[syntax-free]

whats wrong with dirty boots video? i like it

[hazel]

I think goo is their most accross the board punk record till that point. And i mean the straight-up strain of punk. They'd been dying to be less arty and more punk for years, that's what warmed them to steve in the 1st place. When i saw the goo tour I thought it was really streamlined, all the fat taken out, and there's something to be said for that (even though they do excell at the 'good fat'). that quality of the goo stuff seemed well married to them being on a major label for the 1st time.. straight foreward is also accessible. but that might have been a happy convenience as opposed to something mercenary

[Trasher02]

I really like "Goo" probably because it's the first SY album I picked up so it has some sentimental value to me.

Mote is just epic, the first SY song I've heard and it was love on first sight, it took me a while to get into the noise part though... Somehow it grew on me like fungus.

[kenning]

Okay, I'm game.

1. Dirty Boots. I still remember buying the vinyl on the day this album was released, walking home to my crappy apartment, and dropping the needle. I was curious, to say the least, because I figured there was no life after Daydream Nation. I think I thought DN was a fluke--that they'd lucked into being able to combine noise and lulling atmospherics with songcraft, wit and snazz. Fade up into that ethereal tone and you're immediately in space (life goes on after all). This is the first time Steve does that thing with the shaker to fill out (slightly off-kilter) his rhythm. That killed me and still does. Simple but effective--he's been my favorite rock drummer ever since. The lyrics are promising, but were better before I figured them out verbatim. The chord progression sounds totally familiar, even the proto-grunge freak out midway through, but that's because they invented that shit, not because you've heard it before. The song ends in swirls, but that last crash hit sounds like an afterthought, like a band in a room playing (complete with amp hum) when all this time you'd thought you were listening to an alien orchestra. This song is a masterpiece.

2. Tunic. Scary. Not funny. Where "The Sprawl" left off, this one takes over. It's the best Sonic Youth video, too. Some of Kim's best lyrics between "Shadow of a Doubt" and the stuff on "A Thousand Leaves."

3. Mary-Christ. Coming out of the oceanic couple of album openers, the first stab of this song reminded me of what a powerful rock band SY could be. Kind of fun--reminds me of the odd angularity of Thurston's songs on "Sister," which was my favorite album leading up to this point. Sill sounds good.

4. Kool Thing. In part, this is a great song because it captured something of the times--I think you had to be there, but maybe not. Imagine a moment when Nirvana still really weren't even that good. Grunge did not exist. Public Enemy were the most transgressive thing white dweebs like us could find. Then Kim comes along and does that duet. The other reason it's a great song is that it once and for all made good on the Stooges/MC5/Ramones cock-rock punk influence that'd been looking for a home in SY's music for years. The riff bends into their signature tunings in a way that is unique. No one will ever play a note of this riff more convincingly.

5. Mote. Fulfills the promise of Lee's poetry in song. One thing that tends to go unrecognized about Lee is that he's a confessionalist, and in some ways he's better at it than he is at being a beatnik. So the riff off of Sylvia Plath is both homage and spontaneous self-expression. This was released when I still believed in both. No mannerisms when he follows his lead part in the chorus, unlike Kurt's more widely imitated rendition of that little trick. The wind-out full of noise and churning (looping?) alien transmissions is totally spot on and plays out the ramifications of the pop song that leads into it. It never dissipates, so they fade it. I wish they'd have given us the whole thing on the reissue. Where did it go from there?!

6. My Friend Goo. Good for a laugh. But weirdly, years later, the damn thing gets stuck in my head and won't leave. I'd never say it's catchy, but I guess it is.

7. Disappearer. This one didn't stand the test of time. It's trying to do what candle did, but this time with better lyrics. I'll give it that. But I still skip it when this track comes on.

8. Mildred Pierce. Simple layering of a quasi-metal progression around some funked out new wave beat patrol--exploding into some art-school radio hijinks. At the time it seemed profound and I'd have killed or died to hear it live. Never will, I bet.

9. Cinderella's Big Score. Brilliant. Once or twice a rock song has seemed to be "talking about my life." This was one of those times. Everyone's playing for the song--they just gel. The vocal harmonies (subtle and few) are eerie and perfect. Also wish'd I'd heard it live.

10. Scooter and Jinx. This would make no sense if it weren't for the fade in immediately after. Well, the video makes sense of it in another way.

