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Tuesday, September 24, 2002
I just picked up Sonic Youth's new CD, Murry Street, which is named after the street where their studio is, which was narrowly missed by falling wreckage on 9/11. New addition Jim O'Rouke was asleep when an engine from a plane landed outside and won't talk about it. I was worried because A Thousand Leaves and nyc ghosts & flowers were, while including a few outstanding tracks, overall a little disappointing. They were my favourite band back in the day. I'd hate to see them get old and boring. So, I read a number of reviews and the consensus seemed to be that it was a return to earlier sound but not quite as good, very few hated it, even.
But, fuck them! Fuck them all! This is the best SY album since...well, it's as good as anything they've ever done. This album is solid from beginning to end and runs the gammit of SY's sound. The Youth ain't youth anymore. They're "Radical Adults", now. They have a more mature approach to ambient guitar soundscapes and noise assaults. But, it's all there and executed marvelously. I thought the phone was ringing several times during the Lee Ranaldo interstellar wandering masterpiece "Karen Revisited". That follows three opening Thurston Moore tracks with his quirky lyrics and nostalgic psychedelic folk punk extended jams. The best being "Rain On Tin", which is possibly one of the best songs ever. I mean it, ever! The second movement jam just builds and builds and it's yeah, yeah, fuck! This is why I love Sonic Youth! I've always thought Thurston was the cutest man alive. He's always seemed somewhat unassuming but with attitude, and his personality infuses all his songs. He's just so endearing. I'll always remember the look on his face back in '92 at the Opera House when they blew the sound system out just as he was about to take drum stick to guitar during A Catholic Block. That was an interesting show. Someone had oversold tickets, so the place was beyond capacity and ticket holders were outside being refused entry and causing a scene and Thurston's response to being told that police were outside and may want to end the show was to encourage the audience to start chanting "Fuck the Police!", which had the theatre people visibly distraught.
Even Kim Gordon's songs are good. "Plastic Sun" is the second full on rock out song on the CD, the other being "Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style", which both should eliminate any fears that they've lost it. And then "Sympathy for the Strawberry" ends the album in a similar vein to "Washing Machine", with an extended intro to a song that melts into dreamy guitar assault.
The CD is enhanced, by the way. You can get to a secret site where you can download MP3s and images and screensavers and whatever. I'm not gonna link to it. Get the CD.
I have no idea what fans who came to the band with "Goo" or "Dirty" will think. I can't get into your heads. But, anyone who's aged with the band will probably love this CD. This is an album by the same band who recorded "Confusion is Sex" 20 years ago. Their cult-legend status or whatever is earned. It's brilliant and awesome and it makes me very happy and I love this band.
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