Dirty

by

Sonic Youth

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Countless critics site Daydream Nation as Sonic Youth's premier album, but I would choose Dirty. My love for Sonic Youth stems from the layers they add to a simple Rock/Pop song while still making it accessible to the general public, and not the elitest artist or musician. For me, Dirty is that album. It shows you can be different, but still write beautiful music. Take "Sugar Kane" or "Purr". Both tracks contain elements of pop masterpieces, but in the style of Sonic Youth.

My favorite track on the album is "Chapel Hill", which is a great example of Sonic Youth in general. It's a well written rock song broken up by a minute and a half of guitar solo in the form of noise and distortion. Also wonderful is "Theresa's Sound-World", a track that opens quietly and builds into an intense wall of distorted guitars.

If you don't own a single Sonic Youth album but you're still big into early Alternative artists like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins or the Pixies, pick up Dirty. Or, if you're into Built To Spill, Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Modest Mouse... and for some reason don't have this album, you should. Sonic Youth is, no doubt, listed as an influence of all these groups. This is Sonic Youth's best selling album for a reason, and that reason is that it's one of the most appealing album to mainstream rock fans. This album (or Experimental...) is a great starting point for someone who doesn't own a Sonic Youth album.

1990's "Goo" was Sonic Youth's major label debut; as expected, it almost lacked their trademark guitar noise, the songs were structured and there was a poster inside. Geffen tried to make them hit it big time that way. But did millions of rioting teenagers stick these posters on there walls? Thousands, maybe, although the album was actually very good. Luckily, Geffen didn't give up and they tried it again with Nirvana... the rest is history. Being thankful to Sonic Youth for discovering Nirvana, Geffen gave them Nirvana's producer - Butch Vig, known to be a magician of turning grunge noise into superpop (see also Smashing Pumpkins' "Siamese Dream"), gave them good marketing specialists and there it was - "diRty", Youth's biggest selling rekkord. Though it's often described as their most commercial "verse-chorus-verse 'Nevermind' wannabe album" it actually sounds like not a very well compiled Greatest Hits collection. This time the! guitar tricks are even louder, however they go nowhere - Sonic Youth is not noise, it's art-thru-noise, but this time it's all buried in decibels. It's not that it doesn't rock, some tracks are good fun punk - the opener "100%", and "Sugar Kane" are fine examples. "Theresa's Sound World" is a beautiful slow melodic ballad. In "Youth Against Fascism" Thurston goes: "A sieg heil-in' squirt, / You're an impotent jerk, / Yeah, a fascist twerp, / It's the song I hate / It's the song I hate". He surely does hate Fascism, but what he means is that he hates the oh-so-easy to understand message of this song. His intentions are not to please mass crowds, so in a way this album is a major setback compared to "Daydream Nation", that managed to combine political appeal with real arty poetics and orchestration. "diRty" is still a must for every Sonic Youth fan, but definitely not a first pick.