You know, I always thought I liked Murray Street a lot more than this album, but listening to it for the first time in a few years I realized it's one of Sonic Youth's best. They claimed it was their attempt at a classic rock record, like something by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, which I can sort of understand - there aren't any four part harmonies, but the guitars are really gentle and layered in a way that can best be described as pretty. It's probably the least "aggressive" SY album out there. Maybe it'd be in my top three of their albums? I can understand why 24 year old me only thought it was ok - he had some pent up issues that were probably best solved by listening to At The Drive-In on repeat.
The story with this album is that while Sonic Youth were recording A Thousand Leaves there was a metal band recording upstairs, and as a result SY couldn't get their songs right. So they turned up every amp and laid every guitar against them for revenge. The result, recorded here, is exactly as you'd expect, but it's actually pretty soothing, and I think you could relax to it if you get my drift.
The Sonics' second album, Boom, might not have quite as many barn burning classics as their debut, but even a "lesser" Sonics record is still an epic document of amped up 60s garage rock. I have no idea how popular The Sonics might have been during their heyday but the influence their music, along with the music of bands like The Velvet Underground and The Stooges, has had over punk and rock bands in the last 40+ years is considerable. Highlights from Boom include "He's Waitin'," a kind of freaky morality tale, and "Hitch Hike," a sort of companion to their more well-known "Have Love, Will Travel." The band even does a take on the immortal "Louie, Louie," though their version sounds more like "Rock You Like a Hurricane" than The Kingsmen. 
Voluspa is an album by The Golden Filter, a band that falls into the genre known as "indie dance music that could probably be played in the background on Gossip Girl." I've been into this sort of music lately because, I don't know, mid life crisis? Anyway, it's got great beats and electronic production, but it's a little too dramatic to be called just a dance album. "Always Right" media outlet Pitchfork criticized the album because its songs lack traditional structure, but I thought that was pretty endearing. Anyway, if you like guitars don't buy it, but if you like a depressed modern version of ABBA then go right ahead.
This Sonic Youth album is pretty good, but I never really count it in my top whatever. Since it came out in high school, I listened to it about a trillion times, because when you're a kid you can basically just sit and listen to an album without doing anything else and feel like you accomplished something. I bought it on a school trip the day the OJ Simpson verdict came out, and I remember being the only non black person on the bus who was happy about it, not because I didn't think he was guilty or some racial thing, but just because I wanted him to play Nordberg again in the next Naked Gun movie, which never even happened. Check out the songs and remember what a magical time the mid 90s were!
Dirty is the most radio friendly rock album Sonic Youth ever made. It was released in 1992, during the height of "Nirvana Fever" or "Grungedom" or "A Recession." My friend Farnell really liked a song from this album used on the My So-Called Life soundtrack, but then when I lent him Washing Machine he practically puked in my face. I don't know why so many of my Sonic Youth reviews devolve into questions of "listenability," but so goes England. If you want to see a young Jason Lee, check it out!
This was Sonic Youth's first album with its lineup of the past quarter century. Listening to it always reminds me of band trips, or riding the bus to school, since I think it was only the third Sonic Youth album I bought. It's a pretty great album, but too bad I can't listen to it without being reminded that Sonic Youth appeared on Gossip Girl to play an acoustic version of "Star Power" from this album. Ow, my childhood!
This is not one of my favorite Sonic Youth albums. I've always thought the recording sounded so flat, and it makes a lot of the songs uninteresting. Well, it turns out that they spent a few days recording it, then accidentally put all the tapes on top of one of their speakers because Thurston Moore didn't know magnets erase tapes (you big dummy!). Then they had to rerecord the whole thing in like three hours. I guess that makes sense, since their first EP sounds really great, and their second EP, Kill Yr Idols, which is included on the only version of this you'll ever find, also sounds great. I dunno, buy it if you want, but there's like 14 or 15 Sonic Youth albums you should buy first.
