E.V.O.L.

Decent, not as good as Goo

God DAMMIT. I want to like Sonic Youth so bad. Noise rock was a pinnacle of my music taste when I was growing up, and honestly, it still is. I'm still growing up. But they've always been on the outskirts of my vision. I think "yeah they're not bad" even though nothing they've put out has really struck me. When I was a kid, I heard EVOL through one earbud while doing schoolwork in class. I thought it wasn't noisy enough. 10 years later, it's still not noisy enough. Not nearly. Not until the very last song was I actually impressed by anything, and by then, it's too little too late for me. I recently got Seventeen Seconds by The Cure from this journey, which was one of my few touchstones for gothic rock. This sounds very similar; even Sonic Youth consider this their "goth record." I guess that explains why I really despise this thing. Too murky, soaked in echo, mumbling singers, basic chords and melodies...it actually reminds me of shoegaze quite a bit. Wouldn't you know, I don't like shoegaze either. This entire album experience was me thinking "oh, oh this could be something...nope. oh my god. DO SOMETHING" over and over again. I was teetering between a 2 and a 1. But EVOL is LOVE backwards, and LOVE would be a 5, so...

Never was a fan. Revisiting does not help.

Nobody likes this list. Or this album.

Cool album, not their best album, but enjoyed it, esp first half. Standout songs: Shadow of a doubt Starpower Madonna Sean and me

Enjoyed it, particularly the first few songs. Some nicely constructed tracks with solid production. The vocals were a bit less shouty than the other SY record I reviewed. Definitely will give it another listen.

Don’t think I was depressed enough to enjoy this to it’s full potential.

If you took 80’s pop and dropped a nuclear bomb on it so all that was left was destruction, chaos and debris, this is the album it would sound like.

This seems two different albums. Track 1 immediate notes of Joy Division and Cure. Tracks 2-4 favorited. And then sort of fell off. Lisa commented “not a good album today, huh?” I’m going to give it a 4 to encourage a return. 4/5

I love Sonic Youth but this album shouldn't be on the list

For some unknown reason I have never listened to this album despite knowing 90s sonic youth VERY well. I really enjoyed this listen and it was great from first song to last. loads of notable songs and the instrumentation was fantastic. pure raw sonic youth. I really enjoyed Madonna, Sean and Me, but my standout was shadow of a doubt or starpower. This is a fantastic album. 4 stars

Though I really like Sonic Youth I never listened to this early album of them. It has already all the characteristics that make Sonic Youth the cult group that they are : a blend of noise and melody that works without being boring. Favorite Songs: Tom Violence ; Green Light ; Expressway to Yr. Skull

Coulda sworn I loved this album the first time I listened to it earlier this year. Still really good, but not hitting me quite as much. Love the goth rock leanings, but this album is landing a little more on the jammy side of things for Sonic Youth, so I'm not loving it quite as much as I remembered. Unlike Daydream Nation, Sister, and Dirty, no particular tracks are standing out to me, but everything is pretty consistent in quality. Still a good record, and Sonic Youth are the GOATS, but yeah.

Like it

This is my favorite album by my favorite band. 2nd fav album ever.

4eme album proposé après 'Daydream Nation', 'Goo' et ‘Sister’ que j'avais beaucoup apprécié (notés tous trois 4/5 pour leur originalité). Ce groupe est vraiment une excellente découverte. Sa capacité à surprendre l’auditeur est tout simplement exceptionnelle. Chaque morceau apporte son lot de surprises dans cet album (Structure, dissonance, breaks inattendus). Un vrai bonheur ! Il n’est pas loin de la note maxi. =>4.5/5 Que je vais arrondir à 5 !

well... it was certainly something i listened to

Not as bad as I was expecting out not great

It ok kind of pretentious though

This was good. But I prefer their later stuff. 3.8

Like I’ve said before, I’ve always felt Sonic Youth are a bit overrated. They do their thing well enough and I respect them for their influence but do I, at any point, feel like putting one of their albums on? Not really. This is a perfectly fine album too, but… that’s really it.

