Customer Reviews

Confusion Is Sex

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I, like many others, discovered Sonic Youth after everyone telling me what a fantastic album "Daydream Nation" was and then buying it. While it took some getting used to, I finally got to liking it and think it's their best album I have heard. I started to buy the other classic albums like "Dirty" and "Sister." A Friend who was a fan of Sonic Youth told me about this album and how it would be like nothing I had ever heard before. At the time, I couldn't imagine Sonic Youth being any more experimental or loud than I had heard before. Wow, the first few times I put "Confusion Is Sex/Kill Yr. Idols" on, I was very scared and turned it off. It is very experimental, loud, dark, moody, raw, everything against what music is suppose to be and yet it is listenable. I have since gotten used to the album and I can listen to it when I'm in a dark mood. You should be warned that this album is very raw and experimental and many will not like it, so you should listen to it before you buy it. It is amazing to hear where Sonic Youth came from and see where they are now. "Confusion Is Sex/Kill Yr. Idols" is not Sonic Youth's best album by any means but if you fancy ear-blistering noise and experimentation and dark moody lyrics, then this your ticket. If you'd rather have more structure and tunefullness, then check out later day Sonic Youth albums.

Confusion Is Sex is Sonic Youths first full length album and its' most self-conscious attempt at creating an avant garde musical aesthetic or art. Song form is deconstructed if not entirely eshewed for abrasive, oftimes atonal experiments in harmonics and texture. Nobody was playing music like this at the time with the possible exception of new music composers Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham. But both Chatham and Branca were much more formal in their approach to harmonic rock oriented experimentation and less chaotic or improvisational. Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo's tenure with Glenn Branca's rock and roll harmonic symphony outfit (or whatever you want to call it) shows in the odd tunings and willingness to explore noise for its own sake found throughout Confusion Is Sex. By comparison and temperament/intent, Branca is an academic, while Sonic Youth are the punk rock barbarians at the gate of new music. The Youth took what they would from more "serious" composers and brought those lessons into a tribal, raw, rock, and ironically self-conscious context. The lyrics are often chanted rather than sung, the drums pound and the guitars screech, moan and float with the excitement and energy of punk rock, punk rock with a brain and an overarching delight in sound behind the seeming chaos. There's an immediacy and charming rawness to the overall sound of Confusion is Sex due to the sometimes awful recording quality, high fidelity this isn't. This is art dammit not pop fluff designed for mass commercial appeal.

The bonus EP "Kill Yr. Idols" included in this set is no less experimental in texture, yet is perhaps a bit more song oriented and conventional in its overall structure, well some of it is. Overall it sounds a bit more like the Sonic Youth we came to know on Bad Moon or EVOL. It's also recorded better. This first album/EP package is not for the casual listener: its challenging, abrasive, poorly recorded, but has a kind of ugly beauty about it. Confusion is Sex is one of the most experimental and least accesible albums of Sonic Youth's career, and I find it very rewarding for it reminds me of the amazing possibilities inherent in music and the joy that comes from pushing the limits of art.

On the surface, Sonic Youth's debut LP Confusion Is Sex/Kill Yr. Idols is little more than amateurish noise. The guitars are oddly tuned, producing an ungodly racket on the order of the Velvet Underground classic Sister Ray, except even MORE abrasive. The production is harsh--I've heard bands recorded on 8-tracks in a garage that sound lusher than this. Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore's vocals alternate between barely discernible whispers and obtuse screams. For those acclimated to friendly Top-40 music, listening to this will be a frightening experience.

I think Craig Luft described the album best with his 7/12/03 review: "This album's strength is that it would rather sound interesting than sound good. The music is like colorful garbage artfully thrown upon yr. lawn." Precisely.

Back in '83, Sonic Youth were a gaggle of cynical no-wave punks who gleefully set out to destroy virtually any musical convention they could. Whereas feedback and noise experiments on later albums like Sister and Daydream Nation kinda drone along, Confusion Is Sex/Kill Yr. Idols uses the noises to eviscerate your eardrums. The lyrics are dark, moody, and very beat poetry-like, evoking some truly scary and bizarre imagery ("people with fish eyes"...yikes). Kim's normally awful voice actually works pretty well in this context--could you picture anyone else singing the creepy Protect Me You or disturbing Shaking Hell? Their cover of The Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog rips, and Kill Yr. Idols, Confusion Is Next, and Brother James all shred wallpaper at three miles.

