I first heard of Sonic Youth back when I was working at Strawberry’s, the New England record store chain. Strawberry’s was far and away the best such chain I’ve ever encountered, unfortunately—it had a better selection than a Sam Goody’s or a Musicland but much better prices and more knowledgeable staff (obviously).
This was the mid-to-late 80s, and I knew of all the cool bands. R.E.M., The Replacements, The Dead Milkmen, the Dead Kennedys, The Pixies, Hüsker Dü, The Minutemen, Black Flag, Minor Threat, 10,000 Maniacs—no matter where on the alternative map they stood, if they had an album out, I probably knew of ‘em.
The funny thing was, though, that even though I knew which order the first three 10,000 Maniacs albums came out in, I didn’t actually HEAR them for several years. I kept up with the scene but I wasn’t in it, I wasn’t of it. I was still into classic rock—stuff like Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd…stuff I haven’t heard almost anything of in fifteen years now.
But I most certainly knew of Sonic Youth. One of the favorite bands of some of MY favorite bands, such as R.E.M. and the Replacements, Sonic Youth were the darlings of New York City and one of the most influential American bands since the NYC/CBGB’s bands of the late seventies: Talking Heads, Blondie, The Ramones and Television. It was impossible to be even remotely acquainted with new music in the mid-to-late eighties and not know of Sonic Youth.
The first time I ever actually heard them, however, was when my imaginary friend Chris brought home a copy of Goo, their 1990 album; I was working at DC and Chris (we’d been in a band together in college) was living with me while he had an internship at MTV. I listened to Goo. I tried to like Goo. I hated Goo.
The music was loud and abrasive (kinda like me), the band was in thrall to feedback (me too, actually), none of the three vocalists could sing if their lives depended on it (hello! That’s me in a nutshell!) and they all seemed allergic to any sort of melody (I love melody, I just can’t hum one). This was clearly The Emperor’s New Clothes. Feh.
About three years later I decided to give Sonic Youth another shot—by this time Nirvana and Pearl Jam and their ilk had taken over the world and as I loved those bands, I figured it made sense to at least investigate one of their main influences. I had a couple free CDs coming from joining Columbia House, so I spent one of them on what I knew was widely considered Sonic Youth’s best album, 1988’s Daydream Nation.
I loved it immediately. Yeah, it was loud and abrasive, but it had its gentle moments too, periods of sublime beauty, as the music followed its own twisted ebb and flow. Sure, there was feedback aplenty but it was used judiciously (well, by rock and roll standards) and seemed to be a means to an end, rather than an end in and of itself. True, one of the vocalists—bassist Kim Gordon—couldn’t sing, but she could sort of approximate a version of sprechstimme; more often she avoided the problem altogether by just shouting. Of the other two vocalists, guitarists Lee Ranaldo and group leader Thurston Moore, Lee could actually sing quite well, although somewhat paradoxically he preferred to recite stories over a musical background rather than sing. And Thurston …well, he could sing. Sort of. In a pleasant, talky sort of way, like a post-punk Lou Reed who at least tried.
As for melody, there was plenty. No, it wasn’t Paul McCartney or Stevie Wonder, but it was there. It fit the music perfectly. The entire thing bordered on chaos but was anchored by the reliable and imaginative drumming of Steve Shelley who always seemed to know roughly where everything was headed.
From there I started exploring their catalog in more depth, going both backwards and forwards at the same time. Their earlier stuff doesn’t work for me nearly as well, making me something of a heretic in the SY world. I appreciate what they were going for, but they didn’t quite pull it off successfully. As one piece I read about the band said, it sounds as though they like the idea of rocking out better than the act. That’s it exactly. They also had something of a fascination with serial killers which I found less unsettling than just childish.
Ah, but their later stuff…that’s rock gold. 1992’s Dirty, produced by Butch Vig, the producer of Nirvana’s Nevermind and the drummer/producer of Garbage (featuring the heavenly Shirley Manson), is a high-water mark. Having moved to a major label (back with Goo), and with The Hot Producer of the moment at the board, it would have been easy for Sonic Youth to sell-out, and undoubtedly some older fans felt they’d done just that. They hadn’t, they’d simply finally figured out how to harness their anarchy and marry it to the three-and-a-half-minute pop song. The results were blistering and beautiful.
Not uniformly, of course. Mixed in with gems like "100%" or "Wish Fulfillment" there’s too much pointless feedback or simple screaming for my tastes—it was, maybe, novel a decade earlier (although even there you could certainly cite antecedents such as, always and forever, the Velvet Underground) or, more to the point, what many of the fans wanted, but it does nothing for me and, in my ever so humble opinion, continues to hold the band back to this day. And enough already with the spoken word pieces. We get it. Move on.
