Photo: SonicYouth.com

The Morphizm Mash-Up: June 2003

Sonic Youth, Dirty (Deluxe Edition)
Marx's oft-quoted aphorism about history's cyclical nature could almost apply to Sonic Youth's underrated masterwork, Dirty. Because history's first manifestation -- as tragedy, according to Big Karl -- aptly describes how the coverage and attention Sonic Youth's potent follow-up to their first major-label crossover, Goo, matched up against the scene-stealing job Nirvana's Nevermind effected on the music landscape of the early 90s. Even though Sonic Youth grabbed Cobain by his hypodermic needles and helped foist him into the spotlight, alterna-fans du jour didn't return the favor when the New York noisemakers lobbed this bottom-soaked missile their direction. Tragedy didn't begin to describe the state of affairs as one flannel-wearing hipster after another passed on the relentlessly innovative Sonic Youth for Seattle-based angst, but, well, it's close enough.

But either way, Marx's second manifestation -- as farce (see Gulf War II) -- missed the mark (heh heh) this time around: Dirty Part Deux is thankfully repackaged, this time with a gripload of B-sides and rehearsal tracks, into a two-disc colossus by Geffen for the next generation of art-rock headbangers. Disc one has all the familiar tracks for SY fans: "Theresa's Sound World" is still the standout tune, awash in light, noise and Thurston Moore's poignant vocals; "Drunken Butterfly" is still the stomping power chord menace it always was (listening to Kim Gordon huskily moan, "I love you/I love you/I love you/What's your name?" still gives me the chills); and, of course, "100%" is still the stop-start, garage rocker delivered with Moore's canonical sneer ("And all you men are slime" is a favorite line).

BUY DIRTY (DELUXE EDITION) HERE

But there's eight potent B-sides -- check out "Hendrix Necro" for vintage SY thrash -- and eleven, mostly instrumental, rehearsal pieces that give the listener a peek into how Sonic Youth crafts its singular noise. "Little Jammy Thing" and "Lite Damage" are low-key yet buoyant forays into guitar wizardry, while "Barracuda" (not a Heart cover) is a different but just as ass-kicking version of "Drunken Butterfly" without Kim's vocals along for the ride.

The reissue game is most often an expensive crap shoot, but this one definitely comes up more than worth the investment. If Geffen pulls this kinda move on reissues for Daydream Nation and Washing Machine, it might just be time to take out a loan. -- Scott Thill

Radiohead, Hail to the Thief
With their sixth studio album, Radiohead has quelled all whispers of a return to its earlier soaring ballads and crushing guitar anthems. Instead, the fourteen-track follow-up to the Oxford quintet's "Kid Amnesiac" sessions mixes Bends-era stadium rock with the skittering beats of its past two albums, all of which lands Radiohead squarely in musical purgatory -- at least for now.

There are moments on Thief that recapture the trenchant emotion of 1997's OK Computer, the critically ballyhooed opus to which everything from Blue Train to Abbey Road is now frequently -- if illogically -- compared. The album opens with thrashing lead guitarist and gadget-guru Jonny Greenwood juicing up for "2 + 2 = 5," a driving Orwellian indictment of political tyrants and snoozing masses. "You have not been paying attention," frontman Thom Yorke inveighs as the track's growling riff chugs to its climax. "Don't question my authority," he adds, before a manic siren of synth carries this opening polemic to its sudden halt. That taut frenetic power resurfaces in the second half of the next track, "Sit Down, Stand Up," which rides an imperious piano progression from its opening atonal threats to a fusillade of raindrops that recall the urgency of "Idioteque."

BUY HAIL TO THE THIEF HERE

Thief's most startling moments come, however, when the band drops its Warp-inspired electronica, which feels tired next to the pared-down beauty of such hopeful adagios as "Sail to the Moon" and "I Will." It's on "Sail" that Radiohead revives the heart-rending emotional core of scaled-back compositions like "Pyramid Song" and "You and Whose Army?", while "I Will" mines the gossamer three-part harmonies that replenish while simultaneously forecasting a vague sense of doom. Equally affecting and arguably more ambitious is the album's closer, "A Wolf at the Door," which, with its stream-of-consciousness Id rap, falls stylistically somewhere between Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and Eminem's "Lose Yourself." By track's end, Yorke has deftly straddled a pop-cultural spectrum of dread spanning everything from The Stepford Wives and the taxman to X-ray eyes and giant cranes. The snapshots of violence underscoring Greenwood's otherwise blithe arpeggios pit hope against despair not unlike the melding of childlike chimes and torturous daily ritual evident on "No Surprises."

Still, the album's swan song, "Wolf", should provide some thematic coda, not an assemblage of loosely knit horrors and threats. But there are deeper problems than the album's inconclusive wrap-up: Thief lacks any real connective sound or statement throughout, and instead hovers inconclusively between snippets of blistering fury and the static-laced arrhythmia of the band's more recent efforts. The result is a hopscotch between one-footed forays (techno retreads "The Gloaming" and "Backdrifts") and the two-footed assuredness of structured tunes and ensemble songcraft ("A Punchup at a Wedding," "Go to Sleep").

When the album does glint with ferocity, it can't help also feeling stalled by the band's stabs at currency, which at best imbue the album with politically provocative grist, but at worst render Thief a dated historical document with moments of inspired genius. -- Jeremy Horelick

Prince Paul, Politics of the Business
Everyone knows about Dr. Dre, Timbaland and the Neptunes. And some might even know about DJ Premier, the Bomb Squad and Mixmaster Mike.

But does anyone not living in New York City or London even know who the fuck Prince Paul is?

Chrissakes, the guy should be a household name by now. Without Paul, there would be no 3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul's seminal 1989 release that simply exploded what little hip-hop convention existed at the time. And without 3 Feet High, the Bentleys-and-thug rapscape that Prince Paul (and his buddy, DJ Premier) mercilessly lambaste on his latest release, Politics of the Business, would be the only thing in hip-hop today, not just the only thing they're dropping on BET and MTV. Relentless in his criticism of rap's thug life fantasyland, continually innovative in his use of hilarious between-song skits (gut-busters Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock are along for the ride this time) and always a magnet for hip-hop's cream of the underground crop, Paul is one thing most rap stars are not these days: unafraid of pissing off his peers. In that vein, Politics of the Business is, as its title suggests, wholly obsessed with tearing down the hypocrisies of the rap game, and as a concept, it succeeds like all of Paul's work (even the bizarre and disjointed Psychoanalysis: What is It?) has.

BUY POLITICS OF THE BUSINESS HERE

But, barring an acoustic detour from W. Ellington Felton on "Beautifully Absurd", the beats and rhymes this time out can't compare to the breackneck skills found on Paul's amazing Prince Among Thieves or his work with Dan the Automator on Handsome Boy Modelling School's, So How's Your Girl? And even though the rhythm track from De La Soul's "Peas Porridge Hot" (found on their peerless De La Soul is Dead) gives Politics' "People, Places and Things (It's Who You Know)" a much-needed bounce to match the rap skills of Chubb Rock, MF Doom and Wordsworth, the rest of the album could use a sure shot of energy. Otherwise, talented legends like Chuck D, Ice T, Trugoy and Fat Lip don't get the light they deserve to counterract the long-term memory lapses that Paul's latest joint so ably (albeit self-consciously) deconstructs.

But all of this doesn't really matter, does it? Bottom line: we live in a capitalist society, and money talks. So if anyone deserves your dough, it's Paul. His mediocre shit is twice as good as 50 Cent's finest work; time will bear that theory out. -- Scott Thill

10 June 03

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