358. Sonic Youth, "Goo"

 

A while back I was talking to my friend Jason about third rail bands.  We were talking in Gold Cane because he was a bartender at Gold Cane so that's where you were likely to find him.  The crowds at Gold Cane can ebb and flow, leaving adequate time to talk to a bartender.

[Remember Zagat Guides?  They used to publish restaurant, and later, bar guides for San Francisco and a bunch of other cities.  The blurbs for each place were taken from comments sent in by readers.  In a way, it was like a well-edited Yelp that existed in the real world.  It seems to now be restricted only to an online presence in Miami.  Anyway, I am proud to reveal that one of the comments about the Gold Cane in Zagat - "where every night is parolee night" - was submitted by none other than me.  I bet I still have that copy of 2007-2008 San Francisco Nightlife around here somewhere.  Ah yes, here it is:]

[I want to emphasize that I never found the staff "obnoxious" in any way whatsoever!  Who on Earth thinks that?  Fuck you, 2007-2008 dive bar poser.]

[The 2007-2008 Zagat San Francisco Nightlife guide is a fascinating time capsule, to be sure.  Remember Jade Bar (where Smugglers Cove is now? "neo-hipsters really dig the fun finger food") or, wtf, S.N.O.B. ("prices are too high for this neighborhood")?  Honestly, the most surprising thing flipping through it is how many of the places are still around.]

I don't remember where I first learned of the concept of third rail bands, but the basic idea is that there are bands that are so critically loved you're not allowed to speak ill of them or you get electrocuted, like touching the third rail in a subway.  Like Prince.  Prince is a third rail band (or artist, I guess), and probably deservedly so.  Saying anything bad about Prince immediately shows you to be a rube and a music dumb.  

Sonic Youth is also a third rail band.  Critics can't say anything bad about Sonic Youth because they're so beloved and wow so groundbreaking and interesting and cool.  Which is too bad because they kinda suck.  Maybe they're avant garde musical geniuses but they can't write a song for shit.  I guess this album comes to the closest to having actual songs, in the sense that there are coherent musical ideas, but these still aren't very good.  I mean, "Tunic (Song for Karen)" has a potentially good guitar part and chords you could use to build a song around but then Kim Gordon just talks over them.  "My Friend Goo" is, I guess, a wry take on whatever hipster kids were called back then but sounds like something you'd hear a band that just got together a week earlier play at a basement party in 1989.

Of course, critics all love the shit out of this album.  ("Call 'Goo' the 'Exile on Main Street' of the snide generation," Jonathan Gold said in the LA Times, before he discovered tacos.)  And that's great!  I am happy to admit there are a lot of things critics love that I either don't get or actively dislike, like lobster and "Ted Lasso."  I also recognize that this album and band have been tremendously influential, mostly on other bands I don't really like.  I just have a nagging feeling that if you heard this for the first time and didn't know it was SONIC YOUTH, you'd be like "it's interesting, but they need to work on their songs some more."

[Now it's been a while since I wrote the first draft of this and "Titanium Expose," the last song on this album, a too-long garage-acid rock mash-up, is still going through my head and maybe - MAYBE - it's not so bad.  But I am not changing my mind, Sonic Youth!]

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? If you're a former record store clerk who still has a Sub Pop t-shirt and wears glasses and is now into expensive whiskey instead of terrible coke, then yes.