Retrospective record reviews - Dirty by Sonic Youth

Dirty by Sonic Youth is a good record. I'm listening to it right now. I first heard it when it came out 13 years ago. I really liked it back then but I think I appreciate it a bit more now.

Now I don't think Dirty is the best Sonic Youth album and it isn't the first Sonic Youth album that I loved (That honour goes to Daydream Nation which was in my local public library for some reason. I listened to it for a whole summer when I was 12 or 13, the same summer when I got into the Doors).

Dirty is one of Sonic Youth's commercial albums. It was their second album on Geffen and it was produced by Butch Vig who did Nevermind for Nirvana. The record company tried hard to punt this one with several videos that still show up on MTV2 in the middle of the night and several singles.

What is often not said is that Dirty is one of their most emotional albums and one of their most direct albums.

It starts with 100% (also the first single), a song about Joe Cole, former Black Flag roadie and best friend of Henry Rollins who was shot in the back of the head outside Rollins' house in LA. Cole had toured with Sonic Youth and was a friend of the band. The lyrics are clear - "100% of my love, goes out to you true star, It's hard to believe you took off, Always thought you'd go far". The words hit you in the head and in the heart. They have a greater resonance if you know the story. I was lucky enough to see a spoken word performance by Rollins in 1993 where he described Coles death and the emotional impact of his words still spring to mind when I hear this song.

Swimsuit Issue sung by Kim Gordon is about sexual harrassment. Some of the lyrics are a bit clunky but the sheer anger and joyous noise of the guitar give the song some punch.

The next couple of songs (theresa's sound world and drunken butterfly) are classic sonic youth noise, nicely focused by butch vig. In the years since 1992 I don't know if they have ever sounded this sharp again.

Wish fulfillment sounds like a love song to me. Notes bend and distort like a Jackson Pollok painting. The lyrics are about acceptance and reaching out to someone. Is it someone the singer is in a relationship or someone he admires from afar? I don't know. I just think it's a beautiful song. "It's my favourite shot of you......I'm still beside you in spite of everything you do". Nice.

Thank fuck these things are anonymous and nobody could put my name to this.

Anyway Sugar Kane (about Marilyn Monroe) and Youth Against Fascism (george bush senior "yeah the president sux, he's a warpig fuck") both stand up as great singles. I guess, thinking about it, Youth against fascism is even more relevant today.

The rest of the album is bloody good too. I can't be arsed writing more but it's good. It came out as a fancy delux edition last year so other people must think so too. Give it a listen. You might like it, you might hate it.

Enough sub-student pontificating. The weather has been miserable today and the news has been kinda depressing today. Race riots in Birmingham. The result of social deprivation. Sad.

Work was a skive today. Hope it stays that way. Nights on Friday.


Dafunk