Dunno. Bit SY fan here, ever since I heard 'sister' in form 6 back in 1987 under the influence of sinsemella before skunk fucked everything up. ANYWAY, SONIC YOUTH. Where do I start? I guess with 'Sister' an album I HATED first time I heard it, and only 'understood' it under the influence. and album that became like my Koran in 1st year Uni. An album so abstracted and rock and psychadelic and experimental and scuzzy cheap, I mean Sy pretty much ADDED to the Velvets explosion. Then of course came DAYDREAM NATION, a real 'grower' of an album and of course the 'greatest modernist guitar of all time' amongst some scribes. I remember back in the day Reynolds giving some deep analysis of 'Daydream nation' in his Blissed Out book, lots of sexy 'enigmatic' press, references to art-rock, free-jazz and this completely liberated(ing) type of art-drone-life philosophy. Personally i reckon Sonic youth were peerless for 80s expansive-noise-rock, and then you have the whole My Bloody Valentine, shoegazer dream pop that wouldn't have existed at if Sonic Youth were blowing UK indie minds in the mid to late 80s.
BUT THEN things went, I dunno, I think SY became CONSERVATIVE. OK, first they got signed to Geffen and subsequently became this pre-grunge alt-glam-type band. I dunno they lost the murk and psychadelic enigma. They lost that sorta deal where their lyrics were so cryptic you could project yr own utopia onto them. Their literary reference started going out the toilet and they started becoming just another dull agit-prop band, with an ever duller and more obvious sound, and started influencing really rubbishy agit-prop artcore type bands that couldn't play for shit. Kim Gordon evolved from downtown sex-goddess to bitter old-femmo who couldn't sing for shit. I liked bits of 'Washing Machine' but their albums of the 90s are truly horrible. The better production values brought out Sonic Youth inherent LACKING of decent musical chops, all their songs/tracks/pieces became these plodding big-fuzz slow-bit-jangly bit-fast strummy bit distortion fests. You smoke a spliff and the layers of timbre, drone, and pure-noise wash that made their catalogue up to DAYDREAM NATIOn so amazing, would be be gone...
I saw them a few time in the 90s and was underwhelmed, in fact they became predictable. One of the things about the great bands is live they're always a bit different, Sonic youth useta be good at that, but once they became a tourng rock band they became just that.
I reckon in the late 90s they tried to get their mojo back with the SYR records and involving themselves with elements of the IllBient scene and I *liked' bits of 'Murray Street' especially the track 'empty page', but it's all too-little too late for them as a BAND. HOWEVEr, I do find their support of this 'new' noise-core scene very interesting and exciting and the EcstaticPeace website is a fantastic lo-fi cyber usage of technology to help globalise new-avant music. so maybe the band are irrelevant but the philosphy remains....
BUT THEN things went, I dunno, I think SY became CONSERVATIVE. OK, first they got signed to Geffen and subsequently became this pre-grunge alt-glam-type band. I dunno they lost the murk and psychadelic enigma. They lost that sorta deal where their lyrics were so cryptic you could project yr own utopia onto them. Their literary reference started going out the toilet and they started becoming just another dull agit-prop band, with an ever duller and more obvious sound, and started influencing really rubbishy agit-prop artcore type bands that couldn't play for shit. Kim Gordon evolved from downtown sex-goddess to bitter old-femmo who couldn't sing for shit. I liked bits of 'Washing Machine' but their albums of the 90s are truly horrible. The better production values brought out Sonic Youth inherent LACKING of decent musical chops, all their songs/tracks/pieces became these plodding big-fuzz slow-bit-jangly bit-fast strummy bit distortion fests. You smoke a spliff and the layers of timbre, drone, and pure-noise wash that made their catalogue up to DAYDREAM NATIOn so amazing, would be be gone...
I saw them a few time in the 90s and was underwhelmed, in fact they became predictable. One of the things about the great bands is live they're always a bit different, Sonic youth useta be good at that, but once they became a tourng rock band they became just that.
I reckon in the late 90s they tried to get their mojo back with the SYR records and involving themselves with elements of the IllBient scene and I *liked' bits of 'Murray Street' especially the track 'empty page', but it's all too-little too late for them as a BAND. HOWEVEr, I do find their support of this 'new' noise-core scene very interesting and exciting and the EcstaticPeace website is a fantastic lo-fi cyber usage of technology to help globalise new-avant music. so maybe the band are irrelevant but the philosphy remains....