Will someone please keep Chuck Eddy away from the jailbait?

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Yet another entry in the "I was a teenage alt-rocker chica" sweepstakes. Apparently all music writing is doomed to imitate either Blender or Pitchfork.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0228/phillips2.php

― J Blount, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Submit your "Twenty years of 'Sonic Youth are old' jokes" responses here!

― J Blount, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

what are sonic youth supposed to have taken from no wave and conceptual art anyway? (I hae never heard any no wave.) but it seems like it's not just 'funny guitar tunings': isn't some of it the reason why amy isn't getting orgiastic, orgasmic freakouts on this record? sonic youth are too smart for most of their fans.

― Josh, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

that's not to say that clever anti-freakout musical choices are in themselves good, or that you have to be all that quick to get them. but it does mean they are going to turn out a lot of music that the listener looking for superfreaky KNSKNFNSLKJ4%@#$@#E$%#% !!! is just not going to want to like.

― Josh, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah. I was gonna post about this. Unlike the other article, I think this one rilly is no good. Amy Phillips was one of the two who did that Britney e-mail exchange as I recall too. The piece just comes off as terribly bland and somehow not managing to convey anything about the album at all. Plus she dislikes NYC G&F for all the wrong reasons. Key difference: she isn't letting go of her past, there's no sweet indulgence of former ways of listening but a refusal to change (and by implication to let SY change?).

Also, though, this issue has a v. funny piece by Scott Seward as well as a nice Kogan one which stops right when I want it to keep going.

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's clear that Phillips doesn't like it. I'm less clear on why.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I mean, really, does no one take that part of sonic youth seriously? do they just treat it like a bunch of talk as long as it produces orgasmic noise or 'pretty, but in a weird way, you know?' music? it's always been there.

― Josh, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gordon rants like she has PMS
WTF!?!

― nathalie, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My theory is that the writer is trying to take a controversial stance by slagging Sonic Youth in their hometown alt-weekly. Unfortunately, the writing is not sharp, strong or funny enough to elicit a response beyond eye-rolling. She gives no reason at all for not liking the record other than "they're old" and "I'm not a kid anymore." Which may be a personal loss for her, but how does this help the readers that don't live in the writer's head?

― mike, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gordon rants like she has PMS
WTF!?!

pre-Menopausal syndrome

― gygax! (i forgot my blog password), Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

erm she goes into track-by-track detail why she doesn't like it, but i guess the fact that she's an 18-yr-old girl means why bother actually reading it eh foax, when we already know what it must say, what with "chuck eddy's problem"

― mark s, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

he said pointlessly grumpily

― mark s, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's much harder to write well about disliking something than about liking it, and I don't think this is good writing. But as a review, it works. (I also liked Sonic Youth best when I was 16, if I'm being honest.) I have not yet read a review of NYCG&F which gives me the remotest idea what it actually sounds like, this included: but this does give me a fair impression of what Murray Street sounds like i.e. like earlier SY but not as exciting. I'm willing to trust that.

(Josh, I think your 'smart fans' will be able to work out pretty quick what Phillips values in SY and tally that against what they value in SY and judge the piece accordingly - the fact of the clashing values isn't the issue as much as the review's providing triangulation points for any kind of SY listener, which I think it does.)

― Tom, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Not as good as her Breeders piece, but better than most of what I've read on this record. She writes well, she's enthusiastic, and the personal bits don't bother me at all. She's better than at least 80% of the rockcrits writing for print in the US (all ages/genders). I can see where people would be jealous.

― dan, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

dan mee-ow!! the recent voice breeders piece was by someone else (but maybe you didn't mean the recent voice breeders piece)...

― mark s, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, FUCK ALL THAT. Musto has a new blind items column, people! This is what we should talking about! (I'm in agreement with Sterl re: Kogan, though.)

What teen group member was spotted at a party, elegantly licking white powder off his finger?

― Michael Daddino, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No, I meant the Voice piece. On one level there is really only one eighteen year old alterna-girl. I'm grateful that she can write and that Chuck found her.

― dan, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I relate to this piece so hardcore. I think it's great. As Mark said, how much more detail could she give re why she dislikes the record (within a popular-press review format)? Those comments don't even make sense. She hates NYC G&F for all the right reasons, BTW (though I've been having weird moments of missing that album myself).

Josh, I don't understand what you're saying at all. It seems interesting though. Could you explain further please?

