"sonic youth is so cool...just think how cool i would be if i said they sucked? oh man, swans...hands down, swans. more balls and darker, dude. more real and shit."

cervixFORaHEart wrote:this thread forced me to finally actually listen to some swans songs.

um, ok...outside of a boring artistic appeal this music i am hearing is cold and lifeless. two words that i would never associate with most of sonic youths catalog. sy have certainly had their ups and downs over the last few decades, but to even put them in the same category as this music is disgraceful, i think.

one of the great things about sonic youth is the balance. they have always had a great pop sensibility while simultaneously walking the tightrope of cacophony. these tracks from swans i am hearing are just elementary noise.

just my opinion.

Do yourself a favor and listen to the Swans album "Children of God." That one is amazing. I like the "Cop" era of the band as well for the sheer hideous thrill and violence of it all, but the "Greed" and "Holy Money" stuff (with a few glaring exceptions) can get rather tedious at times.

Oooh! Can I change my vote to SY? That Thurston is just so sassy! I love the way his vocals always follow the guitar part he's playing. And Kim's lyrics are brilliant, scathing attacks on the patriarchy!

Again, Swans by a mile. I will say that Swans took a decidedly sharp downturn after Children of God (...which I don't consider their best album even though I think it's mostly great. I seem to be in the minority.), and this is owing to the increased prominence placed on Jarboe's embarassing caterwauling/cheesy "ethereal" goth crooning. Seriously, she just about ruined that band. Jarboe! Stop with the singing!

Sonic Youth had a run of great releases, starting with the self-titled EP and ending with (the horribly overrated) Daydream Nation. I really, really love those records. Since then, they've put out a whole lot of tedious crap and a couple of fairly decent records (I liked Sonic Nurse quite a lot...). I'm not particularly interested in keeping up with Sonic Youth anymore, since they seem to be coasting these days.

I can kind-of see parallels in the ways these two bands changed over time, what with the starting off great and ending up mediocre-to-awful, but Sonic Youth at their best (to me, Bad Moon Rising) cannot touch Swans at theirs (Public Castration is a Good Idea, hell, everything before Children of God).

By the by, that very first Swans EP is worth seeking out. It is much, much different from any of their other work.

I am more than willing to concede that Swans at their worst are much worse than SY at theirs. There are a couple of Swans songs I can't stand to listen to all the way through. These all involve Jarboe singing in a "boo-scary" voice. That live version of "Blind Love" where Gira keeps howling like a damned wolf doesn't get a lot of play at my house, either.

I'll take Swans' elementary noise over SY's exuberant, yet "edgy" pop tunes any day.

I cannot fucking fathom voting Swans.

This is juvenile, but...

matthew wrote:
His Life and his Death gives us LIFE.......supernatural life- which is His own life because he is God and Man.

Doesn't this sound exactly like something Gira would have spouted on "Children of God"? The sad part about it is, whereas Gira was using that kind of verbiage as a comment on televangelism in general, Matthew is actually serious...

placeholder wrote:Oooh! Can I change my vote to SY? That Thurston is just so sassy! I love the way his vocals always follow the guitar part he's playing. And Kim's lyrics are brilliant, scathing attacks on the patriarchy!

Again, Swans by a mile. I will say that Swans took a decidedly sharp downturn after Children of God (...which I don't consider their best album even though I think it's mostly great. I seem to be in the minority.), and this is owing to the increased prominence placed on Jarboe's embarassing caterwauling/cheesy "ethereal" goth crooning. Seriously, she just about ruined that band. Jarboe! Stop with the singing!

Sonic Youth had a run of great releases, starting with the self-titled EP and ending with (the horribly overrated) Daydream Nation. I really, really love those records. Since then, they've put out a whole lot of tedious crap and a couple of fairly decent records (I liked Sonic Nurse quite a lot...). I'm not particularly interested in keeping up with Sonic Youth anymore, since they seem to be coasting these days.

I can kind-of see parallels in the ways these two bands changed over time, what with the starting off great and ending up mediocre-to-awful, but Sonic Youth at their best (to me, Bad Moon Rising) cannot touch Swans at theirs (Public Castration is a Good Idea, hell, everything before Children of God).

By the by, that very first Swans EP is worth seeking out. It is much, much different from any of their other work.

I am more than willing to concede that Swans at their worst are much worse than SY at theirs. There are a couple of Swans songs I can't stand to listen to all the way through. These all involve Jarboe singing in a "boo-scary" voice. That live version of "Blind Love" where Gira keeps howling like a damned wolf doesn't get a lot of play at my house, either.

I'll take Swans' elementary noise over SY's exuberant, yet "edgy" pop tunes any day.

What was so wrong with Jarboe's singing? Yeah, it's kinda overwrought...but I'll take her over Lydia Lunch any day.

SecondEdition wrote:What was so wrong with Jarboe's singing? Yeah, it's kinda overwrought...but I'll take her over Lydia Lunch any day.

THIS is your metric?

SecondEdition wrote:What was so wrong with Jarboe's singing? Yeah, it's kinda overwrought...but I'll take her over Lydia Lunch any day.

I don't know. Lydia Lunch's vocals are plenty silly, but slightly less so than Jarboe's.

Jarboe's singing was really, really embarrassing. Almost uniformly embarrassing. Have you heard "Hypogirl" from Soundtracks for the Blind? Those are the most cringe-inducing vocals I have ever heard, and not because they're terrifying or harrowing or anything; they're just grating and silly. She puts on a lot of silly, annoying voices and I hate it.

placeholder wrote:

SecondEdition wrote:What was so wrong with Jarboe's singing? Yeah, it's kinda overwrought...but I'll take her over Lydia Lunch any day.

I don't know. Lydia Lunch's vocals are plenty silly, but slightly less so than Jarboe's.

Jarboe's singing was really, really embarrassing. Almost uniformly embarrassing. Have you heard "Hypogirl" from Soundtracks for the Blind? Those are the most cringe-inducing vocals I have ever heard, and not because they're terrifying or harrowing or anything; they're just grating and silly. She puts on a lot of silly, annoying voices and I hate it.

You think that's bad? Try listening to the version "Blood on Your Hands" from Swans are Dead. She changes her voice on virtually every line. It sounds like a female-goth-Robin Williams. True overkill.

rzs wrote:You think that's bad? Try listening to the version "Blood on Your Hands" from Swans are Dead. She changes her voice on virtually every line. It sounds like a female-goth-Robin Williams. True overkill.

That's another horrible one! I swear, with a couple of exceptions (from Children of God and earlier), her vocals ruin every song she sings.