It must be Chris Habib work

weird that u would say DDN, Goo and Dirty are kind of the same : it doesnt sound that way to me : DDN is much more accomplished an album, Goo is "poppy" and Dirty a patchwork of really tight songs ( Theresa's sound world, S Kane, 100%) and of sloppy ones (basically the end of the album with really unsoniclike songs like nicfit, Youth against fascism which I'm glad they never play live).

more or less, there were some good songs, even those didn't do a great deal for me in comparison to their old stuff though.

That's one of their worst covers. Damn, it reminds me of some skate punk band.

Dam! I loved the old cover with the toilet

like the colors...very underwhelming design. i'm more than a little confident that i won't be saying that about the music, though, so that's all that matters.

i rather think the contrary but everything points out to being this, not worse than nurse (since i love it) but the worse sonic youth album ever, i mean, the cover is kinda like one of the last nails in the coffin. i have to say i thought i didn't like the thurston songs he previewed a year or so ago, i didn't like the song by sonic mirror they posted on the ecstatic peace site. i mean, i hope they recorded better arrangements or lee's parts pick up the slack because, if not, then i'm afraid sy will put out a stinker

and don't try to justify the cover, it sucks, period, it's not punk rock to be lazy and generic.

i really hope it's better than i think it will be

i don't think any of sy's covers have appeared to have taken hours and hours of prep and work. in fact this one may actually have been one that took longer than most since it appears to be a real canvas or board.
anyway, choose your complaints wisely. when have sonic youth set some kind of standard for meticulous cover art?
murray street is a photo with writing on it. evol is a photo with writing on it. bad moon rising is a photo with writing on it. 1000 leaves is a photo with writing on it. goo is comissioned artwork, nurse is comissioned artwork. washing machine is a picture of two people wearing sonic youth t-shirts fer god's sake ;)

they're all memorable, different, and often pretty subtle or basic. so i just don't buy the sentiment that this is somehow subpar.

i think it's interesting.

i'm kind of afraid, though. i mean, the "sleeping around" demo was pretty neat. i thought before it'd be awesome, but now.. eh. i can't say anything, though.

You shouldn't judge a book by its cover... I don't know why everyone is so down on this album. The last two albums have been among their best work and I doubt it was all due to Jim.

i think it's kind of hard to judge it. the cover looks very rocking.

Cool.
I liked the other one better.
But whatever.

This isn't a diss on Sonic Youth or Ranicd, but it looks like it should be the cover of a Rancid album.

here you go! :eek::(

Am I the only one who doesn't care at all what the cover looks like?

looks pretty good but i preferred the nurse cover

No. All the other people that don't care didn't bother to post.

theres something i like about it.

Well, they should have. I think there's a pretty good case to be made for the irrelevance of what the cover looks like.

Also, there are lots of people who don't care what the cover looks like (for example, the Pope or Joe Rogan or whatever), but they haven't read this thread on the SY forum, and therefore haven't had the opportunity to "not bother."

It looks like something off of Dischord during the early hardcore days. I actually prefer the "fake" cover of the compact more.

ok
i can reveal it now....
.... i did the other one :)

the toilet one?

it's not about hours and hours of prep or some sort of technical expertise... the thing about ATL or Washing Machine is that they were really simple but really ingenius... very vivid images... timeless... this new cover looks slightly cliche

Now that's what I was expecting.
Looks good, could be a promo cover but if not I ain't too displeased.
To be honest the other one looked far more rushed, the way the photo was distorted to fit it into the space & hence it looking like a toilet & all, looked like a seriously amaturish rush job.
This doesn't, this looks good, very good.

Of course the cover is important, album art is part of the whole conceptual package & I always find it affects my perception of the music inside. It isn't all about the sounds, it's about how you interpret them when you hear them & the album art has an impact on that.

I quite like the cover. It's not breathtaking, but it's different than the arty style as on last LPs.
sometimes it's time for a change.

Actually, checking out the Universal discography page, it sits really nicely with the other albums.
I'm pleased anyway.

You should start a thread about the irrelevance of cover art in one of the Non-Sonics forums. (Did you? I haven't checked.) I'd be more than happy to discuss this sort of thing. Because on the one hand, in the digital/iTunes/iPod/download age, covers and liner notes are fast becoming a thing of the past. But then on the other hand, there have been some really monumentally cultural defining record covers in the last fifty years. You know what I mean? Like it or not, the cover to Sgt. Pepper's defines the hell out of that record. You might not even agree with me, but either way you slice it, that record cover was something of a statement. The same can also be said of the cover of Nevermind, whether intentional or not.

