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Sonic Youth: Dirty

Keith Cameron, Vox, August 1992

WHEN NIRVANA released their epoch-making Nevermind, their ambitions extended no further than selling as many copies as Sonic Youth's major label debut, Goo. As chance would have it, Nevermind went multi-platinum in the US and shifted more than 100,000 copies here, while SY remained but a minority taste. Without Sonic Youth and their musical and spiritual influence, however, the current pre-eminence of American anti-establishment guitar rock would never have come to pass, so if this twelfth album sees the elder statespeople of grunge finally reap more than just critical acclaim, no-one should begrudge them a cent.

Total word count of piece: 592

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