This was my first full Sonic Youth album. Someone on ILM said that your favourite SY release usually is the first one you got exposed to. That is totally on the money concerning me. I knew them before though and had listened to some of their songs during my studies around 1987. I remember some improvised sounding distorted guitar music which had made them a kind of mythic band for me in 1992 when I was seriously getting into indie rock. After Dirty I slowly purchased most of their back catalogue and all new records coming out except NYC Ghosts & Flowers. I even got the four experimental SYR releases I never listen to. Nothing ever hit me as hard as Dirty.

Dirty was produced by Butch Vig who was the man responsible for a lot of the grunge sound when it got big. Among others he produced Nirvana's Nevermind, the Smashing Pumpkins Gish, many Gumball and Die Kreuzen records. Dirty is a rather untypical album for SY as many songs are quite short and to the point (Goo is similar but more pop). There are no songs in the Grateful Dead jamming vein which go on and on and often lose me after a while like on most other SY releases. Dirty is pretty hard rocking sophisticated guitar rock full of restrained power.

The album starts with 100% where SY make a bed of noisy guitars into which Thurston Moore's straight cool voice fits perfectly. The mood of the whole album is condensed into two and a half minutes of fierce ravage.

Swimsuit Issue starts with a stubborn, abrasive primitive "riff" underlined by the cymbals and almost halts in the last minute when they put on the brakes in full speed. Listen to Kim Gordon whose timbre changes totally from riot girrl delivery to pussy cat purr at the end when she says in her most dreamiest voice

On Theresa's Sound-world they weave a thick carpet of guitar noise after a slow harmonic start. Accelarating, decelarating back and accelerating again. And then finishing in calm beauty. How I love these silent-loud dynamics. I really like how varied the tracks are in themselves.

Drunken Butterfly is the perfect example of holding back the energy when Kim sings smoothly and plays this earth-shattering bass line. The eruption in noise is inevitable.

Shoot is a slow song building up with Kim singing in her sexy but determined voice. It only shoots off for a minute or so in the middle. The tension is never completely relieved.

Wish Fulfillment with Lee Ranaldo singing starts otherworldly and turns into a guitar wall fest with a weird end full of electronic effects. The tempo and volume changes make this album so dear to me.

Sugar Kane has got a great floating riff. The drums beat hard and the guitar effects are awesome. After four minutes it slacks off only to get back to the hard core. It's the longest song with almost 6 minutes but it never gets boring.

Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit is a typical Kim Gordon freak-out track where at times she sounds like a pig been slaughtered but there are these lala-lala-lala-lala background vocals which counterbalance her shrieking delivery perfectly. The guitars are running havoc in the beginning but everything is under control.

Youth against Fascism is accelerating slowly. The pounding bass and the squeaky guitar sounds are so huge. Tight as hell. Thurston kicks us in the ass.

Nic Fit is a one minute speed punk wonder. Thurston summarises this song fittingly when barking

The epic On the Strip sung by Kim Gordon follows. Sexy would be an understating epithet for her voice here. If God was a woman interested in propagation she would sound like this.

On the seemingly sweet Chapel Hill Thurston sings

and it morphs into a 200 miles per hour guitar chaos.

JC is an atmospheric, textured track where Kim speaks the lyrics. Post-rock in a The Gift way or something like that.

On Purr SY have the psychobilly blues. Back to the roots. Thurston admits

The album ends with the ballad Crème Brulée. Kim says these hilarious lines

and finishes with

Someone on this site interpreted the song nicely:

Dirty is Sonic Youth's White Album. It is all there. They had reached their creative peak.

No mp3 yet, everything is great. Tell me in the comments what you'd like me to upload if you are still with me.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXXIII was this post.

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