Anyway, I do think it's worth discussing. And when I say "discuss" I mean "discuss," not "argue petty semantics."

In regards to this Rather Ripped cover -- I still don't like it all that much, but maybe after I hear the music it'll make more sense. Maybe it is a statement of sorts. None of their record covers look like that, you know? The eye is drawn to nothing except the words "Sonic," "Youth," "Rather," and "Ripped." Then there's that bit of suggested french wallpapering surrounding the black gap and the "ER" and "ED" in the corner.

Here's a thought: is the "SONIC YOUTH" actually a manipulation of the spraypainted stenciled "SONIC YOUTH" label they put on their tour equipment?

mothafucka! :D haha, you fooled us so much, and no insider (habib maybe) told us the cover wasnt real :D

It reminds me of this:




They've got the same color scheme and both are records by artists who have put out somewhat interesting covers in the past, but their latest is just a diy painty type thing with band name followed by album title. Actually I think that's why post people probably don't like the new cover. It seems to me like Sonic Youth have never made their name the full focus of a major record cover. Like their other records all have imagery that could suck someone into buying it w/out knowing what sonic youth sound like. This one's just like "Oh yeah, a SONIC YOUTH RECORD! BUY IT!!! SONIC YOUTH!!!" I mean I myself don't believe this but there is a certain weirdness when a record cover is like a brand name or logo. Seems kind of out of place with what we expect from sonic youth. Then again, I think I'm getting off on some of the textures... plus imagine if the LP was silkscreened... then we'd all be stroking ourselves

We had a HUGE discussion about this a few months ago and it all started on a thread about iPods. One of the arguments against iPods hinged on the idea that record covers were an important part of the musical experience, but some disagreed and a debate broke out. Maybe I should make a thread about iPods.....

I like this cover, it's to-the-point and effective. you guys should just stop being so overanalyzing.

i hate it!!

Interesting topic.

Someone said that they didn't think SY put very much thought into most of their album covers. I have to agree. For me, the best album covers always seem to hit right to the point, reflect what the album is about, what the theme is(if there is any). There's only a couple of covers that I like of SY: Ciccone Youth, Goo,Experimental Jetset, and Sonic Nurse. I like Ciccone Youth because it's simple and they don't advertise their name on the cover. I like Goo because of Pettibon. I like Experimental Jetset because it was simple and didn't try to convey some mixed message or something. Alot of their covers seem a bit arbitrary to what the album is.

If I knew nothing about SY and I saw this album, I would've thought they were a "political punk" band. Not really a fan of stencil military like lettering, don't really know what's going on in the picture, some of the letters look like "tape letterforms" or something. Can't say I'm a fan, but DIRTY had a stupid cover(and I respect Kelley alot) and that was a kick ass album. Washing Mashine had a bad cover too and that was a good album.

Maybe the uglier the album cover, the better the album?

I don't know if it was designed by CHABIB, but if he did that would come to no surprise. I sent CHABIB an email about his art but didn't get an email back. Has anyone seen his website? Any thoughts?

oh man, i thought dirty and washing machine had excellent covers... although i thought Experimental Jet Set had one of the weakest covers... same with Ciccone Youth.... Goo cover got ruined by too many grunge teens wearing the shirt...

I actually like this cover a lot. Sort of a cross between the art for Suicide's first album and Never mind the bollocks.

Really? Suicide's cover has alot of space around the form, not to mention the humanistic sans serif typeface. "Never mind..."has various cut out type(I hear the designer of that cover still makes prints & posters of that cover for money). But I'm just very nit-picky I guess. If you say so, that's cool

great cover....

what is your point, that the art work didn't take any time to produce? (daydream nation's photo realist cover art contradicts that) or that SY are fairly indifferent to how the covers of the records look? (the fact that they select work by real artists, and not just whatever graphics the label suggests, i would say conflicts with that point)

^ Isn't that a painting?

I dislike the album cover the more I see it. For some reason I liked all the others though. Except maybe A thousand leaves and ejst&na

now i don't know after reading all them replies
anywasys
would be great tshirt, hehe