11. Titanium Expose. The raw, reflective feedback that opens this song is proof positive that the band have a sophisticated and widening sense of the sounds they are capable of producing without a plectrum. More new-wave leads interlacing over angular beats and occasional chunky rock passages that just sound great, especially here where most bands land their power ballad. The alternating vocals betweek Thurston and Kim are extraordinarly effective and should be used more often (see "Schizophrenia"). Like Daydream Nation, we're given a definite sense of closure. The coda collapses in on itself and we hear the very last touch of sound. It's also a love song, which they've proven to do so well without most people noticing. Compare to the next great album closer of that year: "Something in the Way." The Youth clearly emerge victors by contrast. I think that if they revived this song to close their shows, it'd become a "classic" in retrospect.

[Cantankerous]

cinderellas big score is one of my favorites on goo. apparently its kim addressing her brother or something, according to thurston?

[syntax-free]

"The alternating vocals betweek Thurston and Kim are extraordinarly effective and should be used more often (see "Schizophrenia")."

i agree with that alot because i think schizophrenia is probably one of their best songs, mainly because it actually sounds like a mental illness, and kim and thurston should definitely share more songs.

[Pax Americana]

Goo is probably their most accessible record, in my opinion. I have friends who really don't like SY but love "Kool Thing" and "Dirty Boots". Still, I like this record a lot. I know it's hated on quite a bit by some people cause it's their first major label record and whatever. I think maybe some people don't like it cause they feel it was kind of a let down after Daydream Nation, which is understandable, but you've gotta evaluate the album on it's own merits and not just write it off cause you thought they'd never top Daydream. Anway, I really do enjoy Goo. "Tunic" is one of my single favorite SY songs of all time, the guitars on this track (and the whole record really) just seem to buzz so perfectly, and the tone of the song is just so dark... I love it! Also, the intro to "Cinderella's Big Score" is amazing, in fact, the whole song is pretty good, but that intro always sticks out in my mind. "My Friend Goo" sucks, I really can't stand that one at all, but overall I really like this album a lot.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by kenning

4. Kool Thing. In part, this is a great song because it captured something of the times--I think you had to be there, but maybe not. Imagine a moment when Nirvana still really weren't even that good. Grunge did not exist. Public Enemy were the most transgressive thing white dweebs like us could find. Then Kim comes along and does that duet. The other reason it's a great song is that it once and for all made good on the Stooges/MC5/Ramones cock-rock punk influence that'd been looking for a home in SY's music for years. The riff bends into their signature tunings in a way that is unique. No one will ever play a note of this riff more convincingly.

I totally agree about Kool Thing being some kind of symbolic coming-together of two major forces. As a song its sort of dated now but then it seemed somehow significant. Much has been made of the parallels between DDN and It Takes a Nation of Millions in that awful DDN book. But even though the case may be overstated, there was a definite sense at the time that PE and SY were in their own ways the two most vital forces in popular music.

I'm listening to Goo again right now, and have to say that I was probably too harsh in what I said about it before. It has this overall epic sense that isn't reducable to individual tracks, being somehow better than the sum of its parts. Still not a great album in my opinion, equally it's not the disaster I made it out to be.

[k-krack]

Love this album, and I disagree almost compeltely with everything said in the first post. Honestly, I love how this one sounds, really filthy and messy, and I don't often pay much attentiont to production. Good songs needn't worry about production, if they are good songs. Goo has good songs (in fact, it has some fucking brilliant songs, including Mary-Christ, Mote, Dirty Boots, Dissappearer, etc.). It also has one of their worst songs... My Friend Goo. And admittedly, Scooter + Jinx is just filler, but still short enough to not care about it's fillerosity. It's a cool listen anyway.
Yeh, more unchained thoughts on an album!

But for real, demonrail... space these threads out more...

[Dead-Air]

Personally, I think I may like Goo slightly more than Daydream Nation, at least at times. I'm still way more into the experimental/noise side of the band ala Bad Moon Rising and the SYR series, but as their poppier records go, I think Goo is nearly as fully realized as Sister, Daydream, and Washing Machine. Or for that matter the first record, which is another poppier one.

I never for the life of me understand this dichotomy of saying they did something or were some way up to a certain point in time and then never again. That just isn't Sonic Youth. They've always pushed at least two boundaries and sometimes focus on one more than the other. They followed the first record in all it's pristine glory with Confusion is Sex and then when everybody wanted to brand them "noise rock" they went back to melodic weird tuning stuff.