― sundar subramanian, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"those comments" = "she doesn't say why she doesn't like the record"- type comments

np: Voivod (who've been around nearly as long as SY but rocked much harder on stage and generated much more interesting guitar sounds with just one guitarist and do lead guitar solos too and do them better) - Angel Rat

― sundar subramanian, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

''You made an album I hated. Not some weird one-off on your vanity label (like that one where you covered John Cage and beat up pianos and shit)''

how fucking predictable. It's easy to slag off an a-g 'covers' rec as some 'vanity' project. Let's get back to the rock (business), man!

''Jim O'Rourke is apparently a full-time member of the band now, but but he seems to have been too busy launching Wilco into the stratosphere to get you guys off the ground.''

No reasons are given for why Jim is a failure. it's just the 'he produced Wilco' therefore this must be bollocks. Anecdotal evidence.

''A Thousand Leaves, the album in between Washing Machine and nycgf, wasn't so hot either, but it had its gripping moments—like the pastoral "Wildflower Soul," and "Sunday," the rockin' single with the Macauley Culkin make-out video. Besides, I was caught in the throes of passion at the time; in 1998, you could do no wrong.''

sunday was hardly great material. The liking of the single seems to be related to a relationship she was having at the time. Rubbish!

what i like abt it is the way she is 'trapped' by her love of the band. She keeps buying this stuff in the hope that they may reproduce past glories. There are some nice descriptions of some of the tracks in Murray street.

Overall: some good stuff but I not great because she easily dismisses some of the places where they come without even thinking abt it.

― Julio Desouza, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The liking of the single seems to be related to a relationship she was having at the time. Rubbish!

Tell me where the article says this, please. When she writes about being "in the throes of passion" I took it to mean in terms of her infatuation with the band.

This isn't what I consider a great piece of writing, but the jailbait slur doesn't sound particularly bright either.

I don't want to drag ethan into this, but even when people hate what he has written the criticism is not the sort of snidey, anti-teenage vemon that I keep seeing for reviews like this.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Utter trash, this is...in my opinion, anyhow. Personally speaking, I think this record gets better every single time I listen to it, and I've been listening to it nearly every day since the release. The review really reads like someone who hasn't spent much time actually listening to the album, giving it time to settle in, or someone who is so blitzed by split-second jump-cut 21st century life that the subtleties of an album like this are lost. The textures on the album are wonderful, the lyrics are no less penetrable or impenetrable than before, the noise is there but restrained (and still louder than on some of the other recent albums). I won't argue that NYCG&F really wasn't all that great an album, but c'mon, spend some time actually listening to this album before writing an adolescent kiss off of it. (I mean, the cut line below the photo: how old are the staff of the Voice now, 15?)

― Sean Carruthers, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I stopped reading after she wrote "unlistenable crap" - I don't trust anyone who calls something "unlistenable" (unless of course it's actually physically harming them). This is one of my pet-peeve word, admittedly - still, there's no excuse.

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I hate the "dear Sonic Youth I don't like yr recs any more so please kill yrself" tone of the review - like she's actually doing them a big favour by 'putting them straight'. The stuff abt them opening for Pearl Jam, being on Geffen (oh no! they're on a major label that isn't very major any more, the fools) etc. as evidence of their creative decline totally ignores 'Goodbye 20th Century', which wld effectively destroy this line of 'thought'.

Eddy has long enjoyed winding up Sonic Youth and their fans, but this doesn't seem to be any kind of interesting or effective challenge to their music/status...

― Andrew L, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I didn't think the article was particularly interesting. She's wrong about one thing though, _Washing Machine_ sucks too.

― alext, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I did some basic math in my head after my post last night, and unless I'm doing something really wrong (or unless she's clueless about when the band started), she's 21-23 years old about now. The fact that she was fawning over Washing Machine means that she's now disappointed because Murray Street is not matching up to her experiences of "discovering" Sonic Youth as a fresh-faced 13 or 14 year old (I'm allowing that she may have heard Goo or Dirty) fresh from the experience of "discovering" Nirvana et al. Under those circumstances I'm not surprised that Murray Street ain't grabbin' her, but I'm more convinced this morning than I was last night that it's HER age, not Sonic Youth's, that's the problem here. Or, at the very least, circumstances and timeline.

