Sonic Youth CD's

[hogge@p.cs.uiuc.edu (John Hogge)]

I just picked up Sonic Youth's two CD releases, "Bad Moon Rising" and
"Evol" (which, if you haven't noticed, is *love* backwards!).  This is a
review of them.

o Sound Quality
  Very good (for analog).  Absolutely quiet in the silent spots of the
  albums--none of that howky white noise that gets introduced on alot of
  CD releases.  Vocal parts are a bit clearer (more intelligable) than I
  remember them being on the LPs.  However, *overall* sound quality
  isn't that much better than the LPs.  All the weird, abbrasive noises
  they do don't sound "fuller" or anything like that.  Much of it still
  sounds flat (not to say I don't like it).  In fact, a few of the background
  noises I like on the LPs seem to be mixed lower on the CD.  However, I
  haven't taken the time to do switch comparisons of the CDs with the LPs
  to make sure of any of the above.  To summarize my impressions--base any
  decision you make to upgrade to CD on whether or not you care about
  eliminating record noise (pop & crackle), *plus* the following points.

o Extra Cuts
  Both CDs include extra cuts.  Bad Moon Rising includes the cuts from the
  excellent 12", which are "Halloween" and "Flower."  (Flower is good but
  brain-damaged rythmically.), plus the cut "Satan is Boring."  The last
  cut on BMR, which isn't advertised anywhere on the CD, is a short noise
  thing which sounds like an airstrike (jet passing by, followed by Boom!),
  and at the very end the sound of a stylus being ripped off of an album.
  The airstrike is quite a speaker-rattler.

  Evol has an extra cut called "bubblegum" which is *excellent*.  I'm
  pretty sure it is an old 60's cover, but don't recognize the band.  They
  do it up fine, dripping in a distinct, noisy psych mode which would make
  the Fuzztones and their ilk damn proud.

o Artwork
  The CD booklets have a fair number of posed band shots.  Lyrics are
  handwritten.  Bad Moon Rising has the guitar tunings of some of the songs;
  for instance,  Society is a Hole says: "Lee: start w/ E tuning as follows:
     _ _
  EEBF#BE 
  ---   -
  and go astray from there.  Mello- EEBEBE
                                      -
  Hey, I don't play guitar--don't ask me.  I assume the underlines mean
  on the lowest octive and the overscores are one higher than this.  If
  anyone's dying for the rest, I'll post them.

  The cover of the CDs themselves have no list of cuts; instead, they have
  bizarre, primitive looking patterns.  Whatever.

o Price
  Here it was about $17 and $16, or maybe $17.99 and $16.99.  Hey, at the
  time, price was no consideration.  It was an impetuous buy, all caution
  to the wind and all that...

o Locked Groove
  Nope, Evol doesn't have a locked CD groove on The Crucifixion of Sean Penn.
  I was kind of hoping it would play a loop for the fullest length possible
  for a CD.  Oh well--it's worth it to have Bubblegum which ends the album on
  a happy note.


So, do I sell my LPs back?  Probably, or give them to a friend...

--John
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