My first Swans experience was THE burnING WORLD, so I didn't get hooked in to the dark violent insane stuff. I thought Children Of God was intense upon first listen, but now I find it interestingly laughable with an appreciation for it's use of timbrality, and dark atonal melodies, it's just that the lyrics seem deceiving and fraught with contrived expression. I think Burning world is probably the best album because it still has all of the flaws of the earlier material, but is a much better sounding album sonically and musically. The YOUNG GOD retrospectives are quite good, I haven't listened to BoDY LOVERS/HATERS entirely, and probably won't based on descriptions, as I'm more interested in Gira as a songwriter who has somehow kept himself alive despite being insane. The shadowy conspiracy of "why they never made it" is a bunch of promotional reverse psychology, they're bigger than shit!!!

Greed is one of my all time favourite LPs, Children of God has excellent bits, can't say I've warmed to anything else they've done.
Definutely not crap, but very variable.

The Great Annihilator is a fantastic record.

I'm not familiar with anything post-1986 or so, but Filth is a fantastic record. A huge, pummelling, intimidating beast of a sound. I can only imagine what it was like to see them live around this time, but I can't help but think it was more than a little intimidating. The only other band that I can think of that was this scary would probably be early Suicide.

Picturing them touring with Sonic Youth is a bit difficult. Early SY was such a goofy thing for all of its creepiness, but Swans were total destruction.

Cop and The Great Annihilator are fantastic. I could give or take the rest.

This is one of those bands that I have heard so many people talk about for 20 years, but don't actually have songs to play for me. Forgive me, but I scanned all the posts and could find no links to any of their songs. Since I do not like Sonic Youth in the least, (and that seems to be the big comparison) I will not go out and purchase any Swans songs until someone can refer me to a sample. I will keep a (somewhat) open mind until then.

Not crap (even though I did pick the "w/o Jarboe" option). Hearing "Cop" for the first time was a life-changing, pants-shitting moment. Fucking hellish.

Here's a sample, rocker, although I somehow doubt you'll enjoy it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHWqHz7dIPw

Wrong. I did like it, much better than any Sonic Youth I ever heard.

I felt kind of an early Bauhaus and Flipper vibe from it. Even if that's an incorrect analogy for some of you, I like aggressive music. My expectations were exceeded. Thank you for sharing.

NOT CRAP.

mega therion wrote: Hearing "Cop" for the first time was a life-changing, pants-shitting moment. Fucking hellish.

Minus the pants-shitting, but it was life-changing for me as well. It was the first time I had heard a band play "the music in my head" and it let me know it was okay to let that stuff out on tape.

Gira came to a show I played once, and I didn't see him until after I played. Which was a good thing because had I known he was there, it might have made me even more self-conscious than I already was.

Not crap, even if I didn't really listen to anything after Children of God.

You all know the story about how when they played in London on the Children of God tour, their PA was so enormous that when it was switched on at the soundcheck, the physical force of the 'turning on' sound knocked one of the big beefy bouncers over?

That's class.