In fact, that’s one of my problems with Sonic Youth. When they’re good, they’re great but when they’re not, they frequently suck. They’ve yet to release an album that’s absolutely consistent (although both Dirty and 1995’s Washing Machine come closest, as well as the previously-mentioned Daydream Nation).
Which isn’t to say that I want them to stay the same or become overly pop-oriented—not at all. Daydream Nation and Washing Machine both concentrate on long songs, frequently around the ten-minute mark, and have cuts which either have extended and unrelated intros or outros which suddenly take on lives of their own. Dirty and 1994’s Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star both feature shorter, more conventional song structures, although what they do with those structures is anything but conventional. [Actually, the idea of (seriously) one of their idols, Madonna, covering "100%" is intriguing, particularly as anyone who’s ever heard the mash of Madonna singing "Ray of Light" over a combination of the Sex Pistols songs "Pretty Vacant" and "God Save The Queen" can attest.]
So almost two months ago I was bedridden for a week with back and leg troubles. And as most folks in those circumstances would, I spent a lot of time listening to the two latest Sonic Youth releases, 2002’s Murray Street and 2004’s Sonic Nurse. And I was struck by not only how powerful (and possibly consistent—further listening required) both albums were but how mature.
A decade ago, I would have considered that a sign of SY’s impending death. Now I consider it evidence of the effect having children has had on three of the four (now five) members of the band. Not to mention that four of the five members (producer Jim O’Rourke joined a few years back) are now in their 40s. The tempos are almost uniformly slower, there are fewer blow-off cuts, and the lyrics seem a bit deeper. Poetry has never been what Sonic Youth’s about, of course, at least in the conventional sense—they clearly think that feedback is a form of poetry and in their hands I’m inclined to agree. Still, their lyrics have always been a bit hit-or-miss but they seem to be hitting the mark more often these days. And while the tempos may be slower and they may be more interested in ambience than previously and their textures may be more subtle by SY standards, no one’s going to mistake either album for anything but a Sonic Youth outing.
Lately I’ve been listening to their 1998 release, A Thousand Leaves (which has one of the most disturbing covers I’ve ever seen, incidentally, although it’s initially innocuous enough that flipping past it in the store I doubt anyone would look twice) the way I used to listen to music—once or twice a day for a week—and it’s really hit me that if I didn’t like this band I’d hate this band.
On tracks such as "Hits Of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)" they find a groove and they by God stick with it come hell or high water. As the basic, minimalist, mid-tempo beat goes on and on and on, the guitarists quietly play simple patterns or make gentle noises—you can’t really call them solos, per se—for about ten minutes. I find it entrancing and glorious. Top Management would prefer to be waterboarded. She walks into the room when this stuff is on and I can actually hear her blood pressure rising. That’s okay, she’s always had abnormally low blood pressure. That’s what living with me will do for you, I guess.
It’s fascinating to watch these recent developments. Rock and roll hasn’t had a history of its artists growing old and continuing to develop. The first generation—Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis—either died, was incarcerated or gave up; oversimplification, yes, but basically true. The next generation—the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Dylan—lasted twice or even three times as long, but they were pretty much all done after ten to fifteen years. Dylan may be an exception, but then his best stuff since 1974’s Blood on the Tracks is only classified as rock and roll because of who he is and because it’s not exactly anything else either. Bruce Springsteen is an anomaly, as he so often is. He’s the Elvis that lived and grew up, emotionally and musically, the Dylan that continued in a rock and roll vein.
But it’s the post-punk bands that may be most intriguing. U2’s a subject for another time, as they may be the only band ever to have not only gained the summit, but been able to stay there, and deseveredly so. The Replacements never got there and broke up. R.E.M. got there but quickly shied away from the implications and then lost their drummer and, let’s be honest, without a good drummer you ain’t squat. It’s frustrating to imagine what another few Nirvana albums could have meant. And Pearl Jam consciously turned away from mass stardom, shunning videos, taking on the establishment, releasing unconventional albums.
Sonic Youth never had that kind of success. They’re an important band but perhaps a transitional one, generally more admired than loved, more influential than popular, showing a way for post-punk indie bands to enter the mainstream yet remain defiantly anti-commercial. If so, the transition’s been going on for well over two decades now. With luck, it’ll continue for two more. If nothing else, it’ll be a hoot to have grandparents listening to other grandparents produce ear-shattering feedback.
Recent Comments