I was reminded of this album the other day when their song "Levitate" became available for download for the game Rock Band. Unlike Bootsauce, I Mother Earth was an early 90s Canadian band that actually had listenability and a really great first album. I listened to this CD basically a million times in high school, but popping it in the other day it held up pretty well. Their second album, Scenery and Fish, is terrible in every single way, but for some reason Allmusic gives it a good grade, so the lesson is come here for your arbitrary ratings first. I mean, at least at a rate of two or three times a month.
I don't like this album as much as Astro Creep, but that could just be nostalgia? I mean, they're virtually the same record. Anyway, how can you go wrong with lots of rock, roll, and also audio samples of the greatest Star Trek episode in history.
This album by Japan, Adolescent Sex, is a pretty good post- punk record. Imagine New York Dolls with way more keyboards. As always here's some links to songs of theirs, but I'd like to point out that we'll now get the most unintentional search result hits since Laurie posted that review of a picture of preteen boys wearing tight pants. In conclusion, welcome, perverts!
It's Devo's first studio album in 20 years, and boy do I remember standing in line at the record store in 1990 with my fifteen Canadian dollars ready to pop down for Smooth Noodle Maps. No I don't, but if I did or that had actually happened I would have been tres disappointed - that album blows. This one's pretty good, though. I guess if you can put out one good album every quarter century you shouldn't feel too bad about yourselves, but don't take my word for it. Dahda da!
The other day Quammy posted this video on the Facebook, and it reminded me that I haven't heard this album since high school. It's pretty good I guess, although basically everything about Slayer is what people make fun of about 80s metal bands-- obsession with Satanism, fast wailing licks, ridiculous hair, and vague neo-Nazism. Wait, that last one isn't a stereotype of 80s metal bands. Oh, right, that's why I could never really get into the band in the first place. Well, the music is still alright.
When I first bought this album, I hated it so much because it wasn't a bunch of songs identical to "The Perfect Drug." At the same time, nyc ghosts + flowers was my favorite Sonic Youth album. I don't know what was exactly wrong with me when I was a sophomore in college, but man was I dumb. The way Reznor weaves certain melodies and lyrics through both discs of the album makes it seem as though it is more like a symphony than a rock album, and this is now my favorite Nine Inch Nails record. Also, according to Wikipedia, Human Clay by Creed followed this as the number one album, so I guess I wasn't the only person whose head wasn't right about music in 1999.
Meddle is a Pink Floyd album from 1971. Much like Obscured by Clouds, it's not one of Pink Floyd's more popular albums. Other than the opening track, "One of These Days," Meddle is a pretty mellow album. The closing track, "Echoes" (which may or may not sync up with the trippy space freak-out part of 2001: A Space Odyssey), is twenty-three minutes long and, on the vinyl version, takes up the album's entire B side. Also notable on the album is the song "Seamus," which features a howling dog.
Obscured by Clouds is a Pink Floyd album from 1972, it also doubles as a soundtrack to a movie I've never seen, La Vallée. I first heard this album after I bought it from a crazy French hippie in Québec City. According to him, in the movie La Vallée, some hippies go into the rain forest, they smoke pot, they get naked, and then the natives show up. He's right, as I far as I know, and I'm guessing that his overview of the film was probably more entertaining than the film itself would be. So yeah, "The Gold It's in The..." is a good song.
Live at the El Mocambo is a live album recorded by Elvis Costello and the Attractions at the El Mocambo Tavern in Toronto in 1978. In the 1970's, the El Mocambo Tavern was a popular spot for bands, a number of whom recorded live albums there (See also: The Rolling Stones' Love You Live and April Wine's Live at the El Mocambo). Costello's Live at the El Mocambo was originally issued in 1978 as a heavily bootlegged promotional album, then reissued in 1993 as part of a box set and then reissued again in 2009 as part of the "Costello Show" series of archival live recordings. The El Mocambo recording, renowned among Elvis Costello fans, features energetic performances of songs primarily from Costello's first two albums. The 2009 reissue also restores some of Costello's stage banter which was absent from the 1993 reissue, including a speech where Costello informs the audience that he and the band have come from England to reclaim Canada. 
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