I note with some amusement that the Voice gave NYC Ghosts & Flowers a glowing review...twice. And did anyone else in the world really like that album?

― Sean Carruthers, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I really liked NYCG&F. And I like this one better. I do often suspect that what I get out of SY is not much like what other people I like & respect get out of them, though--I never really wanted them to be a punk rock band whose aphoristic lyrics went nicely in a high school notebook.

I'd also like to note that the fact that people are outragedly discussing this review means that it is, in some important sense, a success.

― Douglas, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

anybody telling SY to hang it up is doing something right, I think, regardless of the facts and whatevers - and the tone is right - but she could have spend more than a couple of sentences on the new record. it's telling that she didn't - she shrinks from reviewing it just as she shrinks from listening to it - but that's kinda one trick too far innit?

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i mean, for a record reviewer to make? plus i wanna know about the guy with funny pants! what about the guy with funny pants??

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I also liked NYCG+F - it's funny how the Voice reviewer made a point of telling us how much she (still) likes Lee Ranaldo's songs (hey, me too!) but neglects to mention - 'cos it sorta undermines her argt - that 'New York City Ghosts and Flowers' is prob. his best ever song.

― Andrew L, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The problem I have, I think, is that I don't understand what she wants out of SY (which the pitchfork review actually tried to lay out, in terms of dif. expectations, and we should note this was probably quite smart of it). I mean it seems she wants drone freakouts, but then she liked "sunday" and not the scratchy weird stuff from the last album and she likes noise but not "experimental" noise on the EPs and she thinks NYC G&F goes nowhere when it was clearly OVERWROUGHT and soforth. The review doesn't feel like she's discovering herself.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

nor the identity of the wearer of the FUNNY PANTS

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

obv. o'rourke

― Josh, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Josh. You're ruining tracers joke.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sorry sterl, just woke up, wasn't paying attention.

if someone would post a picture of o'rourke in the funny pants that might improve the situation.

― Josh, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i doubt it

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Haven't you done enough harm already?

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

but they're really funny pants

― Josh, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sorry, sorry

― Josh, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think the 'outrage' provoked by this article is due to any attempted straight-shootin' blasphemy (attacking Sonic Youth for being old dates back to Reagan's first term, attacking them for selling out to Reagan's second term), but over how mediocre the review is and that it's in the Voice - if this had appeared in Pitchfork no one would have cared, it would have been par for the course. I know complaining about the decline of the Voice dates back to Eisenhower's second term, but one expects some degree of quality and occasionally expertise (though not always - Meltzer on jazz, according to Gary Giddins at least), and this displayed neither. This shit could have appeared in Rolling Stone. And in fact, it basically already did - see their review of A Thousand Leaves.

― J Blount, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm still waiting for the explanation of why it's okay to use the term jailbait. Why not just call them lousy hacks if the writing is bad?

― Nicole, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The implication is that Eddy lets pretty young things get away with murder.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

When the writer's entire focus "when I was but a girl rock n roll did interest me so", then I can label her jailbait, in the same sense that Britney Spears and Kirsten Dunst are jailbait. They may be of age, but they trade on youth and feminimity. In a pop singer or movie star this works with ease, but in a music critic it takes some imagination and wit, neither of which Ms. Phillips has demonstrated a facility for.

― J Blount, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

can you show me the part where she trades on femininity? I must have missed it or something

sundar, I'm not ignoring your question, but I need some time to think

― Josh, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I mean, I even went back and skimmed it, because all I could remember about the review that would make me think her being female was involved was the byline, since men aren't usually named 'amy'.

― Josh, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

seeing as the jessica grose piece was good, despite a variety of unfair and hurried readings on the thread in question, the claim that eddy publishes this for the flip of reason that j.blount hates it (eg neither of them can read past the author's sex/age) is unjustified => "jailbait" is as much a slur on the editorial as it is on the writer and either way its use is several times more stupid critically than ANYTHING in this piece

teenage girl: "i am 17"
j.blount: "so you're saying you want me to fuck you"

― mark s, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

how much more detail could she give re why she dislikes the record

she only mentions two songs in any detail - one of them is "over in two minutes" (reminiscent of "flaccid" and "frustrating" comments), and the other one sounds like Kim Gordon "on PMS". the rest of the album is "a sea of okayness". so, i guess the answer is, a LOT more detail, as the above descriptions could apply to all songs on any SY album ever

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The implication is that Eddy lets pretty young things get away with murder.

