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A couple decades later, I still love it and I’ve forgotten all about the Marky Mark song. Thankfully, I heard Reed’s song a couple years later. The first time I heard the music from Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” was in the Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch song from 1991 that sampled it. Posted on Categories To My Ear Tags 1980s, 1988, 1990s, andy warhol, daydream nation, materialism, no-wave, noise-rock, Ornette Coleman, punk, punk rock, slacker, sonic youth, velvet underground Lou Reed’s “Transformer” It was a mass existential crisis, a new Beatnik revolution attempting to create something good out of a discovery of inanity. It seemed to be a bunch of kids who didn’t care because they had chosen to disregard what the old men cared about. The heart of Slacker culture was not laziness. They felt pressures from society regarding how they should make decisions about school, career, fashion, friends, music, etc, and they asked “why?” They explored these expectations and found it was a mess of self-perpetuating materialistic consumerist boondoggle. They were frequently educated: some college, or college-preparatory high school, or self-taught through literature. Often mischaracterized as not-caring, the more philosophical side of slacker was concerned with dismantling meaningless constructs of society. Through their evoluation from late 70s no-wave, combined with Warholian laissez-faire, they’ve precipitated 90s slacker subculture. What I really like about this album is that it provides an atmosphere of rock n roll attitude. Got a foghorn and a drum and a hammer that’s rockin’Īnd a cord and a pedal and a lock, that’ll do me for now The Sprawl Where the kids are setting up a free-speed nation for you Looking for a ride to your secret location An interesting technique with the “you/do” is that the “do” is not the end of the line the line is sung with extending the word “you” to allow it to rhyme while following up with “me for now.” Lyrically, this is a song about adolescent turmoil, meaninglessness and the savior rock n roll. The first and third lines use particularly loose slant rhymes like “location/rockin'” and “weather/temper.” The second and fourth lines, stick to strict rhymes like “true/two”, “you/clue”, “you/do” that all rhyme with each. Thurston Moore delivers the vocals throughout the rest of the song. This creates new sonic territory for the instrument. Guitar strings tuned far from standard tuning vibrate differently and resonate with each other different. Tunings like these can lead to creating new patterns and combinations of notes, as they break a musician from established habits of playing. The other guitar uses a bizarre tuning with four of the strings all tuned to a G note and the other two tuned to a D (GGDDGG). The main guitar on this song is tuned to what has become known as the “Teenage Riot” tuning (GABDEG). Sonic Youth are not afraid of alternate tunings Or rather, they depend upon them. It gives the impression of a rock n roll machine. They build up rock rhythms on during the first couple bars, then rise up to higher notes. With guitarists strumming continuous hard beats, with the movement happening more on the fretboard. Like the Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth songs frequently evolve into a driving mechanical rhythm. Its quite clear throughout this album that they appreciate the Velvet Underground and carry on many of those traditions. By elevating the mundane emptiness of self-conscious youth culture, they creating art out of the superficial and question the sublime. They’re cultivate an impression of being uncultivated. The words give new meaning to teenage poetry: “You’re it no, you’re it hey, you’re really it you’re it no I mean it, you’re it say it,don’t spray it.” As with much of Sonic Youth’s vocals, they give us passionate rebellion with a disconnected cool like Andy Warhol in sunglasses. Female vocalist Kim Gordon speaks in a blasé manner, recording twice and panned hard left-hard-right. The album opens strong with “Teenage Riot.” This 7 minute track consists of an 79 second long intro of a single clean electric guitar playing a series of two simple chords slowly.
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