In my more youthful days, I used to give some interested (er, unassuming) friends Sonic Youth mixtapes, to varying degrees of success. If by success I mean "hatred."

This always troubled me. These were the same friends who dug the Pixies and Pavement, so surely the Youth was simply the next rung up on what was, for all intents and purposes, the indie rock ladder?

"No! This is tuneless garble. How can you listen to this?! Jesus, man… I thought you were some kind of music aficionado…"

I didn’t know what to say to these people, other than "Well, I understand where you’re coming from, but I really, really like Sonic Youth."

Fact is, though, Sonic Youth do superficially err on the edge of being unmelodious, and albums like Goo --- especially when you get around to a track like "Mildred Pierce" --- aren't the warmest introduction to walls of "tuneless" feedback. Daydream Nation has the same issues; whereas the first half of “Tuff Gnarl” sports a hook that would do Tom Verlaine proud, what began as a Grade A example of pop songcraft soon dissolves into a baseless well of feedback. “Rain King” is dirge at its most beautiful, whilst, for all I know, the backing track on "Plastic Sun" may as well be a tooting car horn.

Don’t get me wrong. I "really, really like Sonic Youth." Daydream Nation has, rather predictably, occupied a spot on most of the Top Ten lists music critics write when they can’t sleep. But, one must admit, that first impressions aren’t the Youth’s strong point and this, conversely, for me, is why I love Sonic Youth.

Anybody with a half a mind can enjoy the Pixies or Pavement, their deceptively simple arrangements masking inner quirks that fly straight over the heads of the expectant listener, just riding the wave until the next hook hits. Sonic Youth’s songs, if you could even call them that, aren’t so much a succession of waves, but a central vortex that ties everything together. Sonic Youth’s songs do have tunes (so there, Alex), but they’re buried under the colossal weight of everything else that is happening in the songs. To a first time listener, Sister may seem like a dreary exercise in over-indulgence, but as one takes further dips, the web of cryptic intricacies that abound under that metallic sheen crystallise out of the smoke and mirrors of sterile song craft.

It took me a while to really get to know Daydream Nation, but it took me even longer to realise that Goo is the great album that it is, whereas the (other) friends I played Goo for would claim immediately that it was vastly superior to its enigmatic precursor. I always baulked whenever this was implied in the slightest;

"Guys! Come on! Goo isn’t even half the album Daydream Nation is! It’s so… linear."

My friends weren’t having it. Goo is a hugely unpredictable noise collage, with just enough focus in the songs to keep them enjoyable. Some of my friends also think Confusion is Sex is an HBO miniseries.

So it persisted; BLAHBLAHBLAH vs. BLAHBLAHBLAH until both sides lost the thread of their argument. Whereas I previously found Goo a tolerable, if disappointing example of the major label slump, I now, rather naively, hated it. For two weeks Goo consistently made every Bottom Ten list I made when the Top Ten lists got too hard.

Eventually, it came to the point where the evidence was simply overwhelming, my one man stance against facile audiophiles pointless from the offing. So what if Goo isn’t equivalent to Daydream Nation’s musical quicksand? 99.9% of other albums aren’t, either. The difference between the majority of those records and Goo is, rather perversely, in the details. Even if Lee and Thurston had pared down the deconstructive urge to pull apart their "songs" at the seams, scattering bright embers over infinite space before lackadaisically patching up the composite parts for a bruised final chorus leg, and the music itself was much less surprising than before, Goo contains some of the finest rock songs of the '90s. You already know the score; “Disappearer,” “Dirty Boots,” “Mote” and “Titanium Expose” are, for all wants and purposes, ingrained into the head of every well-behaving indie kid; they may as well as hymns.

The real revelation of this deluxe edition is the second disc --- the original, Mascis produced version of Goo, then known as Blowjob. And, boy, does it deliver; this isn’t Goo: The Director’s Cut (in many ways, the slightly tinkered, cleaned up tracks on Disc 1 fill that role) --- it’s Goo, bereft of a pop straitjacket, its primal urges restored, the band not infringed upon by clinical production values.

“Mildred Pierce,” this time around, is complete with an added 6 minutes of whitewashed guitar convalescence, its various spasmodic contortions revealing how much of a great improvisational jam band Sonic Youth really are. The recordings, unsurprisingly, feel more natural, looser, more menacing. The previously abundant feedback solos on “Mote” now buried well in the mix, less obvious to the ear, lunging out suddenly to surprise, and frighten the listener. The riffs on “Tunic” and “Kool Thing” sound ferocious, picked guitar inflections paradoxically being both subtle and larger than life at the same time.

The various rarities and oddities are as essential. It’s hard to see why "Lee 2," originally scheduled to be a frontrunner for Goo’s tracklist was relegated; it’s easygoing, and dare I say positively tuneful vibe, would have provided well worn relief for the aforementioned record’s consistent guitar mauling. “Can Song” could have easily been an underground hit if the band could be bothered to write any lyrics; its instrumental form revealing only a facet of its potential. The biggest, and most pleasant, surprise, though, is a cover of The Beach Boy’s “I Know There’s An Answer.” It would have been tempting for Thurston and co. to dose Wilson’s psychedelic masterpiece with splintered guitar pulses, but they tastefully leave the core of the song intact, simply fleshing out the riff, handing the tune a bit more surf than rock.

Goo is, as the liner notes imply, a "transitional" album for Sonic Youth, with just enough molten meanderings to please the diehards, and more than enough actual songs to merit your dumb friends dubbing it as superior to Daydream Nation. Really, it’s just a frickin’ great album, the kind they simply don’t put out anymore, and a testament to Sonic Youth’s status as more than just another rung up the indie rock ladder.