[audio:http://thesoundtripper.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/16-sonic_youth-stalker.mp3|titles=16-sonic_youth-stalker]
Released: Mastered in 2002
Album – Disc 1 / 15 Original Tracks + 4 Bonus Tracks
Disc 2 / 19 Tracks
Dirty Starry
by R.C. Avellanosa
A comment from a fan on YouTube says that Sonic Youth’s “Dirty” album has a Deluxe Edition. Apparently a lot of bands are having Remastered or Deluxe Editions these days. I just read it yesterday. I immediately looked for it wherever online if there’s a free downloadable edition. It took me overnight to find it. I’m playing the record as I write. The Deluxe Edition has two discs. Disc 1 contains the 15 original songs with 4 bonus tracks. “Stalker”, “Genetic”, “Hendrix Necro”, and “The Destroyed Room”. I am familiar with fifteen songs from the original release. And Dirty was one of their best record to boot. It is their seventh release following the phenomenal Goo. If you know Sonic Youth and look deeper online, you’d find out there’s a lot to find. EPs, singles, compilation, albums, soundtracks, and more rarities, there’s too much.
But I won’t have to tell you so much about it. I got hooked on Sonic Youth on the early 90s. And I won’t lie that Dirty was the first record I heard from them. Their earlier records, the self-titled EP (1982) “Sister”, “Evol”, and the other three was never released on cassette those days. So I had to settle for Dirty as the first record. And as other alternative bands flooded in like Nirvana, Pavement, The Smashing Pumpkins, the nineties generative atmosphere sounded so colourful.
Released a year after Nirvana’s Nevermind, Dirty was like that exclamation point. Once we even got the song “Chapel Hill” confused with “On The Strip”. The length of one song must have bonked us out. “Nic Fit” most probably. But we loved “Chapel Hill”. We ended up playing the songs over and over. Ending up to form a band covered and played the songs. The drums and guitars of Sonic Youth was never the same with other bands, their sound distinctly way off the usual mark. Obscure as they were before, Dirty was the more commercially accepted album. “Sugarkane” , said to be about Marilyn Monroe, was like something pulled out from beneath Planet Kool, played for mutants and earmongers. “100%”, written for Joe Cole, is a hundred percent of love from the underworld. “Wish Fulfillment” used to fill my heart with awful fits of rage, made it my anti-depressant anthem. The other songs sped like bullets in a barrel.
A thing I observed from Sonic Youth is their ability to make the guitars’ notes go with the singing like the songs “Stalker” and the “Kool Thing”. And some parts where repetitive constant drumming and guitars made to sound like annoying swinging bells and hammers in your head. The Sonic Youth trademark, inspired by Sister and Confusion is Sex is painted on Dirty in opaque red. Like traffic gone haywire immobile, hint of Pink Floyd in the making. It’s the Punk Rock and the beauty that happens with the song, the guitar screeches and static, had my head put forward. You’d notice it on every album. Songs made by guitar savants, almost mad and retardant, Sonic Youth it is.
And as I listened on and on throughout Disc 2 and read the notes on sonicyouth.com, I learned that it is dedicated to exclusive, never-before-heard 8-track demos recorded during late 1991 at SY's Hoboken rehearsal space. You can hear early, instrumental versions of six "Dirty" songs appear: "Barracuda" (Drunken Butterfly), "Guido" (Wish Fulfillment), "Stalker", "Moonface" (JC), "Theoretical Chaos" (Swimsuit Issue), "Youth Against Fascism", and a final lone Lee take of "Wish Fulfillment" w/ bird sounds courtesy of Michael Morley. They were apparently different from the final arrangements. And there were four songs that didn’t made it to “Dirty”. "Dreamfinger" and "Lite Damage", a short explosive F#GA rocker "New White Kross", and "Poet in the Pit", which appears to be a very early version of "Cindy (Rotten Tanx)", a song that would appear on Thurston's "Psychic Hearts" LP.
And if you’re saddened by the breakup and thinking of Sonic Youth’s uncertain future today, the members going their separate ways, Steve with the Disappears, Lee Ranaldo’s Band, Thurston Moore’s solo effort and Kim’s clothing venture, Sonic Youth’s demise must be underway. But for this record, it had to be said that for a two Disc Deluxe Edition, Sonic Youth could surely leave your ears well constipated.
Song Feature: STALKER Track length: 2:58 Originally Released on: DIRTY (vinyl) also appears on: Drunken Butterfly single Burning Leaves comp Dirty deluxe reissue 2CD/4LP MIX TAPE vol 1Line-up: Thurston - guitar/vocals Kim - bass Lee - guitar Steve - drums
Words:Got me prowlin' like a police car I'm stalkin' and walkin', you're my movie star I know your trailer, it glows in the dark You got that certain something That special sparkI wanna knowWhat you think of this idea You and me and no one else Your friends at work will disappear And that guy you're with, he was never there Every night rewind the dream TV static sex in flame You know it's harder all the time It's comin' down real fast in my mindI will not live without you, yeah youI gotta give my whole lifeI'm comin', knockin' at your door I hear you walkin 'cross the floor Now I know where my ambition lies My love it's right between your eyes I love you I gotta love you I'll get you I gotta get you Yeah I'll get youNotes about
STALKER from SonicYouth.com Database
"Stalker is a tune on the new Sonic Youth LP "Dirty." It's only available on the double vinyl versions (not on cd & cassettte) as a bonus to vinyl connoisseurs. Thurston sings it and wrote the words, so dig it."
"Stalker" was only included on the vinyl release of Dirty. For CD purists, it was later included on the Drunken Butterfly CD single (as well as a DGC promo). The song is featured on the deluxe reissue of Dirty (even worked back into the vinyl sequence for the 4xLP version). An instrumental demo version is also included, and a vocal demo that didn't make the cut was given away on volume 1 of SY's web-only Mix Tape series. On both the original 2xLP version of the album and the deluxe reissue, "Stalker" opens side 4."
DLinks
Disc 1
Disc 2
Band Link
Songs Database
