GOO

Rolling Stone (8/9/90) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...a brilliant, extended essay in refined primitivism..." Entertainment Weekly - "...moves from lush, airy chords to brutalizing power riffs--the bristling sound of rock in the future." - Rating: B - Ranked by EW as the #6 Album of 1990. Q - 3 Stars - Good Uncut (p.121) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[S]panning spazzed-out Krautrock, malevolent electronic drones and open-tuned jazz-punk....Exhilarating." Down Beat (11/90) - 4.5 Stars - "...This album is miles away from pop music with its unpredictable tempo leaps, the fidgeting with speaker noise and feedback, and the stumblings through instrumental excursions that succeed by a combination of drive and joy....immensely rewarding..." Option - Highly Recommended - "...a compelling, identifiable consistency..." New York Times (Publisher) (12/30/90) - Rated #6 of the Top 10 Recordings for 1990.

Any doubts as to the continuing relevance of Sonic Youth upon their jump to major-label status were quickly laid to rest by Goo, their follow-up to the monumental Daydream Nation. While paling in the shadow of its predecessor, the record is nevertheless a defiant call to arms against mainstream musical values; the Geffen logo adorning the disc is a moot point -- Goo is, if anything, a portrait of Sonic Youth at their most self-indulgently noisy and contentious, covering topics ranging from Karen Carpenter ("Tunic") to UFOs ("Disappearer") to dating Jesus' mom ("Mary-Christ"). Even Public Enemy's Chuck D joins the fracas on the single "Kool Thing," which teeters on the brink of a cultural breakthrough but falls just shy of the mark; the same could be said of Goo itself -- by no means a sellout, it nevertheless lacks the coherence and force of the group's finest work, and the opportunity to violently rattle the mainstream cage slips by. ~ Jason Ankeny

メジャー第1作にして、ソニック・ユースのその後の基点となったアルバム。レコーディングに時間をかけ様々なオーヴァー・ダブにより作られたスタジオ・ワーク・アルバムといってもいいだろう。今作を境にオルタナティブからアートに変わるのも興味深いところ。 (C)YKYM