The Rise of Sonic Youth!

until about 5 minutes ago i’d never heard of anyone not enjoying dirty (even if thinking it’s nowhere near their best) so i’ve really no idea

this but about Sonic Nurse, it’s a scary world out there

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like i said, i know loads of sonic youth fans that think it’s a bit of an anomaly/nowhere near their best/not their favourite, but actively bad? nah m9

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not only that, turns out in @Kallgeese’s crew it’s entirely normal opinion to have

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shit band for shit pricks

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PRICKY YOUTH amirite

Could be a shout. Only own washing machine and rather ripped, so should probably investigate sonic youth further. Feel as though it would need numerous listens. Might do an initial listen, live blog it and then listen for a week and then re-evaluate.

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I guess they do (although I’m thinking more in terms of the punk/alternative side of rock).

When I say ‘huge’ albums I don’t necessarily mean ones that sold very well, I mean albums that are massively iconic and ‘changed’ music to an extent (The Velvet Underground & Nico would count even though it didn’t sell well). I don’t think there were as many albums like that in the 80s, not compared to the 70s or even the 90s tbh. Generally the most iconic 80s albums seemed to be released at the start and towards the end of the decade.

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I know this has already been said several times and I’m not adding anything whatsoever to thread but boy oh boy some of the opinions here are weird

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Well on that side the 80s was a period of building up from the underground and as a result you get Doolittle & Daydream Nation at the end of it

you don’t think the decade where indie rock and alternative rock were essentially created had big albums in the alternative rock sphere?

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make sure to add your vote for Sonic Nurse.

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I’m not even really referring to specific things

more like: there were no big albums in the 80s, 80s production styles were shit, music from the 80s was shit, the 80s were shit, not using traditional song structures means you aren’t a songwriter, those kind of things

(I like Sonic Nurse and I like pretty much all of their albums)
(and yeah the 80s were shit)

Purple Rain is the best Sonic Youth album.

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ok as the originator of one of those takes i feel that people are wilfully minsinterpreting it. i’m saying they didn’t come at their craft from the position of being songwriters first and foremost, and that if that’s what you’re looking for (ie, if you’re going to criticise them on the basis that their songwriting is weak, which is pretty much the post i was replying to) then you’re coming at them from (arguably) not the best angle. i’m sure this can partly be backed up by how most albums were recorded/developed/improvised, if you were to look into it.

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Of course, but I’m talking about mammoth albums that are huge in the alternative rock sphere and in general… there weren’t really many albums like that in the 80s.

Rock music in general got very divided after the 70s once heavy metal and punk started evolving and going their separate ways. Pretty much everyone loved/loves bands like Pink Floyd/Led Zeppelin. The same can’t really be said for Metallica. I think a lot of ‘rock’ fans are really divided over whether they like metal or alternative/indie rock. Ultimately both stem from the Beatles.

There weren’t that many ‘universally’ loved big rock bands/albums from the 80s. Instead of ‘universal’ fanbases you had more ‘cult’ fanbases. That’s not a bad thing at all, it just is what it is.

ok that makes more sense. think they wrote plenty of choons though - like this

most people seem to be engaging in some light trolling tbh tbf

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Listened to Murray St. and Sonic Nurse for the first time yesterday. Liked both, but was more impressed by Sonic Nurse. Sounds like a classic SY album, really.

On another topic, I agree that 80s production is often difficult to listen to, but for me Daydream Nation and Pixies don’t have that 80s sound at all.

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I think a lot of good pop/rock bands got ruined in the 80s by overzealous producers and drum machines, but i’d thought the idea that it was somehow a bad decade for music was long dead. Example given: punk music.

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In the early/mid nineties, not sure the exact year, I went on a family holiday across the US. It was several weeks of mostly driving across colorado, utah etc. We discovered that the rental car had a cassette player but we didn’t have any tapes with us apart from my little sister’s bloody annoying nursery rhymes tape.

My brother and I were in our early teens and we had been listening to Dirty a lot at home. We decided to spend our money on some Sonic Youth tapes at a record store when we finally stopped at a large enough place. He bought Evol, I bought Sister. We kind of assumed that they would sound like Dirty. So our family trip across the States, sometimes driving from motel to motel all day would be soundtracked according to family democracy like this -

My dad - a terrible pan pipes tape he bought in a gift shop
My mum - half an hour of “peace and quiet”
Me - sister
My brother - evol
My little sister - nursery rhymes

And repeat, and repeat. All day sometimes. My dad got to the point where he would sigh and clutch the steering wheel so hard his knuckles would go white when “in the kingdom #19” kicked off.

It’s a wonder we all made it through that holiday alive.

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