essential
Evol (1986)
The cover features Elisabeth Carr, aka Lung Leg, star of the semi-pornographic 8mm films by Cinema of Transgression pioneers Richard Kern and Lydia Lunch. The motive was amazing as Sonic Youth ditched their brutal sounding take on No Wave for their third album. “EVOL” was almost pop, which could have run after Hüsker Dü in 1986.
“Starpower” was the name of the ironic single, so big that the band re-recorded it in 2009 for the series “Gossip Girl”. “Expressway To Yr. Skull” was the milestone that demonstrated their later signature dramaturgy: all instruments unite in a repetitive motif that increases to a crescendo with increasing tempo.
Daydream Nation (1988)
The most successful albums of the year were still called “hysteria” and “Appetite For Destruction“. But this was the most important thing. They wanted to call it “Reagan Nation”, as a reference to the “Reaganomics” of the US President, who drove more and more people into poverty through reduced social benefits. “Teen Age Riot” was a call for revolt, many songs revolved around unbearable conditions that showed up when stepping outside the front door in Manhattan.
The “Trilogy” from the individual pieces “The Wonder”, “Hyperstation” and “Eliminator Jr.” is like a walk into death: “Smashed-up against a car at three AM/ Kids just up for basketball, beat me in my head.” No one was safe in New York anymore—Moore had lent that expression.
Dirty (1992)
The hit record in particular was one of their bravest, because the band followed an obvious pattern – Nirvana producer Butch Vig was supposed to rejuvenate them: feedback was used more carefully, the songs were shorter and groovy. A sound like that of “Nevermind”, but every spectacle contained a concern. “Swimsuit Issue” parodied men’s magazines, “100%” covers the murder of a friend, and “Youth Against Fascism” speaks of despair that people have learned nothing: “It’s the song I hate.”
The album would carry Sonic Youth far, and they continued to headline festivals through the end of the decade. And Kim Gordon was finally a pop star at 39, appearing alongside skateboarders in the 100% video. However, they couldn’t get past the Seattle bands. US artist Mike Kelley designed the cover.
A Thousand Leaves (1998)
For the first time, a beauty spoke out of their song titles, which appeared to be facing instead of defensive. Hits Of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg) and Wildflower Soul. The music sounded the same: poetic, dazzling, flowery, yellow. Containing the longest instrumental passages and an almost jazzy interplay, “Snare, Girl” was a meditation for Moore and Gordon’s four-year-old daughter.
17 years after the band was founded, Sonic Youth discovered their kind of free form. Appropriately, the EP self-releases of the “SY Recordings” appeared at the same time, approaches to new music.
Rewarding
Sister (1987)
The favorite album of lo-fi fans and post-pop rock by “EVOL” the return to noise. “White Kross” and “(I Got A) Catholic Block” referenced Moore’s problematic religious upbringing. “Paci-fic Coast Highway,” portraying a grueling rather than scenic drive up the West Coast, is an anti-California statement that The Velvet Underground would have liked.
The band was confident enough to release homages to punk bands on LP tracks, such as the crime cover “Hot Wire My Heart.” But, with all street credibility: In 1987, not everyone could afford a sound mixer like the one here – Howie Weinberg.
Goo (1990)
When Sonic Youth moved to major label Geffen, they shouted, “Sell out!” A silly accusation, as the buzz-saw guitars got even louder – there was one song that was all noise (“Scooter And Jinx”). Surely the band was looking for their place in pop culture, devoting themselves to fictional characters (“Mildred -Pierce”) and Karen Carpenter (“Tunic”).
The collaboration with Chuck D, whom Kim Gordon asks in “Kool Thing” is groundbreaking: “Are you gonna liberate us girls from male white corporate oppression?”. At least the head of Public Enemy came up with a “Tell it like it is!”. Everyone knows Raymond Pettibon’s mod cover today, hipsters wear it on T-shirts all over the world, it adorns café walls. (Also see: the now iconic cover too “Daydream Nation” by Gerhard Richter.
