Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star was the band's eighth studio album and follow-up to Dirty." Buoyed by the anxiety-inducing pop-meets-noise classic, "Bull In The Heather," the album peaked at No. 34 on the Billboard 200 chart, marking the band's highest U.S. chart position up until then. Alternative Press noted the album's anti-commercial aesthetic "doesn't get much cooler than this," while Rolling Stone called the record "quietly confident, more ambitious and weirder than Dirty." The Los Angeles Times concluded Sonic Youth "transcends the confining roles of pretentious art-rock band or palatable alternative group, and instead offers a penetrating album that's all its own."