Product Description

Sonic Youth's second major-label album, produced and mixed by Butch Vig and Andy Wallace (a team that had helped turn Nirvana's NEVERMIND multi-platinum) was not the barefaced bidfor mainstream acceptance that surly underground souls grumbled about in the pages of fanzines. While Vig and Wallace give guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, bassist Kim Gordon, and phenomenal drummer Steve Shelley a wide-screen panorama for their bizarrely-tuned assaults, DIRTY is probablySonic Youth's most uncompromising album since 1985's BAD MOON RISING--particularly in the lyrical department.
Dropping the deliberate obscurantism, Philip K. Dick references, and smart-alecky snottiness, Sonic Youth brackets a slew of pointed political attacks ("Youth Against Fascism", "SwimsuitIssue", and the Jesse Helms-bashing "Chapel Hill") with twopassionate tributes to the band members' murdered friend, Joe Cole ("100%" and "JC"). That DIRTY is Sonic Youth's most commercial-sounding album makes it that much more subversive.

Track Listing

1. 100%
2. Swimsuit Issue
3. Theresa's Sound-World
4. Drunken Butterfly
5. Shoot
6. Wish Fulfillment
7. Sugar Kane
8. Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit
9. Youth Against Fascism
10. Nic Fit
11. On The Strip
12. Chapel Hill
13. JC
14. Purr
15. Creme Brulee

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3103 in Music
• Released on: 1999-03-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 59 minutes

Customer Reviews

My favorite SY record
This is the first SY record I've heard (about another 10 followed), and it's still my personal favorite. This time there are actual "songs" in here! Sometimes you can even sing along!! Isn't it strange for a SY record? There are a lot of songs, and a lot of GOOD songs (if not all). It's groovy, heavy, and it's got a definite 90's sound.

That's a good place to start, if you haven't heard anything else by Sonic Youth. It's not "that" weird as the rest of their albums. For me, Sonic Youth never did better than that.

A revelation
Dirty was the first album i bought with this great band.Never heard the music before or the band.So when i started to listen, i imidiately fellt that this was something really special. Now i have heard the album over and over, and the music grows and grows, its getting better and better. I cant hear anything in this cd, to critizize, to complain about.The mucicianship are on the highest level, Kim Gordons voice stunning, and the other singing too. I think i have found a treasure. The energy, the darkness, a great drummer,the walls of noise---i could go on....If the other albums of the band are good as this, it would be sensational.BUY IT.

I love you, I love you, I love you, what's your name?
To be fair, Sonic Youth are a bit of an acquired taste. I don't agree that they produce tuneless music, but their melodies are not as immediate as some of the other bands of their ilk - not as harmonious as say The Pixies or Nirvana. But this is a great album, straight from the New York school that bridges the gap between the Velvet Underground and the grunge scene they briefly became a part of.

'100%' is pure garage rock, swamped in a wall of feedback; 'Sugar Kane' is a churning epic that blusters along nicely; 'Theresa's Sound World' is more reminiscent of Neil Young or REM for some reason - it just has that rural American indie feel to it. The highpoint is perhaps 'Drunken Butterfly' which sounds almost like a lost Velvet Underground classic with a deranged Nico giving vent to some twisted stream of consciousness.

This album is definitely one to check out. But play it loud - it makes more sense that way...