This was enjoyable. Although barely a four for me. This seems like a relatively weaker SY album and maybe possibly just a little bit not an essential one to include on this list.

While not in my top five, still a pretty great SY album.

Another good one from Sonic Youth. I’ve often considered doing a run through of their discography, but I know there’s some absolute dogshit in there, and that’s giving me pause.

Love sonic youth ! Great album!

Day1011 - godfathers the alternative rock. you can hear how influential the bass line is through the nineties music

I might go so far as to say this band was the Velvet Underground of the late 80s, early 90s. Not to everyone’s taste, but definitely influential.

What was interesting the first time through (common industrial sounds) became annoying on the second listen. Five albums by this band on the list just to drive home the point that a bit different does not always yield good music.

Did there really need to be five Sonic Youth albums on this list? Looking through my reviews, I kind of enjoyed one of them, while the rest left me feeling pretty much the same as this one. Pretentious and noisy. I just don’t get it. Maybe one day I’ll understand the appeal of Sonic Youth, but today is not that day. I’m just glad this was the fifth and final album on the list. 2 stars.

As far as noise rock goes I actually kind of enjoyed this

One of my favourite bands

hmm… i definitely liked it more than Sister, but not as much as Daydream Nation... i guess i prefer there more palatable work lol

Really weird, but really cool album. It’s interesting to see the evolution that the band made from the 80s to the 90s, one of the few bands that even though they have too many albums on here, I’ve enjoyed all of them. Four stars.

Considering my musical taste, Sonic Youth shoujd be a safe bet, but no. There are certainly some songs of theirs that I like, but it's difficult for me to get through an entire album. There's just so much discord that there's nothing that I can melodically grasp.

I know I would have been so into this if I was a teenager at that time. However the long solos and strained guitar riffs don't hit for me

Schrodinger's album. The first time I listened there were some okay songs. The second time I listened there were not.

Great excuse to play this again. SY found their stride on this masterwork of NYC punk and noise.

I really don't like "jamming" of any kind, whether it's jam-band jamming, blues-riff jamming, or - in this case - noise jamming. Just play a f-ing song already. The moments of song that Sonic Youth put forth are pretty good and often great, but if I'm just looking for that part of what they do, I'll go listen to Dinosaur Jr. Marking down because there are too many SY albums on this list.

So, compared to some other SY albums, this maybe ranks a little lower. Like a 4.7 or something for me. I pretty much love it all. The picture of Lung Leg on the front of the album makes you think you're about to hear all of the depraved, mid-80s, Richard Kern-adjacent, no wave guitar noise you can possible handle. But then Tom Violence comes on and Thurston is actually sort of singing, and it's a lot less noisy and guitar-forward than you might expect. And Kim's near whisper in Shadow of Doubt doesn't really dispel that feeling. In fact, the whole album is way more accessible than it seems like it should be, given the time and place it arose out of. There's still plenty of caterwauling, especially in Death to Our Friends and Marilyn Moore, but I'll be danged if maybe the path to Daydream Nation didn't start here.

Those first two tracks are a pretty good introduction, but for my money, the high point comes in the form of Madonna, Sean, and Me. It's uneven in the way you might expect, given it's an art rock band finding its way.

Sometimes there's a good groove for a minute or so, but overall this is way too dissonant and nonmelodic for me. I know they're cool and important, or something, but I get no pleasure from most of this. Secret Girl is awful. So is Marilyn Moore. Stopping before the end.

3/5 - I like Sonic Youth, but we don't need the whole damn catalog on this list. Knocking this down a notch for the Elvis Costello effect. Not in my top 3 SY albums and not a must-listen, but solid.

Skränigt

I'm bored!

While I respect them as innovators of the "no wave" or "noise Rock" genre, they were never my type band. Growing up in the NYC hardcore and metal scene, I've had the opportunity to see them many times "back in the day" and enjoyed seeing them live, but never enjoyed listening to an album. RESPECT!

