Female Mechanic Now on Duty
 

This song slowly went from one of my lesser favorite ATL songs to in my top 5 all time favorites. The exasperated growl kind of turned me off at first.

One thing sy is good at is holding tension to make a cathartic release.

I love the dualist nature of the lyrics. It is like two songs that would have felt incomplete on their own stuck together for a grander statement. The first half is all empowerment. Aggression that feels pointed at the individual. The second half is feminine, motherly. It feels like it embraces and attunes to all things. The bridge being "modern women cry, modern women don't cry" feels like it is saying these two halves are a complete woman. That you can be feminist and powerful and fight, but also still retain a certain feminine fragility, and both are important.

Totally agree.

At first, I didn’t care for it. Then I freaking caught the bug. It’s been one of my favorite songs on one of my favorite albums.

It moves like a gentle storm, too. Love the flow of it.

same here!

still my least favorite track off ATL. maybe someday I'll join the club.

I swear ATL is my fav SY album, and Kim is at her absolute peak on this album.

It was my favorite for a while — at least, my favorite of the post-Sister and DDN albums — but I think Murray Street got the edge on it at some point, and I’m not sure how ATL, with its various silly moments (“HE’S JUST A KITTEN!”), can compete with Murray Street’s perfection.

It’s one of those instances where certainly ATL has more high, but also more lows. Murray Street doesn’t waste a second or miss a note, and everything fits together perfectly.

ATL > Washing Machine and Dirty and EXST&NS, etc. though. For sure.

You're all crazy.

If I sat down and did a top 5 worst sonic youth songs this would DEFINITELY be in there somewhere. Awful song. Kim's vocals are the big one for me on this one. For the most part I love her voice, but by god this is her at her most nails-down-a-blackboard.

Even if I agreed, that objectionable affectation lasts only until the three minute mark.

Then some noisy fun, "modern women (don't) cry", the "thousand leaves" ending chunk.

It's a 7:43 minute song, so removing the first three minutes still leaves a solid, satisfying track. (Or even more so, if one hates the beginning)

I'm almost certain that I am Contre Le Sexisme's biggest fan. I fucking love that strange and beautiful thing. I always remember how it hit me on first spin. What a great way to start a record!!

Sacrilege. Washing Machine is one of SY's most defining moments..it's a flat-out masterpiece. The only thing lower than ATL in their catalog is NYCG&F. All of that faux beat-poetry and hippie nonsense on ATL and NYCG&F is embarrassing. Worst SY-era, hands down...

Funny. I rate both ATL and Washing Machine highly (WM is my second or third fav), but Murray Street never grew on me. It leaves me inert.

Gotta agree with this one. I'm actually baffled at how people can say it's their best album.

However! The irony is that Sunday is actually one of my all time favourite Sonic youth tracks

I think it's time for a 2018 Rank The Sonic Youth Albums thread.

Ok, I’ll start...

1. Sister - 10/10
2. Daydream Nation - 10/10
3. Washing Machine - 9/10
4. Dirty - 9/10
5. Murray Street - 9/10
6. Evol - 9/10
7. Sonic Nurse - 8/10
8. Goo - 8/10
9. Confusion Is Sex + Kill Your Idols - 8/10
10. Bad Moon Rising - 7/10
11. Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star - 7/10
12. The Eternal - 7/10
13. Rather Ripped - 7/10
14. Sonic Youth - 6/10
15. A Thousand Leaves - 6/10
16. New York City Ghosts & Flowers - 5/10

Im bored. Why not?

Washing Machine
Bad Moon
Sister
EJST&NS
Evol
1000 Leaves
SYR 1
White(y)
Daydream
SY EP
Murray
Dirty
Confusion
Goo
Nurse
NYC Ghosts

Ripped and Eternal are garbage. (Sorry but not that sorry)

Washing Machine is great, but it’s not better than ATL.

WM was a re-entry point. Is it definitive? Absolutely. But it is musically inferior to ATL on the whole. Less expansive, less daring, less beautiful. ATL sounds like a “Diamond Sea” played in slow motion for an entire album.

No disrespect to WM, but ATL is better. For me anyway.

