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Dirty
Sonic Youth
DGC Records, 1992
REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 12/31/1998
Ever since I took on this project for New Year's Eve, I've beendiscovering in the Pierce Archives many records, tapes and CDs thatI bought for no specific reason. Sometimes, I didn't know the group- hell, sometimes, I didn't like the group - yet here, collectingdust, are the purchases that I can no longer explain.
Exhibit "S": Sonic Youth, whose work I was first exposed to incollege radio via the single "Kool Thing". And after my firsttaste, I decided I wasn't particularly fond of Thurston Moore andcrew. Yet, while digging up some choice nuggets for this project,there sat their 1992 album Dirty - whatever made me decide to buy this in the firstplace?
It's probably been a good five years since I last listened tothis tape, but the time away from it has helped to sharpen mytastes towards what Sonic Youth have been trying to do with theirmusic. With producer Butch Vig behind the controls (the first timeSonic Youth used an outside producer), Dirty proves itself to be an interesting, if not a tadconfusing, listen.
While there is still quite a bit of ambient noise that makes upSonic Youth's music, they now show they're not afraid to craft atune with - egads! - chordal structure. (It sounds for the mostpart like guitarists Lee Ranaldo and Moore aren't doing as manyexperimentations with alternate tunings - though there still aresome weird sounds on Dirty.)
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