The first of what seems to be a few Sonic Youth albums included on this list. I had listened to this one years ago and nothing really stuck out to me except the oddly subdued "Shadow of a Doubt" and the noisy closer "Expressway to Yr Skull," so it was sort of nice to revisit this. Make no mistake, this is the sound of a band that was discovering exactly what their sound was, what with the utterly indecipherable guitar tunings and effects that make the instruments sound they came from a different era entirely, and the non-linear songwriting that anchors the whole of the Sonic Youth oeuvre. This one is surprisingly eclectic as it exchanges post-punk dejection with noisy hardcore punk fury to meet somewhere in the middle. With all that said, this album doesn't really have a second half outside of "Expressway" as all the best songs are found in the first half, and the ideas introduced are essentially all repeated in the second half. I did like the strange, interlude-like "In the Kingdom #19," which veers from an almost punk blues atmosphere carrying along a mopey spoken word delivery. It's surprisingly unique in the Sonic Youth catalogue. I "Secret Girl" also does this in a much more subdued manner, with Kim Gordon doing her classic speak-singing over some loose, echoing hits and sparse piano. It lends a Swans-esque energy to the album (let's not forget that Thurston Moore was briefly a member of that band when both were coming up in NYC in the early 80s.) Honestly, that one song felt like a deliberate attempt to create a Gira-and-Jarboe dynamic for just a moment. On the whole, EVOL is the first of Sonic Youth's "good" albums and is definitely one of the better entry points into their catalogue. They did do this sound much better on later releases though, especially on the 2 that followed. EVOL also happens to be the punkiest of the classic Sonic Youth records, so you might get a lot out of it if you like noisy hardcore-adjacent rock. Key Tracks: Tom Violence, Shadow of a Doubt, Death to Our Friends, Expressway to Yr Skull

1086 - "Here's your juice box and orange slice. Thanks for coming."

not evil enough

Always wondered what the deal was with Sonic Youth. Now I kind of know!

ADORO I SONIC YOUTH. GODO CAZZO. UN FILM DELL’ORRORE CHE CREA TENSIONE COSTANTE MI PIACE. TORNERÒ CON UN VOGO FORSE PIÙ ALTO. 4/5

I love a good Sonic Youth song, but many of these were too abstract for me. Like they were just noise, nothing to hold on to? Meh, not great. Not sure why this album is on here.

7/10

Not their best

Just a lot of noise rock, somewhat decent. Avant garde music that appeals most to angry teenagers (not that there’s anything wrong with that)

This sucks

Very cool and very moody but a bit too much noodly time wasting

I actually really liked this. The aggressive yet morose guitars really hit me just the right way.

Never been much of a sonic youth fan but I did enjoy this

I wonder if I'd feel different if I heard them when they first came out. Sonic Youth always has interesting sounds and musical parts, but the vocals and lyrics are so lame and flat that it isn't worth it.

Interesting...

This is my 4th Sonic Youth album from the list. One sucked, one was average, and the other was great. For this one, while I'm not upset about listening to it, I can't foresee a situation in which I'd want to spin this again. ⭐⭐.75

This album starts off well, but it loses me a little after “Starpower.” From there, it just seems to meander through indie goth songs without doing much to pull me back in. There are some good moments, but overall this just isn't an album I see myself coming back to.

I’ve heard this before and I own it. I think I had my first kiss listening to this, though it might have been a different sonic youth album from this time period. This one is where they set in place their more mature sound that they carried on for the next decade, while still evolving and tweaking more into pop territory it fully abandoning their old no-wave sound. You can hear some of this sound developing on Bad Moon Rising as they added more melodic elements, and they’re still exploring themes of disturbing Americana that got them grouped into the less melodic noise bands of the pigfuck genre, which they had mostly stopped by around the time of Goo. This was also their first album with Steve Shelley on drums, bringing in a more hardcore edge to the expansion into their new melodic sound. The combination of melody, harmony, dissonance, and noise on top of the heavy beat and gruesome imagery is near perfection and makes this a monumental achievement.

