The Smashing Pumpkins
Siamese Dream
1993, If I were to make a list of the albums that meaningfully soundtracked my high school list, Siamese Dream would be pretty close to the top. From the opening circus drumrolls this album just doesn't let go. "Cherub Rock" is not just a great opener, it's an iconic track in the band's career. It's a missive with its skittering guitar and bass parts, showboat drums, over-the-top solos and "let.... Let me out"s. Where SP mostly stayed in shoegaze territory on Gish, this album catapulted the band into stadium spotlights. That lead on "Rocket" is larger than life. "Mayonnaise" is nearly transcendent. "Quiet" is fucking loud. There's some throwbacks to Gish, namely in Soma or maybe slightly in "Today" with its depressingly happy lyrics. There's also some quieter moments like the stark "Disarm" or the majestic "Spaceboy" which I prefer mostly because I've just heard the former a bit too much over the years. Siamese Dream is one of those innocuous albums where it may be easy to forget just how good it really is until you put it on and remind yourself from start to finish.
Sonic Youth
Sonic Death
1984, So early in Sonic Youth''s career they thought it'd be a good idea to put out a live album. So a cassette was released on Thurston's own Ecstatic Peace label and it was kind of low profile affair. Of course SY being SY they didn't do a straight forward live album. This is really more of a weird tape collage. Most of the tracks are mere fragments of songs, most lacking vocal sections. In some cases the playback speed has been altered - such as with a hyper sped up "Shaking Hell." The original tape had no song titles listed and the two sides played out like two long pieces. My CD reissue condenses the entire tape down to a single hour-plus track. And I think it does make some kind of sense in this format. Bits and pieces of tracks from Sonic Youth, Confusion Is Sex, and Kill Your Idols bleed in and out of each other and ultimately the whole thing feels like a singular experience rather than individual songs. This is definitely a recording that's for SY die-hards only of course. It's great for a game of "name that song" - made a bit easier now since the reissue of the self-titled album with included live tracks. Also even the CD reissues retained all the tape hiss from the original cassette. But I suppose that's always been part of the album's sound anyway. This isn't a release I visit all that often - usually once a year really. But it's always an interesting experience when I do so.