Goo is not my favorite Sonic Youth album, but I still love it, and think it's better than 99% of the recorded music I've had to hear in my life. My favorite song is "Titanium Expose" and there are some I like more than others, but even the cheesier moments ("Goo", "Kool Thing") work as they are so obviously intentionally so. I beg to differ on "Scooter and Jinx", as it's a cool little noise burst and doesn't pretend to be anything else. Kern's video for it is fucking awesome too!

In fact, the Goo video album is honestly about the only fully videoized album I've ever watched all the way through that consistently worked. The mix of visual and director styles is totally in line with the mix of audio directions. It's fun to watch and fun to listen to.

This seems to sum it up rather well actually: "It has this overall epic sense that isn't reducable to individual tracks, being somehow better than the sum of its parts."

All sparkly and shit.

[atsonicpark]

yeah, let me just reiterate: this is one of the worst-produced albums i've ever heard.

[syntax-free]

Originally Posted by Trasher02

I really like "Goo" probably because it's the first SY album I picked up so it has some sentimental value to me.

Mote is just epic, the first SY song I've heard and it was love on first sight, it took me a while to get into the noise part though... Somehow it grew on me like fungus.

it was my first too

[Torn Curtain]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

7. Disappearer. There's no substitute for good songwriting and all the nice little guitar lines in the world won't save this from being just a pretty bad song. It's like 100 things going on at once, only about five of which are any good.

Weird because to me Disappearer is perfect.

[deadrockstar]

Originally Posted by kenning

Okay, I'm game......<snip>

i share your thoughts almost in their entirely so i'm not going to repeat them.

tunic: don't particularly like the video and not too hot on the lyrics, but love the song.

titanium expose: possibly the only sonic youth song that bothers me. i just can't get past what i perceive to be an awful main riff. it sounds more like a guitar exercise than a valid melody. the rest of the song is good, especially the powerful chord parts and vocal interchanges, but i would have prefered they closed with cinderella's big score.

it would have been less closure, but it would have driven home the point of cinderella's big score (and the album in general) perfectly. to finish such a conflicting album on such a 'high' track just seems pointless to me. the album needed a closing track that was full of love, despair, anger and loss i.e. cinderella's big score.

i don't think titanium expose belongs on this album; the fact that it is and it's positioning in the flow of the album perhaps helps to explains scooter and jinx a little bit better. maybe the label had hoped to make this a single or wanted some filler (6.30 min), i dunno - just doesn't smell right.

i always finish my listen of goo after cinderella's big score, it makes perfect (if short) sense that way.

[Torn Curtain]

Originally Posted by deadrockstar

tunic: don't particularly like the video and not too hot on the lyrics, but love the song.

I like the lyrics, they show an understanding of what anorexia is really about.

[Dead-Air]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

yeah, let me just reiterate: this is one of the worst-produced albums i've ever heard.

Huh, perhaps this is why I find it sounds so good played through a t.v. from vhs tape.

So many of my favorite albums are considered "worst-produced" by somebody or other. I've taken shit from a record producer I didn't particularly like at all for playing Electro-Purra by Yo La Tengo for instance. Often the records that somebody hates production-wise that I still love are not the same records that other people hate for that same aesthetic reason.

Mind, I'm not belittling anyone for judging music aesthetically, there is no other way really, but I just don't find the judgements consistent in any sort of technical way. Attacking "production" often strikes me as a way to try and claim that one's own taste is backed up by some sort of technical reality, when more often, it's just taste.

[Rab]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I
I'm listening to Goo again right now, and have to say that I was probably too harsh in what I said about it before. It has this overall epic sense that isn't reducable to individual tracks, being somehow better than the sum of its parts. Still not a great album in my opinion, equally it's not the disaster I made it out to be.

Well, I'm glad some of us have at least helped you revise your opinion - I listened to Murray St today and liked it more then I had ever done before.

It isn't a patch on Goo, though, which some of us (well, me anyway) hold to be the best album of all time - ever!

Rab

[Torn Curtain]

Originally Posted by Dead-Air

Attacking "production" often strikes me as a way to try and claim that one's own taste is backed up by some sort of technical reality, when more often, it's just taste.

You have a point.

[atsonicpark]

no.

i'm saying that the production is muddy and makes it sound weird, especially for a major lable debut. that's pretty much a fact that 99% of people agree with. i even said in my first post "bad production can't hide that it's a good song"; but it can make it a chore to listen to.

[atari 2600]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

no.

i'm saying that the production is muddy and makes it sound weird, especially for a major lable debut. that's pretty much a fact that 99% of people agree with. i even said in my first post "bad production can't hide that it's a good song"; but it can make it a chore to listen to.

http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/sho...2&postcount=29