Here's a riddle for all those reading: if you knew how to write truely excellent and involving melodies, why would you sit around making noise? The answer: you wouldn't. Hence, the Sonic Youth and this album. Simply put, this record is a terrible waste. None of the songs have anything even vaguely resembling what I'd call a structure or riff. Instead, they rely on one vast dissonant wave of feedback after another while the band shouts and screams various nonsensical hipster lyrics like "Sonic Tooth, Sonic Tooth" as loudly as possible. Most of the "songs" go on for way too long, and overall the record sounds like it was recorded on a shaky handheld tape recorder. In other words: pure elitist garbage. It would be years before the youth would be able to put together a good coherent song without making all kinds of gratuitous "experimental" indulgences and their first album was no exception. Avoid it like the plague.