially on "All Apologies."

Oh, and "Androgynous Mind" reminds me ever-so-slightly of The Coolies' "Pussy Cook."

[val-holla-ing]

hate this album. it's my least fav of any of them.

Originally Posted by deadrockstar

if starfield road was 10 minutes long it would be one of their masterpieces. the abruptness of its ending is one of my only disappointments on this album (apart from androgynous mind, which sounds like a throwaway from thurstons solo album). it reminds me, in so many ways, of mildred pierce. although, having heard the extended version of that, maybe it is better that they cut starfield road so abruptly.

I've always thouhgt the same about that song. As for Androgynous Mind, I read an interview at the time where Thurston Moore explained that it was about the mental violence that the mind of a homosexual is subjected to by a tormentor, or society in general. I trusted it to be correct and he wasn't just kidding, because it makes perfect sense if you listen to the song itself and hear the sense of mental anguish and anxiety that the progressive screaming of the character in it reflects. I've asked about this on the questions thread because I'd like a confirmation in that it is an incredible song just from a purely psychological point of view, but who knows?