If the Voice consisted entirely of outstanding music writers except for these girls that argument would fly. But there are plenty of other lousy writers on their staff (and some great ones too, obv.).

― Nicole, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Somehow I feel this thread and the introductions thread go very well together.

― Ben Williams, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

tracer, I see at least four references to specific songs or things about them. the two things you mention both refer to one song, though.

― Josh, Wednesday, 10 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Skipping 31 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I don't like the way some of the oldest and most familiar assumptions about female writers keep coming up on this thread: that they can only write from personal experience, or that their style is somehow a natural thing rather than a pose. To read critically means taking seriously the possibility that what you don't like isn't there NOT because the writer is stupid but because they want the article to be like that, and perhaps, because they know it's going to annoy you.

― alext, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(I love how ILM is much more interested in reviewing the review, then the actual album.)

― bnw, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

start a thread!

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Album? Who cares about the album?

My disappointment moment came with 'Bull in the Heather' and the album that followed, ewww, how dull it was.

My feelings exactly. "Bull in the Heather" ranks as a song I've always wanted to physically strangle, then bury in a shallow grave.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(I love how ILM is much more interested in reviewing the review, then the actual album.)
Well the title of the thread would have been slightly diff., no? Less jailbait,more oldies. ;-)

― nathalie, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I agree with alext (re the review) 100%.

― sundar subramanian, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(Just for the record, my little comment was not meant sarcasitically.)

― bnw, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I haven't heard more than a couple of songs yet from "Murray Street", so I don't have a settled opinion on its relative merits or flaws. My only observation so far is that Thurston Moore is starting to sound a bit more like Tom Petty, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. As for the review, I thought it was mildly entertaining, and not terribly written, but I didn't feel very persuaded by it, i.e. I'm still just as likely to buy "Murray Street" as I was before I read the review, i.e., fairly likely to - which will make it the first SY album I've bought since "Dirty". I didn't see any reason to think that the reviewer shares my taste in music, or appreciates the same things in the band that I do, or has an especially perceptive ear. I also find the fact that she seems to revere "Washing Machine" as the last great SY album a bit suspect.

― o. nate, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"(I love how ILM is much more interested in reviewing the review, then the actual album.)" - I start a thread on a half-assed record review and it takes off like Richard Goldstein vs. Andrew Sullivan. Meanwhile my Gil Bernal S&D remains in the Unanswered Questions graveyard. What. The. Hell.

― J Blount, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

So she’s putting down Sonic Youth for sucking. Wow. Here’s a gun -- there’s a barrel of fish.

Honestly, though, I don’t care one way or the other about Murray Street. I have a couple of their albums, I like them fine, I’ll even grant that some of the stuff I haven’t heard (which includes everything after Daydream Nation) might be fun but I’m not gonna download their ‘90’s oeuvre or pay for it anytime soon. But I’m suspicious of the way she just won’t allow for a redemption scenario for SY. If there’s a chance one day suddenly start not sucking, she don’t want to know. Sounds more like she wants to free herself from the need for Sonic Youth and all that embarrassing high-school fannishness it entailed.

I’d rather read a Sonic Youth review that went something along the lines of “It’s entirely possible I was an idiot for having such an intense emotional commitment to you guys” or even “I just realized: you guys have ALWAYS sucked” rather than “How DARE you suck!” Sonic Youth don’t owe you or me nothing.

― Michael Daddino, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I suspect that minor variations aside sy have ALWAYS sucked and not sucked, been boring and exciting, been experimental and nonexperimental, in about the same proportions. as time has gone on this may cause their career to be viewed differently, since everything else is changing, but I feel like it mostly just remains something about sonic youth that most people fail to see and thus hold against them e.g. for never changing or for going bad etc (the latter would be I think more tied to fan interest declining, or the changing-history thing).

― Josh, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

first person to excerpt that and cut it after 'sucked' is not as clever as they think they are

― Josh, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

This is a funny thing! She is complaining 'stop being so boring' about Sonic Youth and 'maybe it's cos you're so old' and she this young thing is writing in a somewhat MOR way.