This isn't the same bunch of 40-somethings that recorded Murray Street, that's for sure. Confusion Is Sex/Kill Yr. Idols is definitely an acquired taste, but if you seek an album perfectly suitable for fraternity hazing ceremononies, breaking stuff, playing on Halloween to scare the hell out of children, or simply need an excursion from the usual indie pop this is the record you've been looking for.

If you've never heard early Sonic Youth before (or other early-80s no wave acts), this cd is going to take a long time to grow on you. To the uninitiated listener, Confusion is Sex sounds like a dense nightmare constructed by people who can neither sing nor properly play their instruments. About two decades later, Sonic Youth have becomes one of the most critically-acclaimed rock bands of our time. They've honed the swirling mess of clangs and feedback that we hear on these early recordings into a number of successful guitar symphonies.

As good as recent efforts like Murray Street and Sonic Nurse are, however, I will always have a soft spot for the early albums (the self-titled EP, Confusion is Sex (plus Kill yr. idols), and to a lesser extent, Bad Moon Rising). Somehow, four "kids" (all in their mid-20s at this point, I believe) didn't need to know how to play their instruments. There is something utterly natural about these dozen-or-so songs... as if they represent the swirling chaos in the minds of musicians everywhere. Despite the tuneless shouting, the untuned guitars, the absence of professionalism (see: the brutally lo-fi version of "I Wanna Be Your Dog"), this album isn't as inaccessible as you might think. Somehow, the songs just move. I've always thought the addition of drummer Steve Shelley seriously crippled the band-- he brought in an Apollonian strictness that has focused (but at the same time, narrowed) the band's wild creativity. Believe it or not, you can actually DANCE to a few of the songs here (the same is the case for the nearly-forgotten (but brilliant) debut EP).

I could, at this point, go through a track-by-track analysis of the album, telling you what to listen for. But I really want to leave that pleasure of discovery for you. Essentially, if you really love Sonic Youth, you will eventually find this album. And if there is a dark, chaotic section of your brain that has been begging for something different-- this album will eventually find you. You've been warned.

Anyone who is into Sonic Youth should pick this up. I've been a fan for about a year and a half, but have quickly picked up alot of their albums. This is just so awesome. The epitome of Noise rock, in my opinion. It is very different, but i think true fans of Sonic Youth who haven't heard this yet will appreciate it. Songs like "(She's in a) Bad Mood", "Protect Me You", "Inhuman", "The World Looks Red", "Brother James", "Early American" and "Shaking Hell (Live)" are enough to buy this album. Every song is a trip..This is amazing for being made in the early 80's..

If you like Experimental music, and if you're a fan of other Sonic Youth albums..you should already have this in your collection. Absolutely amazing. 5/5. Can't wait for their new album later this year..

After the somewhat disappointing debut EP, what would turn out to be the greatest rock band of the last 25 years came to blazing life with this, their first full-length album. Whereas the eponymous EP seemed restrained, the band unsure how far to take it, "Confusion is Sex" just kicked out the jams, all the better to, as Russell Crowe would say, "unleash hell."

For the uninitiated, this would be a great place to start, at least if you like feeling deeply uneasy. Recorded in a damp basement for next to nothing under conditions that many P.O.W.s would find deplorable, the album is as raw as a freshly killed wildebeast and twice as mean as the lion that killed it. The opener, "She's in a bad mood," pitches and rolls with feedback and drones, never settling for something so predictable as a groove (the band would later find their inner groove, and to this day it has remained their own, though many have tried and failed to copy it). The ending feedback hum will drill right through your skull, depending on the volume it is experienced in. Elsewhere, there is a truly messed up cover of the Stooges' "I Wanna be your Dog" and "Shaking Hell," which features bassist Kim Gordon screaming sweet nothings like "I'll Shake off your flesh!" It could be either a sexual come-on or a physical threat, or more probably both. "Inhuman" starts out with a robotic, distorted laugh and goes on to show that yes, there are things that are far more extreme than punk. "Confusion Is Next" would be the de facto "anthem," though our heroes were already too sly for such blatant pandering. "I maintain that chaos is the future," starts out guitarist Thurston Moore portentously, but soon he's just shouting "Sonic Tooth!" like a hellfire preacher obsessed with dentristry, turning the opening pronouncement into a self-aware joke. Sonic Youth's particular brand of irony has always been a problem for some critics, but to me it's obvious that for SY, irony IS sincerity, not in any way a contradiction. How can anyone be raised in an embryonic bath of American pop culture and not have some irony? It's just adaptation; survival of the snarkiest.

