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I'll confess. This is the album that, when it was released, put me off da yoof for quite a few years. I just thought there were too many other great bands around at the time doing interesting things of their own to want to continue with one that seemed overly desperate to be accepted by da kids. (at least that's how it seemed to me then) Anyway, because I have a lot of free time on my hands at the moment, plus a coffee addiction that's playing havoc with my sleep patterns...
here goes. Dirty, fifteen years on.
1. 100%. A good opener but this is already a very different SY to the one found up to DDN, Goo even. And hey, this has maybe the filthiest bassline in the band's history - after Into the Groovey of course, which is borderline pornographic. So who knows, maybe different is good.
2. Swimsuit Issue. Great bass again and some fine agit-vox from KG. Guitars are supercharged umtil going into a slow sleazy stomp. God, you can already see why the album was called Dirty.
3. Theresa's Sound World. More restrained, a post-sex cigarette of a track. At least it is until those massive...MASSIVE waves of guitars kick in. God, why have I always hated this album? It's fuckin' GREAT so far.
4. Drunken Butterfly. Back to the grinding of 100% with some nice wall-of-blurriness guitars in between. Vocally, KG is showing early warning signs of horrors to come. Still, annoying chorus aside, nothing much to complain about here.
5. Shoot. Sleazy in a Ken Park kind of a way. Evokes images of strip malls, for some reason. The fact that KG is literally old enough to be the grandmother of the girl she's portraying in the song is, however, a bit disconcerting.
6. Wish Fulfillment. Lee gets all grown up and a bit dull by comparison. All very good but nothing to get too excited about.
7. Sugar Kane. A real party stomp of a track. God, if i'd been in my teens when this album came out I'd have been a total mess of adoration. The freak-out moment is a bit restrained compared with before, but fuck, this isn't designed for wiping out your head, it's designed for bouncing on the couch to. And why not?
8. Orange Rolls. Angel's Split. Fucking great. Dirty as fuck vox from KG. I'm really getting the sense that this is an album that's dominated by Kim. Fortunately this is a great period for her, before she finally regressed into some kind of autistic five year old.
9. Against Fascism. Sleazy bass to-tha-max. Thurston's lyrics are a bit too keen to make some kind of Minor Threat connection, but fuck...that bass. It's all about the KG in 92.
10. Nic Fit. Did I already mention Minor Threat? Great all the same. If a little too long.
11. On the Strip. Swirly guitar psych fest, with KG reinventing herself momentarily into a sort of Grace Slick in DMs. Most obvious link to SY's past is probably Starpower, but just in case you miss that link there's the whole noise thing in the middle just to remind you what band you're listening to. Not one of the best moments on the album, but not at all bad either.
12. Chapel Hill. Ewww, shockingly bad lyrics from Thurston. The melody is a bit too sacharine sweet and even a gear up at the end can't really save what's probably the worst track on the album so far.
13. JC. On paper this track should be a disaster, but somehow it works a treat. Simple but affective.
14. Purr. Fairly unremarkable noise-punk by numbers that I know I'll forget again the minute it stops. Another miss-fire from Thurston.
15. Creme Brulee. Another one of those sketchy last tracks that could've just as easily been left off. Nice enough in a come-down kind of way, but not really necessary.
I can still see why I hated this album at the time (it's about as far away from 'The World Looks Red' as it's possible to get) but listening now, it's a great pop-punk album that bands like Green Day would've done well to have absorbed. This really was the point when KG was at full creative strength and she really dominates the record. I'm also guessing that Lee might've HATED this new direction; he certainly seems quite marginalised on most of the album. It's also perhaps the least NY album they'd made up to that point, maybe ever.
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