― maryann, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I just really got this annoying vibe of "I'm writing this in the knowledge that a lot of people will identify with my plight and applaud all my half-assed bon mots." So yeah, it does feel like a college-paper article in that respect -- it concerns itself with playing to an audience. She's not writing her open letter "to" Sonic Youth, she's writing it for people who think Sonic Youth should break up. And it wasn't so much "Sonic Youth should call it quits because they suck" as "...because *I* think they suck." How dare they! Personally, I think it's great that they didn't let their brief flirtation with grunger success suck them into a long-term career of MOR altpop. If anything, the lack of hooks since Experimental Jet Set shows how little they care about pandering to the notebook-scrawlers and their slogan fetishes.

I mean... ugh... I can relate to the part about being a teenager in love with Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation came out when I was 12 and it opened me up to a whole new world), but not the unrepentant- fannishness-leading-to-ultimate-disappointment. It's so un-punk to expect your favorite band to be saviors -- it's human nature that bands suck sometimes.

Even though she's just putting across her honest reaction, I think her honest reaction is so sophomoric that it makes me not wanna take her seriously. Plus, I don't think she really understands why she ever liked Sonic Youth in the first place, which is why it seems really odd that she'd be so negative about SY's most cohesive, least meandering album in nearly a decade.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Maybe she wanted the old cohesive SY back and then realised she didnt like them either, hence the not-terrible-but-dull stuff. It's like the last Elvis Costello album I bought was Brutal Youth - I'd been all, oh bring back the old-style EC, and then it came back and I didn't much like it.

― Tom, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Haha the FIRST EC album I bought was Brutal Youth and I still lurve it.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"I don't think she really understands..." - how can you tell the difference between that, and the case where she just has reasons for liking them that you don't think are the right ones?

― Josh, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

--"I don't think she really understands..." - how can you tell the difference between that, and the case where she just has reasons for liking them that you don't think are the right ones?--

I'm not saying "I don't think she really understands why they're good or not good," I'm saying that judging from the review she wrote and the type of personality she puts across in the piece, it doesn't seem to me like she has a firm foothold on exactly what it was she liked about Sonic Youth in the first place -- she establishes that she once thought they were rilly kewl, but she makes it hard for us to sympathize with her when she talks about her subsequent disappointment. Why did she love them so much? Why should we share in her anger? What makes a former Sonic Youth fan different from a former New Kids on the Block fan?

― Jody Beth Rosen, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sterl & JBR agreement shockah.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

jody, what you wrote made it seem to me like you mean, murray street is the sort of album she would like if she understood why she liked them in the first place. but we normally like bands for all sorts of reasons that are unclear to us, especially when teenagers - and that includes critics. I don't think that bars us from falling out of love with them - and critically, I don't think it HAS to stop us from being able to articulate why we do, though it might help to understand why we liked them in the first place.

don't take this seriously anyway, I'm just throwing things out.

― Josh, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Maybe she never liked them in the first place.

― maryann, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"If anything, the lack of hooks since Experimental Jet Set shows how little they care about pandering to the notebook-scrawlers and their slogan fetishes."

B-b-but... where are the hooks on 'Dirty'? Glam riff godliness, I'll grant you, but hooks? 'Washing Machine' = much better in that department (though NB. Amy loves that album).

― Tim, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, in many ways Dirty could be seen their noisiest album. (I mean, the "Swimsuit Issue" intro - did Neubauten ever rival that?) It's also very far from "MOR altpop" (surely Daydream Nation, the cringeworthy "Teenage Riot" in particular, is the closest they came to that). I think it incorporates the widest range of rock music influences of any of their albums, expanding far beyond the against-health-and-efficiency hippie-pop indie blinders they put on themselves in the late 80s to incorporate nods to metal ("Drunken Butterfly"), AOR anthems ("Chapel Hill"), power ballads ("Wish Fulfilment"), 80s US hc ("Youth Against Fascism", "Nic Fit" - OK, they referred to this before in "'Cross the Breeze" but this time they got the spirit as well as the sound), L7 (the Kim Gordon tracks), and 60s rock ("Sugar Kane"). Everything was then filtered through the perspective of an on-the-edge outsider, with noise and structure incorporated with more precision and expertise than on anything post-Evol. Along with Goodbye 20th Century it's the closest they've come post-Evol to capturing the spirit of everything that was good in no wave. Although I was listening to Sister today and it really rocks too.

I think people are taking Amy Phillips way too much at face value when she calls for Sonic Youth to break up, etc. I think all these possibilities ("Maybe I never really liked them for what they were", "Maybe I was foolish to be so obsessive about a rock band") can be considered as possible implications. Alext is totally OTM as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps Amy Phillips is too smart for her readers?