Washing Machine (1995)
At the height of post-rock, this herb post-rock: a festival of sound loops (“Washing Machine”), rapid-fire groans (“Panty Lies”), with “The Diamond Sea” an almost 20-minute epic whose overtones sparkle like sea diamonds . The booklet shows the construction of a country house near Memphis; New York was no longer the inspiration, but Tennessee.
The Eternal (2009)
Albums need 20 years to to classic status, for canonization this is still too young. Still worksfunctions the plate as a secret one Best of her career: garage punk (“Sacred Trickster”) plus politics (the Commune-I homage “Anti-Orgasm”), and onstage, songwriter-deserving Moore sat down on “Massage The History” with the acoustic guitar on a bar stool.
supplementary
Confusion Is Sex (1983)
You can also find the debut terrible, with the antisongs, volume changes and constant noise. But as a No Wave period document it endured, her mentor Glenn Branca was proud of her.
Made in USA (1986)
23 good, dark instrumentals for a flopped California road movie. “Los Angeles didn’t suit us,” Gordon said. One song was incredibly titled “O.J’s Glove Or What?” – Nine years before the O.J. Simpson murder, what did the -Sonic Youth know about the killer and his glove?
experimental jet Set, Trash And No Star (1994)
Their most successful album is also one of their trickiest: it consists mostly of cut-and-paste songs with tolerably matching melodies (“Quest For The Cup”). In addition, there are coitus interruptus pieces like “Starfield Road”, which simply breaks off after two verses, symptomatic of the state of the band – after all, they are not officially dissolved. “Starfield Road” was also played at the last concert in Brazil in 2011.
Weak
NYC Ghosts & Flowers (2000)
After the most important equipment was stolen from the bus, Sonic Youth not only went for reset in the sound, but also in the composition. The eleventh album isn’t as bad as its reputation, but skeletal songs like “Side2 Side” show how fine the line is between experimentation and plain monotony.
gems
10 rarities
“Hold That Tiger”
The ’87 concert trades as the “Official Bootleg”, features songs by “EVOL” and “sister” plus Ramones covers.
“Within You Without You”
Lee Ranaldo is the band’s George Harrison, and not just because he releases the best solo albums. In the Beatles song, of course, he turns the sounds of the sitar into those of the guitar.
“The Whitey Album”
Sonic Youth formed the band Ciccone Youth, named after Madonna’s birth name, with J Mascis and Mike Watt. “Into The Groove(y)” turns the dance floor into a courtyard of hell.
“Is It My Body”
Gordon calls her vocal performance on the Alice Cooper cover her best, and she wrote an essay praising the band as “anti-hippies hiding behind ugly aesthetics.”
“anagram”
Culmination of their nine-part experimental EP series “SY Recordings”. The instrumental swells and ebbs at the same time – an anagram. It opened their 1998 tour.
“Ich liebe dich Mary Jane”
Insufferable marijuana anthem, but considered the highlight of the “Judgment Night” soundtrack in 1993, for which rock bands collaborated with hip-hoppers. Gordon sings with Cypress Hill.
“superstar”
The Carpenters made the Delaney & Bonnie song a hit in 1971. Thurston Moore interprets it almost pleadingly. The second Carpenters tribute after “Tunic (Song For Karen)” by “goo”.
“Doctor’s Orders
(T-Vox version)”
Unlike the album, Moore sings here, not Gordon. The rare case of hearing the same song from two different band members.
“Bee Bee’s Song”
Even the bad Linklater movies, like the slacker drama SubUrbia, have great song soundtracks. Kim Gordon’s black girlie fantasy stands out.
“Simon Werner A Disparu”
The instrumental soundtrack to the French thriller about three missing students is, so to speak, the unofficially last Sonic Youth album, recorded in 2009 but not released until 2011.
reading
Kim Gordon: “Girl In A Band”
An autobiography that is at times somewhat unsure of itself, since Gordon primarily wants to assert the authority to interpret the end of the band: the reason for the separation was ex-husband Thurston Moore as an emotionally confused man in the mid-life crisis who took refuge in an affair. More detailed passages about her status as a woman in the music scene would be more interesting been.