[.ca] Washing Machine

Chronique amazon.fr:
Les Sonic Youth quittent New York et s'installent à Memphis pour enregistrer leur deuxième double album, sept ans après le superbe Daydream Nation. Ils enregistrent de longs morceaux aux ambiances contrastées (presque 10 minutes pour "Washing Machine" et 19 minutes pour la pièce maîtresse du disque "The Diamond Sea"). Influencés par la douceur campagnarde du Tennessee ils gravent quelques plages douces et mélodieuses ("Unwind" et "Little Trouble Girl" avec Kim Deal des Breeders aux choeurs).mais l'expérimentation reste de mise, avec les arpèges dissonants de "Skip Tracer" et la violence atonale de "Junkie's Promise". C'est qu'entre punk, free jazz et krautrock, le coeur de Sonic Youth ne cesse de balancer. --Hubert Deshouse

ýPerformance Artý in the worst since of the word.:
If you like buying music that is considered hip but sounds like noise you should like this. I doubt anyone who owns this actually listens to it they just buy it to be different and act superior. The kind of person who claims to like caviar. If you like artwork that looks like a bunch of garbage but costs 50,000 this album is for you. Totally unlistenable. People who like this probably think when they use the bathroom it should be saved as performance art.

INDIE CREDIBILITY OR NOT - THIS IS HORRIBLE SONG WRITING:
A band with indie crediblity could record themselves taking a dump, but as long as they have indie crediblity, people like you would praise it - I wanted to like this album, this is the first, & will be the last Sonic Youth album i ever buy - Since when is it being corporate or commercial to write songs that are GOOD? & have MELODY? these songs have absolutely no melody, & the only song with melody, is 'the Diamond Ring', which, by the way, has a very predictable melody that sounds like the type of melody youve heard 100 times before then the best song off the album turns out to be 18 + something minutes long, after the first 8 or so minutes, its just noise, like them playing pointless riffs This album isnt moving at all, you arent cool for liking this album, youre just trying to hard to be - I'd rather listen to the Pixies instead, the Pixies blow Sonic Youth away - the Pixies can recognize that you can write songs with MELODY & GOOD LYRICS & STILL be anti-corporate & indie Horrible song writing in general.

uneven but worthwile:
this is definitely one of the essential SY albums. there are a handful of incredible songs, but the album really falls apart a few songs in. The Diamond Sea combines one of the most beautiful and timeless melodies the band has ever penned with a long, mesmerizing foray into pure noise bilss. other highlights: Becuz (a great song and one of my all-time favorite Kim Gordon vocal performances) Unwind, Saucer-Like, and Junkie's Promise (which rocks harder and more unconventionally than any song from Dirty). Skip Tracer isn't bad, but in general i don't like music behind poetry/spoken word performances. it's decent (but not great) as poetry, but i'd rather hear it spoken solo. No Queen Blues is ok but not bnecessary. The title track has some excellent guitar work but i hate the lyrics and Kim's delivery is a dissappointment after the beguiling Becuz. this album is a great addition to any SY collection.

One of my favorites.:
I'd say this is one of their better albums, and it includes everything a "Sonic Youth" album should. Anyone who owns or likes their early/mid 90's stuff should easily like this. "Becuz" is a good opener, and the following songs are similar. "Unwind" is a slower one, and just kinda floats along. "Little Trouble Girl" has "Kim Deal" on it, and "Panty Lies" is very punk. Of course it ends with the great 19 minute+ "Diamond Sea", which starts out very melodic, then eventually becomes a huge noisefest. Hopefully they play some of this on "Lollapalooza 2004".

Diamond Sea is the best Sonic Youth song ever:
Typical Sonic Youth album. Full of hit or miss material, with a few moments that transcend pure brilliance. Lot of the stuff on this album is good, but a lot of the Kim Gordon stuff is crap. She needs to stop the kinky x-girl nonsense, and just get back to rocking like she did on Cross The Breeze or the entire Evol Album.

• Becuz
• Junkie's Promise
• Saucer-Like
• Washing Machine
• Unwind
• Little Trouble Girl
• No Queen Blues
• Panty Lies
• Skip Tracer
• Diamond Sea