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Everyone mentions '100%' and 'Sugar Kane', and both are good, the former a driving, posturing, cool punk number and the latter a radio-friendly, poppy rock song. However this album by no means stops there. Springing to mind is the utterly wonderful 'Theresa's Sound-world' which builds from quiet, reflective melody to a wall of beautiful, heavy, ear-bleeding noise. 'Drunken Butterfly' is propelled by a catchy riff (recently ripped off by Cooper Temple Clause for their single 'Promises Promises') and an earnestly ironic chorus of 'I love you, I love you, I love you, what's your name?'.
Their political drive comes to the fore on the slower, but equally menacing 'Youth Against Fascism', which contains sneering vocals, a monster of a bass sound and guitars that sound as if they are being ritualistically tortured rather than played. The album veers from creepy ('Shoot', 'On The Strip') to all-out punk ('Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit' and the cover of 'Nic's Fit'). The more commercial 'Chapel Hill' sits alongside 'Sugar Kane' nicely, but every track on here has a sense of melody. Then there is a bit of lunacism, like the strange and twisted closer 'Creme Brulee'.
Every track on this album digs its own musical furrow and the album is all the better for it as despite its length of 15 tracks each one is worthy of high acclaim. Above all, listening to Dirty, you get the sense that they were influencing scores of alternative bands to come: much of the album seems a template for bands like My Vitriol, Cooper Temple Clause and Ikara Colt, 'Youth Against Fascism' seems to have influenced Mclusky and 'Chapel Hill' sounds like it may have wormed its way into the minds of the Manic Street Preachers at times. This is an amazing album, an equal of Daydream Nation, and probably the best starting point for newcomers to this brilliant band.
The songs on Dirty are short, angry, lean, tight and muscular. They are shot through with an urgent, breathless energy. The whole album has a punchy, chunky, straightforward sound and a clean Butch Vig production that admittedly sets it closer to Lollapalooza-era alternative rock than to previous Sonic Youth albums like EVOL, Sister or Daydream Nation. My only slight reservation is that in straying so close to Nirvana's grunge/punk territory, they don't sound as instantly distinctive as they do on, say, Sister, so it's not necessarily the most representative album of what Sonic Youth are about.
By the Youth's avant-garde art-rock standards these songs are relatively catchy, poppy and radio-friendly, but please don't let snobbery get in the way of a great rock album. There is so much to enjoy here, and there's still plenty of hard-rocking white noise for feedback fanatics to savour. Highlights include Kim Gordon's seductive, menacing Shoot; the brutal, hard-as-nails punk tantrums Swimsuit Issue and Drunken Butterfly; and the classic singles 100% and Sugar Kane.
Rock on!
A must have album for sure. Buy it, not a doubt!
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