Music 10K: 48. Goo

Goo by Sonic Youth
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

This band is a classic inspiring the likes of Nirvana. "Dirty Boots" is awesome. It's grungy and discordant and packed full of punk. The lyrics speak of disillusionment and point to the sort of deflated, purposeless sense of many Generation Xers during the 90s.

"Tunic (Song for Karen)" is a perfect example of this disillusionment with the lyric "You ain't never goin' anywhere." The entire song is Kim Gordon telling a story rather than singing it to the erratic, electrified strumming of guitars.

"Mary-Christ" kicks it off with a "jump up and down" rhythm that's simply killer. Then off it goes into its psyche-out discordance and crazy guitars. It's sheer punk rock. Love it. Interesting how it fades off into the beginning of "Kool Thing", which is wild with drum rolls and Kim Gordon's half-stoned voice pervading throughout. I love Kim Gordon's intermittent monologues too. She makes a point even though she takes on a tone of near complete disenchantment.

"Mote" rocks. There's something atmospheric and wild about Sonic Youth's music. It takes on different shapes and takes sudden turns which you wouldn't necessarily anticipate. It makes the music really intriguing while still maintaining aural appeal. "Mote" exemplifies this with its entirely instrumental finish, almost like an orchestra tuning up before a concert, except its the instruments of a rock band.

"My Friend Goo" has a great bass riff. The bass is heavy and thick. It's a great rich sound. The lyrics to this song are actually pretty ridiculous, which happens with some rock bands from time to time. This song seems to suggest that it's not really the band's goal to make meaningful content in a lyrical sense, but rather to just make music and allow themselves to be free with it.

There is a lot going on in "Disappearer." It's highly amplified and there's tons of feedback, but it's not hard to follow necessarily. "Mildred Pierce" starts off pretty hefty on the bass once again with the doomsday guitar theme creating a dissonance that is on the verge of beauty. Then all chaos ensues with tortured screaming and an abrupt ending that kind of shocks you back into silence.

"Cinderella's Big Score" is crazy. I'm not sure I hear anything that even remotely resembles or conjures up the fairytale in my mind, which somehow makes it hilariously awesome. Then you have "Scooter + Jinx" which wails like alarms in a war-torn town.

Tying it off with "Titanium Exposé", this album shows just how Sonic Youth has truly made dissonance and discordance cool. Not everyone can pull that off. They do it pretty amazingly.

The video below is a little broken visually, but the sound seems okay. I tried putting the official video up, but that was so stupid that I actually prefer to watch this broken one over it.