While some albums have aged in my collection like fine claret, I can’t say that “Dirty” is better with the years. While it hasn’t turned to vinegar, far from it, it is clear to me that it has lost some of its punch. Now, like Kim Gordon, it’s still cool, but I have more respect than love for it.
The album is a sampling of splendid noise, with Gordon, Moore, Ranaldo and Shelley wrenching, purring, and distorting their way through 15 songs. It is the album that turned me on to noise-rock, and the collision of hard and soft, rough and gentle is masterful. Produced by Butch Vig, more than a little of the same approach can be detected in Garbage albums later on.
The album is at its best when listened to as a whole, rather than in parts. However, “100%”, “Créme Brûlèe”, “Youth Against Fascism”, “Sugar Kane”, and “Drunken Butterfly” are some of my personal favorites. The contrast from song to song is what makes this album great, so spring for the whole package if you can.
You can get Dirty here (at amazon for those with filthy minds in need of a postscript)
November 9, 2008 at 12:15 pm
This record bummed me out, big time. I got to know them during ‘Evol’ and loved their ‘Modern American Gothic’ approach to their lyrics. Sure you had ‘Master=Dik’ and ‘Ciccione Youth’, but those were advertised as jokes, basically. While ‘Goo’ dabbled in silliness (‘Kool Thing’, especially the bewildered sounding Chuck D cameo), ‘Dirty’ seemed to roll in it. Musically it was, to my ears, an amped up and dumbed down SY: the breakdowns became predictable and they began recycling riffs from previous records. This was compounded by a pair of
live experiences I had. The first was seeing them open for Neil Young in front of a crowd of 1000 bloodthirsty mountain men in Portland, Me. The never ending barrage of booing and insults (I’ve, to date, never heard such a massive outpouring of hate for a band as what they got) just made them play louder and harder, ending their set with an incredible version of ‘Expressway to Yr Skull’.
By comparison, their show the following October in Boston supporting ‘Dirty’, as headliners, sucked in a way that just made the record that much worse in my book. The band was tired, maybe even bored, and only got energized for the ridiculous encore sequence.
Now, let me be honest. Boredoms were supposed to be the opening act but were replaced last minute by the, IMO, godawful Cell. This pissed me off INTENSELY. Boredoms ‘Soul Discharge’ hadn’t left my tape deck for almost a year. Needless to say, the following was seen through a jilted 21 year old’s disgust-o-vision.
Okay, remember that at this juncture in their career, SY were trying hard to cash in on the capital they earned from their Nirvana. Part of this meant making their tenuous ties to the Hardcore scene seem bigger than they were. Thus widening their fan base. Apparently SY and Beastie Boys practiced at the same space, so they rode that way further than they needed to.
So the end of the show consists of Thurston getting on the mic and saying – I shit you not: “Yo!Yo!Yo! We gonna do some old school hahdcoah!” acting like a rap caricature and run through their punk covers oeuvre, while the Cell guys play guitar and they smash pumpkins. Oh yeah, Lee brought out a synthesizer and kicked it around.
This actually sounds great, but it wasn’t. It was bullshit. It was like watching two entirely different bands. One great, and one not so great.
I really didn’t like ‘Sugar Kane’. ‘Splenda’ or ‘Crystal lite’ would have been more accurate. (insert smug self satisfied grin)