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This is a reissue of quite possibly one of the best
albums ever. Goo changed everything. It was
the end of the Reagan eighties, and music had been
so completely commercial and bland for so long that
everybody was walking around like zombies.
But the underground had been percolating. Punk had
morphed into post-punk, alternative (a real alternative
to top 40), and all sorts of fractured genres. People
were experimenting with new sounds and that had been
happening for over a decade. About the time that Goo
came out, it all boiled over into the mass consciousness.
Goo helped lead that charge. Goo exploded
all over the musical world, throbbing and intense
and like nothing you had ever heard before. I remember
seeing the video for Kool Thing on MTV's
120 Minutes. It blew me away. It was everything
I had been looking for and more.
So this is the second installment of Sonic Youth
reissues, the first being Dirty. The band has
given it to us in a 2 CD set, with a 4 LP vinyl version
on the way. The entire album has been remastered for
greater clarity: that is, the noise is more pure now.
They have thrown in great extra's, some you may have
heard as b sides on all of the great EP's and singles
put out after Goo, like That's All I Know
Right Now and The Bedroom. The Bedroom
is actually an early version of The Destroyed Room
that made it's way to Dirty. The second disc
is comprised of mostly 8-track demos and a few extras.
These demos are the genuine gift here. They are raw
and emotional, uncompressed, full of life and torment.
One of my best live show moments happened at a Sonic
Youth show. It wasn't even during one of the songs,
it was in between songs. The band was moving into
free form sound, each person breaking down their instruments
in deconstructivist fashion, intent on destroying
the convention of their intended purpose, and there
was noise and distorsion and feedback going everywhere.
There were strobe lights all over the club - like
a dozen of them - and they would flash one at a time
in intermittent flashes. Other than that, the club
was pitch black. So you would have this darkness that
was full of noise, and then a strobe would flash one
time for a half a second from the side of the stage.
Then it would go dark, then another would flash a
second or two later from the back. The result was
a timewarp effect of being lost in a swirl of sound
and light. I was a few rows from the front of the
stage taking it all in with the most amazing awe.
They went on like this for a few minutes (but it seemed
to last for days) and then launched into their next
song. Some of these demos recreate that experimentalist
magic.
The 8 track demos are great to listen to in their
roughness - Lee's a little off pitch on the
high notes, the guitars sound extra dirty and fuzzy,
and Winona Ryder even makes her way on to some
spoken word bits on Flexi disc interview. These are
presumably the songs that were submitted to Geffen
back in the day that landed them a contract - and
cemented the group in what would turn out be multi-album
deal. This was a big shift for the band musically,
as they moved into fuzz territory and expanded their
sound immensley. I know most scribes tend to point
out Daydream Nation or Dirty as the
big albums for Sonic Youth - but I think this
was their magnum opus. Everything changed with this
set of music. They upped the ante on their musical
offering, expanding their scope far beyond the sounds
they had ever created before (which is no small feat
if you listen to the previous albums), took their
lyric writing to a new level, and made this the biggest
"art project" they had ever done.
The guitar lines on DV2 (Kool Thing)
are free flowing and rough at the same time. The enrgy
is great. There is a live feel to these tracks, like
they all played on them at the same time rather than
separate recordings time shifted over days. Mildred
Pierce clocks in at almost 9 minutes, in long
form free expression and noisy chaos. There's feedback
spilling out my speakers and I feel like I'm right
there at the show again.
Sonic Youth: Goo reissue
Track List Disc One
01 Dirty Boots
02 Tunic (Song for Karen)
03 Mary-Christ
04 Kool Thing
05 Mote
06 My Friend Goo
07 Disappearer
08 Mildred Pierce
09 Cinderella's Big Score
10 Scooter and Jinx
11 Titanium Expose
12 Lee #2
13 That's All I Know (Right Now)
14 The Bedroom
15 Dr. Benway's House
16 Tuff Boyz
Disc Two
01 Tunic
02 Number One (Disappearer)
03 Titanium Expose
04 Dirty Boots
05 Corky (Cinderella's Big Score)
06 My Friend Goo
07 Bookstore (Mote)
08 Animals (Mary-Christ)
09 DV 2 (Kool Thing)
10 Blowjob (Mildred Pierce)
11 Lee #2
12 I Know There's an Answer
13 Can Song
14 Isaac
15 Goo Interview Flexi
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