Music Arcades: Sonic Youth: EVOL

I know you've been in suspense for 15 months now, wondering which album it was that got me even more excited than R.E.M.'s Green that evening in 1989. It was EVOL. I was listening on headphones. The first three tracks were pretty strong, but it was the fourth, In the Kingdom #19, that tipped things over — almost literally. I'd read J.G. Ballard's Crash just the year before (a second hand copy, with this wonderful period cover), and In the Kingdom's account of a car careening out of control but "unwilling to die" brought back that thrill-in-chaos. (Wikipedia has an personal story that further amplifies the flinch/gasp effect.)

I was going to say that EVOL feels like the point where the Sonic Youth template was laid down, but I see I said that of Bad Moon Rising, which preceded this album. So, a further step in SY's campaign to make rock music sound off-kilter and dangerous again.

It worked at the time — or in my case, three years later — and, maybe just because I remember what it felt like then, it still sounds good to me.