Number: 266 Familiarity: Well-versed (4) Rating: 3 Before: ======= I either didn't know about or had not paid attention to Sonic Youth until after the release of Daydream Nation in 1988. I had landed a job as a waiter at an intown trendy Mexican restaurant where it seemed most of the wait staff were either musicians or artists. After work, I used to go over to one of the guys' house, get stoned, and listen to music. Daydream Nation is one the albums he used to put on frequently. I liked it a lot back then but not as much now. And that is probably my favorite album by them. I am not as familiar with EVOL but have listed to it a few times. Mostly, I don't really get it. After : ======= Looks like they have 5 albums on The List. That's at least 2 too many and probably 4 too many, but I'm not familiar with their entire discography so can't say for sure. This one, I'll give a 3.

Som all Sonic Youth finns det mycket intressant soundscape, men som helhet är det bara ett OK album

An entry from the "this music is too cool for me" club. Buzzy and sort of flat. I simply don't connect with Sonic Youth at all.

I liked this a lot more than the consensus. I can deal with the noise as long as it's in a structured song. I moped out of the spoken word track, though.

Again, this is fine. I don't love it, I don't dislike it. I respect it for deviating from standard rock elements and still sounding heavy and good. But like with the previous Sonic Youth album, I think I just don't totally get it.

Not bad, but nothing amazing.

Previše Sonic Youtha na listi!!! Mada jest ok album, ne osjećam se kao da sam pretjerano potrošila vrijeme kao npr. za onaj njihov dupli.

no

Really liked the grungy sound to this one. Kind of noisy and mushy, but in a good way. Favorite Songs: Shadow of a Doubt, Bubblegum

Not as in love with it as I once was, but still great.

The crystallization point for what makes them so special, moreso than Sister and Daydream Nation imo. Steve Shelley coming aboard reshapes a lot but the essence is somewhat refactored too. They commit harder to this tension between ether and darkness. It's a swirl. On some days it's my favorite album they've ever done.

sonic youth has one of the coolest sounds ever

Its ok, some songs i liked a fair amount and some fun vocals at points. It does sometimes feel edgy in a very teenaged angry kid way. Might just be a bad mood day but i just didnt love this other than secret girl and shadow of a doubt

Very listenable and similar to a lot of my favorite music but FEELS experimental so I can act like I'm stretching my boundaries. I'm sure there will be more Sonic Youth on this list, otherwise I'd want to go hear the rest of their albums Highlights: "Shadow of a Doubt", "Secret Girl", "Madonna, Sean, and Me"

The sort of music that your mind plays trying to sleep while sick as a dog, dosed up on codeine

Punk rock albumi. Tykkää käyttää epävireisiä soittimia ja riitasointuja viestittäessä pahasta, ja ne toimivat oivallisesti. Sopii raivokkaaseen tekemiseen ja fiilikseen.

It was alright. Not really all that great overall.

big up the lesbians

Pues es un álbum q me gustó por sus sonidos oscuros y su profundidad en sus instrumentos me pareció un álbum interesante y me llamó la atención sus artistas pero si Sentí q varias canciones se parecían muchas

In a time of clean, radio-friendly pop music, Sonic Youth was a middle finger to the music culture.

I might be on a bit of an island here, but for me, there will always be a baseline level of enjoyment I get from listening to sonic youth. I get why other people don’t like it. However, this album just doesn’t have it. I would understand why people who don’t already like this band would HATE this.

Espantoso

Well, the Sonic lovers will be happy to see, what, 5 (?) LPs on this list. And this one most definitely doesn't need to be included. Moving on.

