I met someone today who only owns one Sonic Youth album.
That album is (of course, per the thread)
A Thousand Leaves.
He told me that he bought it because he liked the Rolling Stone review. (My theory is he bought it on the heels of the initial SYR excitement).
And he told me that he burned a cd-r from it purposely excluding the tracks that the Rolling Stone review described as filler.
Sonic brethren, I implore you to be as appalled as I am.
Now I realize that this sort of thinking is unfortunately all too commonplace, but yet I still find it disturbing nonetheless.
Furthermore, I looked up
the RS ATL review and it makes no mention of which songs the reviewer considers filler material. There is a shot taken at a lyric in "Contre Le Sexisme," however.
The album is given three-and-a-half stars which is a fairly good rating, but the write-up itself is hardly glowing either.
Spin magazine doesn't have an online review for the album, so I can't check that one in case the guy is just mixed-up.
Anyway, just thought this little slice of SY-themed demographic research might be interesting to someone out there reading.