a thousand leaves was the first sonic youth album i bought and it remains my favorite, with the possible exception of bad moon rising.

I think this is their best since daydream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It5_kjR55eY

the finest sy slbum

I love this record, aside from the worst batch of Kim songs on any SY record before or since.

Her grunting destroys all of her songs and her lyrics are especially awful on this one. Why did some of the songs need to even be so long? Did they really demand it?

~Jeremy~

great album. one that contains two of my favorite Lee tracks

I think this one, NYCG&F and SYR 5 are my least favorite SY records...... I really like Sonic Nurse, Murray Street, Eternal and Rather Ripped but the aforementioned ones have never done it for me....... Just my $.02 no hate yo......

One of my favourite albums and one of the first I heard by em.

Sunday is defenitly on my top 10 fav SYsongs.

Hmmm It's a bit a little while since I"ve listened. Butyeah. I love it. Lee kicks a lot of butt here. Hoarfrost and Karen Koltrane are fantastic. Karen Koltrane is my preferrred Karen song.

I maybe have missed something really big, but is Karen just a character that they have made up or is it in fact a real person it is about?

One the best recorded, produced and engeneered SY records I can think of. Noise has become such a burden when it comes to describing this band, considering musique concrete I hear on a bunch of these songs a lot. I ain't cheap listener like most of you, you know.

This and Murray Street are going to be my next purchases from SY. Hey seems that the British magazine "The Wire", that actually has some creditable opinions unlike the other British music magazines, voted it their favourite album of 1998.

I aint cheap either, bub

Agree with most of this.

God I love this album. It has that BAD MOON RISING autumn-y vibe, but it has the maturity they were starting to develop on Washing Machine, and it is actually a really creepy album, though not as creepy as NYC and some of their early stuff.

Just all around, an amazing album, such a good sound, such good and unique instrumentation/musicianship. AMAZING production. Even the album cover is astounding. Kinda unbelievable this complete package came out on a major label, too.

Just amazing.

for me, this is them at their peak. This, NYSGAF and Murray St are why i love sy so very much. (and washing machine...)

it truely changed the way i think of music

I'd really love to know what people find "amazing" about the production of this album. The imbalanced instruments? The lack of any low end? The fact that every song sounds like it was assembled from multiple takes?

Don't get me wrong, I love this album (now!), but I'm always surprised when people sing the virtues of its production. There's something about the *sound* that's identifiable, but I wouldn't call it good production...

i think by good production most people mean it sounds good. maybe it's not good production "by the book", but i agree the sound is really special on this one. if you listen to female mechanic on headphones, it's simply awesome..

for me atl is one of their best albums. maybe the songs are not their best, but as an album it's really well crafted.

I'm the opposite, I think it's one of their best group of songs but that the album itself is not particularly well crafted! (But over the years I've come to appreciate the album itself more and more...I should probably just stop posting about it...)

Actually, thinking about it, any time I post negative comments about this album I'm really just picking on two or three songs. Songs that I really like but don't like the track chosen to represent it on the album. I shouldn't let my disappointment in those songs (expectations based on hearing earlier live versions) lower my opinion of the album as a whole. I did eventually stop listening to live versions of new songs, though.

Was the first Youth album I bought (something like 11-12 years ago). Still remember the first time I listened to it and being completely blown away. I was expecting something a bit punkier, based off of what few tunes I'd previously heard (Dirty Booty on Beavis and Butthead being one), and got something completely different and ultimately better. Still my favorite record. I don't think I've listened to music the same way sense.

I also love the production of this one (well I think there´s not any badly produced Sonic album altough the Eternal has almost too modern sounds to me, but luckily only almost, I think it´s only drum sounds, the guitars are perfectly recorded as always!) I just love so natural sounds of ATL. And I´ve always got same feelings from the album as I got from autumn, so I listen it every autumn!

The favourite five SY albums at this moment:
1. Sister
2. EVOL
3. Made In USA
4. a Thousand Leaves
5. SYR 9.

I think those all five have something in common.