The guitars, of course, are always the center of the Sonic show. After all, who cares about lyrics when an F train is clattering and squealing through your brainpan? Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo are the true glimmer twins of rock n' roll, making their axes sound like anything from a swarm of giant bees to the soft tolling of bells and Tibetan gongs. The guitar nerds who pine over Joe Satriani and his ilk still can't wrap their heads around this stuff; let's hope they never do.

The Geffen reissue of this classic helpfully adds on the Subsequent "Kill Yr Idols" EP, the title track of which is one of the greatest punk rawk songs ever committed to tape (in fact, there's a mediocre hardcore band who took the title as their name). There are underground bands to this day, like Mouthus and Magik Markers, who use this early material as a touchstone, and Sonic Youth are still right there to help them along. It may never win mass appeal, but if you've got a cast iron stomach, "Confusion is Sex" is a feast.

This is my least favorite Sonic Youth album, mainly because it shows them at a time when they hadn't fully taken full potential of their instruments, sounds, etc and it has midfi to horrible production....but this is no mere punk release, and the lyrics are for the most part great...

Despite the above mentioned flaws, this cd still rocks and is a nice testimony to Sonic Youth's early indulgences in very dark and cathartic scenery..."(She's In A) Bad Mood", "Shaking Hell", "The World Is Red" (very stream-of-conciousness lyrics), and "Inhuman" all provide a raw wild crazy very punk sound in their music, making the cd thrilling..."Protect Me You" is an early tour de force, the same meandering tab repeated endlessly while Kim half-sings/half-whispers premonitions and fears of demons and things that go bump in the night, actually more like admirations than fears, it's about the creepiest song they've ever done...many of the songs fit right inbetween soft chaos and exploding chaos, such as "Confusion Is Next"...

The lyrics range from confrontational political ideas ("Confusion Is Next" espescially with its promise of confusion, chaos, and then truth) to apocalyptic bruised imagination ('Push it away/The world looks red/People with fish eyes/ The ground sucks"-"The World Looks Red", or the alienation of "Inhuman", the rape fantasy that is "Shaking Hell").

The overall effect of the album is frieghtening, even darker and more howling than its predecessor, BAD MOON RISING...

My version (which may be the same as this, although not all the tracks are listed) includes a live version of 'Shaking Hell' as well the "Brother James", "Kill Yr. Idols", and "Early American", all good songs that continue the twisted mood of the record. This should be the last album SY fans get, but if you can gaze past the bad quality, there's some good horriffic stuff here...

This is one of SY's best albums. It reminds me of a nightmare with fleeting moments of pleasure. Making the Nature Scene and Shaking Hell are my favourite tracks. The latter is intense and beautiful. It's really frightening. Confusion is Next has great hardcore lyrics from Thurston Moore and is another highlight. I love the Stooges cover too, very cool. The Kill Yr Idols E.P. is also quite good (it's usually included with the album) and boasts two classic tunes (the title track and Brother James; both heavy). "Kill Yr Idols...SONIC DEATH!" The only SY album I like more than this one is EVOL, because it's perfectly paced and includes the brilliant Secret Girl, and my personal favourite song, Shadow of a Doubt. Anyways, Confusion is Sex is an excellent choice for fans of old punk rock and experimental hardcore. Fear no art, give it a try.

i love everything about this cd, from the clangy guitar that begins "she's in a bad mood" to the creepy shrieks @ the end of the live "shaking hell". people can say that it's too "lo-fi" but who cares? good production doesn't always matter, just ask pavement. it's such a powerful album + ep.. not everybody will like it because it's so noisy and thurston and kim's voices aren't very .. pretty.. at this stage. but. get over it. because it's a really good album

There are times when I feel a little irregular. At those difficult moments, I put this slab of vinyl on the turntable, drop the needle, slowly turn the dial to near maximum volume and enjoy. Within hours, I'm running for the restroom, with great anticipation of relief. This album has the power to corrupt, the mind to kill and the urge to destroy. It's not to be trifled with or played at the wrong time to the wrong people. It can be lethal. This is truly Sonic Youths BEST work, but enjoy it responsibly.