This feels like a very "Fall-esque" album. I know I say this a lot, but once again I'm surprised I have never heard this album before today. Another very ominous but upbeat project with very well utilized alternative elements that gives it it's own charm in a lovable-sinister kind of way. Very unique project, I'm keeping this one in the rotation.

One of the first albums I ever listened to front to back. I remember finding this album when I was really getting into experimental music when I was around 17 or 18. Stuff like Prostitute and Dinosaur Jr. was really catching my attention and it starts pushing me further into the "let's make our guitars as fugly as possible" pipeline and I ended up learning about No Wave. I listened to this album a little after that and loved it. The mix of the really dissonant (and sometimes completely atonal) guitar parts with the relaxed atmosphere of the album is a neat combination that's different from the usual screamy in-your-face-ness of No Wave as a genre. I'm not sure how hot of a take it is to call this Sonic Youth's best album but I really don't think it has much competition.

Not my favorite Sonic Youth album, but not bad, considering I never could get into them.

Eh

Sonic Youth = 5 Stars regardless. In some of my other Sonic Youth reviews I talked about how terrible of a person Thurston Moore turned out to be, and he really did. I just feel that we need to address the one big elephant in the room and that is that Lee Ronaldo is often overlooked as a great guitar player. He is one of the best guitar players out there. I have a bootleg album that he did with members of Coil and boy it's wild. I hate to admit that my favorite song on this album is sung by Thurston Moore but there is something special about Expressway to Yr Skull (weirdly on Pandora this is listed Madonna, Sean, and Me). Bubblegum is also great.

So dark and foreboding. Visionary. Engaging. I heard what they inspired, glad I got to hear the real thing.

Early sonic youth but the potential is evident.

Again with the coolest gen x band of all time. I still dont get it fully but I sorta get it some. Maybe its how eclectic they are that throws me off. Maybe its not alot of regular song structure. Maybe its the juxtaposition of the ethereal and the harsh noise. Maybe ive just described how it is as cool as it is. But anyway im not fully on board. I like some of what's here and im ok with the rest. Bubblegum might be the most normal ass song they have on here but i liked it. Noisy but it has that structure that I need. Starpower was my other save here. I like the guitars alot here. Still kinda formless but I get over it in this case. But overall its a good record. If not made specifically for my tastes. I get why they are so cool. Just i dont see it 100%. But its still good. Maybe ill get one I truly love eventually but this is just good here

This is a pretty good album. People who say this is too pretentious or artsy are just being different. Like this is just talking heads with more dark energy and everyone on here loves talking heads. One band having 5 different albums on the list is kind of a lot but this album should be on the list for how good it is.

Non il mio genere

Amazing album, amazing that I hadn't got round to listening before!

Overall: 8/10 This might actually be my new favourite Sonic Youth album. They're a band I've always appreciated, and when I saw how many albums they had in this list, I decided to save them all for when they pop up in the generator. I had a feeling that listening to all these other albums in the list and getting a better idea of my tastes would help me appreciate these guys more, and I was right. This album has everything that I love about Sonic Youth: Thurston and Kim trading on vocals; the weird, almost otherworldly guitar parts; the sonic (lol) soundscapes. It's all here, and the songs themselves are surprisingly melodic and fun to listen to. Such a great album, and I'm glad I waited to listen to it cause I get the sense that I would have hated this a year ago. Fav Song: Shadow of a Doubt

gente como assim estão jogando casca de banana nesse álbum!!!! eu adorei tem uma pegada vampiresca, um negócio meio depressão, escuro, solidão, adolescente rebelde adorei demais, achei super original, super adolescente em crise, super poético. Marilyn Moore me arrepiou madonna, sean and me também, é muito experimental de um jeito bom e a passagem dessa faixa para bubblegum é simplesmente perfeita. Bubblegum, inclusive, uma das melhores (se não a melhor) faixa do álbum. Muito inclinada a dar um 5 pra esse álbum. Vai ser um 5 nessa primeira vez ouvindo, talvez diminua numa próxima vez.

Thanks I hate it