Whirlwind, Heat And Flash

I can remember a bit of blowback towards Sonic Youth when they released Goo in 1990. Here were the ultimately unpredictable indie noiseniks tripping merrily into selloutdom by signing up for Geffen Records, a label lest we forget which had sued Neil Young only 6 years earlier for ‘not being commercial enough’. Wild commercialnessism surely beckoned? Hell, they even started to dress up in colourful clothing and feather boas. Man!

Goo undoubtedly does have a more commercial sound to it than Sonic Youth had previously shown, other than in flashes and is actually all the better and harder hitting for it. By ‘commercial’ in this context I simply mean choruses and more legible words, I’m no fan of some of the more self-indulgent atonal feedbacky meanderings of SY’s yesteryears; which are represented here and to more affect I think, as a juxtaposition to the rest.

In short Goo got me on board. What a sell-out slut I am.

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Sonic Youth score right from the kick off with ‘Dirty Boots’, which manages to simultaneously sound like nobody else and everything that was to come in 1991. Helped by a ludicrously cute video this song burned itself into my consciousness right from when I first heard it and made me want to explore the band more; they’d just sounded like hard work to me before that.

There really is something to that Quiet-LOUD-Quiet-LOUDLOUD-Quiet dynamic. The bit where they reclaim the song from the chaos in the middle, is just perfecto.

But there’s more than ‘Dirty Boots’ here. Kim Gordon’s ‘Tunic (Song For Karen)’ is also superb, the keyed-up laid-back maelstrom of the music overlaid by her (mostly) spoken lyrics exploring Karen Carpenter’s anorexia, hitting the requisite levels of turmoil and hopelessness, ‘I feel like I’m disappearing/getting smaller every day’.

The spiky punking of ‘Mary-Christ’ is great, but ends up being overshadowed by one of Goo, Sonic Youth and 1990’s greatest moments, ‘Kool Thing’. Inspired by a disappointing interview experience with LL Cool J, this is genius level Kim Gordoning – platitudes and boasts being reeled off in the style of a particularly bored Nico, which I find arousingly threatening*, over a superb churning riff. The mighty Chuck D rocks up in time to add some gravitas to the self-mocking bit in the middle too.

‘Mote’ is another goodie, sounding not unlike an energised, squalling cover of an obscure 60’s pop tune that no-one else was cool enough to know. It’s a perfect counterpart to ‘My Friend Goo’** with it’s kindergarteningly primitive rocking. That this then leads into the softest, gentlest song on Goo, ‘Disappearer’ is perfecto.

Nobody has or will ever describe ‘Mildred Pierce’ as the softest gentlest track on anything ever^, as after 90 seconds it deteriorates/accelerates into a hardcore plane wreck. I like it. Skipping ‘Cinderella’s Big Score’^^, I really enjoy ‘Scooter And Jinx’ a noise experiment stemming from one of Thurston Moore’s amps blowing.

Last up is ‘Titanium Exposé’ my first ever exposure to Sonic Youth, via the soundtrack to Pump Up The Volume. It still sounds absolutely brilliant, a great balance between art and rock, ace Thurston vocals and shifting, slithering, shimmering guitars and a spacey feedback coda just like grandma used to bake.

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I own Daydream Nation but I could never truly get on with it, which is sonic sacrilege as I well know. Goo just seems like a better honed, targeted, fun version of the band, it was my entry and exit point for them, I bought and quite liked the singles from Dirty but never quite bothered with the LP.

You don’t need me to tell you but the playing on Goo is immense from start to finish. Lee Ranaldo and Moore’s guitars are perfectly matched here, phased, overdubbed and layered in inviting new ways, Kim Gordon remains a brilliantly simple bass player – which is not a back-handed compliment at all, its exactly what this music needs. Musically the standout for me is Steve Shelley whose unfussy, sometimes hip-hop styled drumming is just magnificent throughout.

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One of the first things that drew me to Goo was the iconic cover art from Raymond Pettibon. The man is a pure genius as we know from Black Flag’s covers^* and something is just so achingly right about that caption. Much lampooned and copied, the artwork for Goo has rarely been bettered.

My copy is a 2015 reissue, shamefully I used to only own it on the-format-that-must-never-be-named, it is a bloody great quality pressing too, a friend who knows/cares about such things tells me it is an improvement on the original.

1144 Down.

*oh, okay, just me then. Sorry.

**until this track came along the working title for the LP was Blowjob?

^no, they haven’t HMO!

^^it’s the leastiest track here.

^*latterly with Off! too.