Author: Erika Mercer
The first time listening to Sonic Youth is a lot like taking your first bite of sushi — raw, cold, foreign and delicious. It's a taste you've never experienced before, one that startles you with its strangeness and amazes you with its distinctive flavor. Your palate, initially shocked, begins to crave more.
Sonic Youth emerged in 1981 from the American underground rock scene, debuting during the height of the New York's post- punk No Wave movement. Guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo, together with bassist Kim Gordon and a revolving set of drummers, evolved past the harsh, nihilistic character of No Wave to produce a unique, more hopeful form of noise experimentalism. The avant-garde composer, Glenn Branca, whose dissonant guitar-based sounds helped map out the direction Sonic Youth's music would take, supported this tendency toward experimentalism and helped the band initially get started.
Sonic Youth's self-titled debut EP, in fact, was released in 1982 on Branca's own label, Neutral Records, followed by its first full-length album, "Confusion Is Sex," in 1983. In these albums, the band introduced its original style by abandoning the traditional rock n' roll sound for one much more jarring and discordant, creating a completely new, stunningly scrumptious sonic dish.
Moore and Gordon married in 1984, the same year in which the band became caught up in intense record label negotiations. Rejected by the British indie label Doublevision, Sonic Youth was that same year taken up by Blast First Records, a label created by Paul Smith, one of the owners of Doublevision, in order to release Sonic Youth's album "Bad Moon Rising."
In "Bad Moon Rising," the band combined its raw experimentalism with a straightforward pop song structure, creating a somewhat more accessible sound. The album served as the launch pad for Sonic Youth's takeoff to fame. Shortly thereafter, the band released their "Death Valley 69" EP and signed Steve Shelley as its permanent drummer.
Between 1986 and 1988, Sonic Youth produced the albums "EVOL," "Sister" and "Daydream Nation," whose immense success established its music as a permanent fixture on college radio (most notably the single, "Teenage Riot"), earned it major critical acclaim ("Daydream Nation" was hailed by critics as a musical masterpiece) and turned Sonic Youth into the idols of an entire generation of indie rock lovers.
In 1990 the band switched to the major record label DGC and, despite doubts, astounded fans with its ability to preserve its indie character on a major label. During the 1990s Sonic Youth released a succession of over a dozen albums, including major sensations such as "Goo" (1990), "Washing Machine" (1995) and "Thousand Leaves" (1998). During the mid-1990s, Sonic Youth formed its own label, SYR, under which many of the later albums of the decade were released. In 1994, Gordon gave birth to her first child, Coco Hayley more.
In 2000, Sonic Youth released "NYC Ghosts & Flowers," the first album in a proposed trilogy about the cultural history of Lower Manhattan. The album, featuring post-classical composer Jim O'Rourke as producer and musician, signified a considerable change in style for Sonic Youth. Under O'Rourke's influence, Sonic Youth began drawing more from classic rock sounds, creating more harmonious, increasingly radio-friendly songs.
This change is even more drastic and noticeable in the band's latest release, "Murray Street," the second album in the Manhattan trilogy, and Sonic Youth's 16th album. The band dubs "Murray Street" an "operetta of place:" Murray Street, originally located in the northern edge of Queen's Farm, later became the site of King's College in 1754 and Columbia College in 1787, and now houses Sonic Youth's studio, in which the recording of "Murray Street" began in August of 2001.
In general, the album is tighter, mellower and more approachable than any of Sonic Youth's previous albums. Again, O'Rourke — who produced "Murray Street" and is now a full member of the band — had a large impact on the direction of Sonic Youth's sound, helping the band achieve its finest balance yet between noise and melody, experimentation and listener friendliness. "Murray Street" is in many ways a tailored version of "Daydream Nation," more melodic and subdued.
At the same time, Sonic Youth has preserved its distinctive sound of screeching guitars, evocative vocals and dissonant tones, interspersed with unexpected jazz chords, all layered on top of a basic pop framework.
In a recent interview, Moore stated, "We're definitely one of those bands that convinces itself that anything is a song, so we were really into completely exploding what song structure can be and liberating it as much as we could." He claimed that though "Murray Street" is a more accessible album, it does not mark an attempt to break into the mainstream.
This claim is supported by Moore's lyrics. The album opens with the song, "The Empty Page," which begins, "These are the words / But not the truth / God bless them all / When they speak to you." Though the music sounds more accessible, the listener is still strangely distanced — made unsettled and uneasy — by the mysterious lyrics. Moore grounds the music on "Murray Street," but allows the lyrics to soar into mysterious outer space. Is the apparent accessibility of the album merely a façade covering a new complexity? This puzzling feeling is reinforced in the second song, "Disconnection Notice," in which Moore sings, "A secret Mona Lisa hides behind her smile." Deception, disconnection and dishonesty intertwine within the straightforward structure of the songs to produce an album that is both intriguing and appetizing.
Blowin' Indie Wind Although Now More Accessible, Sonic Youth Will Never Be Mainstream
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