The Sonic Youth - Sister LP First Release Uncensored Cover SST/Blast 1987

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Description

SST134, with original lyric insert. I bought this new back in 87, didn't listen to it much and kept it in a plastic sleeve. This is the first release, with the uncensored cover and the original spelling on the songs, as mentioned below.

Sister is the fourth studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth. It was released in June 1987, through SST Records.

The album furthers the band's move away from noise rock towards more traditional song structures, while maintaining an aggressively experimental approach.

Background

A loose concept album (like its follow-up Daydream Nation), Sister was in part inspired by the life and works of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. (The "sister" of the title was Dick's fraternal twin, who died shortly after her birth, and whose memory haunted Dick his entire life.)[1] The album features aggressive noise songs such as "White Cross" and "Catholic Block", plus haunting noir ode "Pacific Coast Highway". The group has regularly played songs such as "Schizophrenia", "White Cross" and "Kotton Krown" long after the album's release. CD bonus track "Master-Dik" is a strange rap song which mentions Ciccone Youth; its title is a reference to New York City mastering facility Masterdisk.

As usual, Moore and Gordon handled most of the vocal duties on the album, but Ranaldo sang "Pipeline/Kill Time".

Recording

The album was recorded entirely on analog tube equipment, giving it its characteristic "warm" vintage feel.[1] Videos were shot for "Beauty Lies in the Eye" and "Stereo Sanctity". The black-and-white "Stereo Sanctity" video, featuring clips of whirring factory machinery and brief live shots of the band, can only be seen on a rare 1980s SST video compilation entitled Over 35 Videos Never Before Released.

The black area on the front cover was originally the photograph "Sandra Bennett, twelve year old, Rocky Ford, Colorado, August 23, 1980", taken by Richard Avedon, but was removed after the threat of a lawsuit.[citation needed] At first the picture was merely covered up with a black sticker, but on later pressings, it was deleted. The same was done with a photo of Disney's Magic Kingdom on the back cover.[1] Very early promotional posters and pressings of the album do feature these photos, but later ones do not. The DGC CD edition features the Magic Kingdom photo, but it is partially obscured by the barcode.

Reception

Professional ratings

Source

Rating

AllMusic

[2]

Robert Christgau

Piero Scaruffi

7.5/10

In their retrospective review, AllMusic called the album "a masterpiece".

Accolades

Pitchfork Media listed Sister as the fourteenth best album of the 1980s. NME rated it number eighty in their list of the greatest albums ever, and number thirty-seven in their list of the fifty greatest albums of the 1980s. In July 1995, Alternative Press magazine voted Sister the third best album of the decade spanning 1985–1995. Slant Magazine listed the album at number seventy-two in its list of the best albums of the 1980s, saying "Sonic Youth's Sister is the last great punk album of the Reagan era and the first great pop album to emerge from the American underground."

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Sonic Youth (Lee Ranaldo, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Steve Shelley), except as indicated.

No.

Title

Writer(s)

Lyrics/vocals

Length

"Schizophrenia"

Gordon, Moore