oh i got that boot too... it is some real awful sound quality on that one...

i think half of rather ripped is good and half of it is somewhat dull,
EJST&NS is honestly pretty dull, well 3/4 of it...

thurston's recordings are hit n miss:
hits: hurricane floyd, live at tonic, blood shadow rampage, piece for jetsun dolma....
misses: TM/MF, MMMR, Piece for Yvonne Rainer, Please (Just leave me) My Paul Desmond...

thats just the way it is.

an sy beach towel probably

I was serious. Talk about overrated

you want me to start talking dirty?

I concur. Not quite as awesome as EVOL, but nonetheless awesome.

opening riffs of schizo are amazing draws you in with out putting you out

Sister is rad. Second in my list, Evol, Sister, Bad Moon Rising.

My worst Sonic Youth purchase was "Screaming Fields of Sonic Love" VHS. I bought it in USA, not realizing that it's in the NTSC format or whatever you guys use there. Full of joy, I put it into my VHS player at home in Slovakia and the tape has copletely fucked it up. Since then, the VHS player hasn't been working properly (5 years now).

I cursed the tape.

Other than that, I didn't like the Ranaldo/Moore/Shelley/Mats Gustaffson collab.

I dont think ive spent more than 8 quid on a Sonic Youth CD, so though i dont like one or two albums that much theyre still good purchases.
But if i had to pick, ive never really got into A thousand leaves.

how can you rip on sy?

Do you mean "How can you possibly beleive that SY could, or a member of SY, could ever release something that wasn't the purest, most beautiful art"?

Have you ever seen a full SY discography, including side-projects and solo releases? No-one could release that much stuff and not put some crud out.

ehh yeah, i suppose... but still
all the main albums you all hate i enjoy....ahah maybe im just lame.

I love everything BUT EJST&NS

i dont think i could call any of my sy purchases worst

TV SHIT is definitly SHIT (I bought it for about 15 dollars...)

not me (lydia's moth) is cool in my book, please just leave me is not

i havn't bought much solo stuff in a while, i should catch up on the good ones.

Made in the USA

Thing is, I do like everything they've ever done. I have never heard a Sonic Youth record where I thought, "Damn, this sucks." I won't claim to love everything they've done, probably 85% or higher, but not everything.

I am particularly less into EJT&NS, A Thousand Leaves, and probably Rather Ripped (still kind of early to tell, but I'm pretty certain Nurse is way better, because by this point with that album I was still listening to it constantly, and Rather Ripped is not a huge priority to me now.) I agree with you that The Destroyed Room is better. Only thing wrong with that, is that I already had most of the MP3s.

T.V. Shit is my least favorite of the noise albums, but I still like it too, for what it is. But then I never bought it, and eventually a friend who did gave it to me. And I don't really listen to it. But it's perfectly o.k. as conceptual art. The Silver Sessions is an infinitely better noise album though, I love that one.

SYR 5 is kind of a yawner too, though again this is all relative. It's still better than anything I've ever hear by the Strokes, Shins, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, ad nauseum.

I've been following this band heavily for close to 24 years, and when I look at that discography, I can't find one thing that makes me groan, including side projects. I'm not the rock star cock sucker you describe though, I am fully capable of criticizing some things they do (like touring a twenty year old album and thinking it won't make the "They haven't done anything good since..." crowd even more set in that bullshit way of thinking!)

Without a doubt though, take any record I've mentioned above as not up to par with the rest, pick the worst song on it, and put it up against anything coming out of a "commercial alternative" station or playing on MTV2 and I'll pick the "lame" SY song in a second!

this thread is funny.

sister is their best album.

and washing machine rules!

anyway, my 3 best sy purchases:

made in usa
sister
silver sessions

all classics.

my 3 best purchases-of-cd'rs-to-burn-these:

confusion is sex/kill yr idols
hold that tiger
walls have ears

Nothing I regret. Side project and SYRs are EXTREMELY rare here. I've been after SYR1 for a year now. It took me a while to find NYC G+H, good album though.

What is so bad about the Paul Desmond one? Everyone seems to be hating that one...

SYR1 is THE BEST!!!!, i was lucky, i bought all 6 SYR's in Manhattan really really cheap.

A Thousand Leaves.
Can't say it's a bad album, but I've never listened to it from start to end. The best one is EVOL.

Yeah, it's the 3d I bought(after sister and EVOL), a really good album, with songs like Wildflower soul or Sunday...
My only worst SY purchase was SYR5 'cause the CD was broken...

What I was gonna say...I saw that shit for $19.99 as an 'import' and had never heard of it (just came out at the time)...still have it but I got so ripped off.

i got it on cassette about a year ago because i only had a tape player in my car. i would've regretted it had it been on CD. the title track is the only decent song on there.

Agreed...I've tried to get into it so many times.

nyc ghosts and flowers is pretty overrated by people on this board generally... it has like 2 or 3 really good songs on it.

a thousand leaves, though, is easily their best album since daydream.

that's the general concensus, but it's not mine.

Free City Rhymes? Side 2 Side? Small Flowes? Renegade?
All good songs IMO.

And I believe ATL is overrated. Still good, but there are some cringe songs, and Hits of Sunshine and Female Mechanic just drrraaaaggg on with the same thing for ages.

i think this is mine too.

Probably Unboxed by Free kitten.

damn, nycg&f, atl, in the fishtank 9 all rule!

My worst purchase was Kim's used panties. I was expecting a thong or something but it ended up being granny panties. Oh well.

Experimental Jet Set...
Not that it's that bad, but I could live without it, and I could've spent that $20 on something better.

in my time i used to buy lots of these expensive bootleg CDs. Well not lots as they weren't cheap at all, prices were outrageous.
The sound was usually very good but then from time to time, thay had be burned CDs with amateur artwork; they were cheaper and worked well.
Well, reviewing all these CDs yesterday, 4 out of 20 bootleg CDs were KNACKERED (8 to ten year old CDrs and even an original pressed CD!!!!) They are so ficked that i can't even extract the tracks to the PC to burn a fresh copy. The tracks are all muffled, sound is knackered; i can't do anything. It's not very nice.
so those.

SACRELIGE.

Changed my mind.

i NEVER listen to that fishtank thing. should i give it another chance? just seemed like too many people, too much bullshit.

i have to admit, it delights me to see how many people actually paid good money for TV SHIT and basically got fucked. i would always see it in stores but it was super pricey and looked suspicious, no track list to discern whether it was worth the hefty pricetag. no internet at the time to confirm what it actually was. same deal w/ 'sonic death' but i eventually found that for $15 or something and BOY did that pay off. finally got a dub of tv shit later and heard what i was missing. felt kinda relieved. then my friend sold me his vinyl copy for like $5 and i like to throw that on every once in a while around 3am.

hey, it's 3am now!