1. Sister or DDN
2. DDN or Sister
3. Evol or Murray Street
4. Murray Street or Evol...

You get the idea.

The Eternal is their worst. Not because it’s bad, but because it could have and should have been much better.

Wait... wait... wait... I'm not the only one who thinks all that Allen Ginsberg crap is pretentious b.s.? Thank goodness

specifically the ginsberg song taints the album for me. if not for that, atl might be as high as number 2 on my list.

Of course it’s pretentious, and I didn’t like it at first either, but now I do.

ATL is a *tremendous* headphone-walk-in-the-city listen. I really dig the bohemian vibe of that album and that era of SYR releases.

Robert Christgau on ATL:


The only Sonic Youth record to get an A+ from "The Dean" :rolleyes: when it was released (Daydream Nation received an A originally; the 2007 reissue did get the maximum rating).

Ripped isn’t garbage, is it? I mean, it’s been a while since I last listened to it, but I always felt it was the realization of SY’s pop dream. (Or maybe that was actually EJS?)

Rather Ripped is a gorgeous, precise, PERFECT fuckin' album and I can't believe it's still getting shit after 12 years.





Noooo, Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star is all over the place compared to RR. If anything, beyond superficial measures of volume and tempo, it contains less pop songwriting than Dirty, the album it "reacted" against.

The Dean is correct in his assessment. But I’m troubled by the fact that he doesn’t mention the breakdown of “Heather Angel.” What a whopper of a surprise post-punk deathmarch that is. Uh!

Of course, this being the only A+ Sonic Youth record besides Daydream is troubling.

A Thousand Leaves has its moments, but it's definitely not one of my favourite SY records. I will share the full list as soon as I've made it through all the albums again, which'll be in a few days.

I think in some ways it’s the most “Sonic Youth does pop” of any of their albums. Dirty is more “Pop does Sonic Youth,” (pop being Butch Vig). But I can see the argument for RR too.

Fuck this anti-RR shit though. It’s a great record. It’s a gorgeous gem of a noise-pop album, and it’s better than most of the high-profile indie rock records from that era.

Eternal isn’t a great farewell, but whatever

Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve listened to the full collection. Been sticking to the ‘80s stuff for the past couple years.

Probably about time to dig back in.

Anagrama is one of the best things they ever did.

100% agree. Reputation points added. Cheers.

The feeling of freedom and euphoria in that song is unlike anything else in their discography. You can tell they were feeling liberated by having their brand new, very own studio.

Yup. I remember picking it up from a Tower Records, plopping it into my (yep) portable CD player, and listening to it on my walk home.

The song is the highlight, but the entire EP is SOARING.

I’ll never forget that walk home. Brilliant song.

I was a little young when it came out. 14 or 15? It was a challenge finding sy cds in my hometown. So I'm in a college town an i find a record store that had all kinds of cool stuff i could never find, dozens of nirvana bootlegs, and more sonic youth albums than i knew existed. Not sure why i chose syr 1 but i'm glad i did. Cool store. I also found the diamond sea single there another time.

I didn’t buy Anagrama until a few years after it dropped. I was 18 or 19 when I bought it. Sorry... the above story wasn’t meant to be a “when it came out” story, just a “that fucker hit me from the word go” story.

I was only starting to build my Sonic Youth stash when SYR started, and they had not yet become my favorite band.

it is so refreshing to see SY albums being discussed again on this forum, it seems alive here.

tell me about your encounter with SY Claire, I am interested.

ATL is not on the top, but Female Mechanic Now On Duty is some strong stuff, so Anagrama! I like RR. I like EJSTNS too, do not understand why people dislike it so much.

I know it's blasphemy, but I admit I heard EJSTNS like twice in my life, overall. And I disliked it both of the times.

True that.

Can't really remember where I heard about them - probably some article or factoid linking them with Nirvana.

... hennnhh?!

Really?

Dude.

ALSO, back to ATL...

I think it’s important to add that ATL has, arguably, the greatest Sonic Youth album art.

Maybe DDN is more iconic, but ATL is #2, easily.

Goddamn glorious