― sundar subramanian, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i like the fact that she pleads that SY break up. Most of us never get ot the point where we want our favourite bands to break up because they never get to be together for that long.

Thing is SY are fighting their past glories. It must be quite difficult for them but I'm glad they just keep going. same with the fall.

Sundar- have you got hold of any no wave? I'm searching for the no wave comp.

― Julio Desouza, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

". . . noise and extended structure manipulated and incorporated . . ."

Josh does have a point BTW. For the first few years I obsessed over SY it never really struck me so much that some albums were much poppier or more experimental or whatnot than others. I don't think I even really thought of Goo as being poppier than Evol for a long time. When people asked me to lend them some SY so they could know what they sound like I'd just randomly choose a couple albums. The basic Sonic Youth-ness seemed to be the defining quality of all their albums that made them very different from anyone else's albums.

― sundar subramanian, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

all great bands have a sound of their own. It's impossible to ask a band to just change. Amy doesn't do that. She just seems to be saying: not as good as before, which i think is easily dismissive.

― Julio Desouza, Friday, 12 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Sonic Youth have become the Toto of art-rock..."

― Jeff W, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Sonic Youth have become the Toto of art-rock..."

Well, that just begs the question: what's their "Africa" ?

― Michael Daddino, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Any song where Kim Gordon tries to be Ornette Coleman.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

to: ned raggett
re: lame post

pls choose at least one of the following options.

a) make sense
b) be more funny

sncrly yrs,
me

― Josh, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You're no rock and roll fun, etc.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ned's posts = a shot in the dark w/ clues left for no one. etc.

― Josh, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hey, Inspector Clouseau figured it all out! Well, sorta. Still my favorite movie of the series.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

four years pass...

http://www.rockcritics.com/interview/ceddy_society_living_chuck.jpg
http://www.rockcritics.com/interview/ceddy_society_living_chuck.jpg
http://www.rockcritics.com/interview/ceddy_society_living_chuck.jpg

― gershy, Friday, 25 May 2007 05:29 (eighteen years ago)

I'M ON UR LAP, RAEDING UR METRO SETCION

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, 25 May 2007 06:05 (eighteen years ago)

Of all threads to revive.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 25 May 2007 06:07 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, wow...

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, 25 May 2007 06:08 (eighteen years ago)

Cute, G-pig tho.

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, 25 May 2007 06:08 (eighteen years ago)

gershy reminds me of the people in this story. dude has issues

― lex pretend, Friday, 25 May 2007 06:22 (eighteen years ago)

lex, did you ever see the movie Reflections In A Golden Eye? you should check it out, I think you'd dig it.

― gershy, Friday, 25 May 2007 06:26 (eighteen years ago)

Wot's this "jailbait"?! (Like, seriously)

― t**t, Friday, 25 May 2007 14:46 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.ocferrets.org/images/jailbait.jpg

― bobby bedelia, Friday, 25 May 2007 23:10 (eighteen years ago)

this thread sucks, ilx sucks

― A B C, Friday, 25 May 2007 23:28 (eighteen years ago)

are j blount and cinniblount the same guy

― A B C, Friday, 25 May 2007 23:28 (eighteen years ago)

posters come and posters go, but misogyny never goes out of style

― bobby bedelia, Friday, 25 May 2007 23:38 (eighteen years ago)

posters come and posters go, but ~~misogyny~~ assholes on ILX never go out of style

-- bobby bedelia, Friday, 25 May 2007 23:38

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 25 May 2007 23:54 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.fantasiamusic.co.za/images/Products/big_Zing%20Top%2010.jpg

― bobby bedelia, Saturday, 26 May 2007 00:11 (eighteen years ago)

To be honest, people were pretty restrained in this thread, considering what a flamefest it coulda been. Lots of reasonable attempts to engage with the actual review, etc. But yeah, it's funny how anyone who had a problem with the "jailbait" characterisation was dismissed as being somehow sheltered or oversensitive. Ah, old ILM...

― Lostandfound, Saturday, 26 May 2007 00:15 (eighteen years ago)

five months pass...

what ever happened to amy phillips??

― gershy, Thursday, 1 November 2007 06:13 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/staff

― J0rdan S., Thursday, 1 November 2007 06:31 (eighteen years ago)

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