Sonic Youth

[Guest Incandenza]

In some circles, it is fashionable to trash the latter day output of a band that has been around for years. There are those who claim that R.E.M. haven't released a good album since Document in 1987, and to that I cry "Bullshit!" Stipe and Co. have put out a couple of clunkers in the last fifteen years (most notably Up), but 1992's Automatic for the People was the band at its finest, and last year's Reveal was a gorgeous return to form for the band, and one of 2001's best albums.

 

Sonic Youth, on the other hand, have not been so lucky. The band made their greatest album--and one of my all-time favorite records--in 1988 with the fan-fucking-tastic Daydream Nation, and they've been coasting ever since. After a couple of decent--but nothing special--follow-ups in Goo and Dirty, SY put out the horrible Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star, and then went on a roller coaster ride of pretenious bullshit and the occasional flashes of brilliance. Kim Gordon's contributions to the band were becoming increasingly awful, too, with her amatuer-level spoken word pieces and howlingly bad lyrics turning everything it touched to shit, and left a huge, black mark on what is the only good Youth album to come out during this time period, 1995's Washing Machine.

 

Many people in my situation would have given up on this band a long time ago--why stick around for an act that seems so determined not to create anything worth while?--but, as the eeriely pretty "Free City Rhymes" and the haunting title track off of 2000's NYC Ghosts & Flowers indicated, Sonic Youth could still make good music amongst the crap (and there was some crap on that album, believe me). I knew SY could make a good album again, and, at long last, they did. Witness Murray Street.

 

Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth frontman, stated in interviews while making the album that this would be their "classic rock" record. While no one is going to mistake anything on Street for Bad Company or Boston, amidst songs that are the closest they've come to traditional since Dirty, SY engages in a lot of instrumental jamming that adds to the overall mood of the set, rather than the pointless noodling that the group has been guilty of over the last several years. Even when they go off on an ambient/feedback piece, as the final 2/3 of the 11 minute "Karen Revisited" does, it doesn't seem like the usual onastic theatrics from the Youth. Everything here is tighter, more focused than they've been in years.

 

But what about Kim Gordon? Either she or an outside force has done an admirable job of reigning in her stupidity here, as I actually like her two contributions to Murray Street: "Plastic Sun" and the album closing "Sympathy for the Strawberry." The former is a hard-charging, propulsive track reminiscent--in a good way--of Daydream Nation's "Eliminator Jr"; the latter is a lovely composition that almost makes me wanna take back all the bad things I've ever said about her. (Okay, it's not that good, but I do like it.)

 

Thank you, Sonic Youth, thank you. Murray Street justifies why I've been with you for all this time. It is not a great album, but it is a good one, and that's all I can really ask for. Now excuse me while I go sing along to "The Empty Page."

[Guest redbaron51]

I've read reviews about Murray Street, and most of them say it is a step in the right direction for Sonic Youth.

 

Now lets hope that MTV doesn't play any of there songs, and make it so popular

[Guest Incandenza]

Now lets hope that MTV doesn't play any of there songs, and make it so popular

 

Won't happen. Why would MTV play a video by a bunch of middle-age hipsters?

[Guest redbaron51]

Hey we are talking about MTV here. They will make middle-age hippsters the new trend, and then we see some other middle-age hippsters follow up.

[Guest godthedog]

Hey we are talking about MTV here. They will make middle-age hippsters the new trend, and then we see some other middle-age hippsters follow up.

no, that's vh1.

[Guest Incandenza]

no, that's vh1.

 

For awhile there, a couple of years ago, VH1 had become more interesting than MTV. They dropped all the Michael Bolton and Kenny G crap and started playing a wide variety of music videos, whereas MTV was busy running Real World and Road Rules marathons.

 

I usually check out 120 Minutes on MTV2, but that's as far as my music video watching goes.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

I didn't even know Sonic Youth made music videos...

 

As for the rest, Sonic Youth is a band that I always meant to get into, but never had any idea where to start. So, next time I hit the used CD rack, I have an idea of what to look for by them (I was planning on at least downloading if not looking for a used NYC Ghosts & Flowers because I knew one of the songs). A very well-thought review (better than most of what you can pick out of Rolling Stone or many other "professional" music reviews), and it's obvious you have a lot of knowledge on the band throughout their entire history (or at least throughout their entire catalogue) for comparison, which is something I always personally worried about when I wrote music reviews for the school paper, that I would say "such and such album by this band is great", and then somebody would say "well what about this album?" and I'd listen to that and it'd make the original album I was talking about totally suck in comparison and make me look like a total fool. I don't get any of those "you don't know what you're talking about" vibes from this at all. Excellent work!

[Guest Incandenza]

Thanks, evenflow. And if you're going to start off with the Youth, you're better off getting Daydream Nation than anything else.

 

And Sonic Youth have made a number of videos in the past. I first got into them that way at the age of 13, when MTV gave daytime rotation to their clip for "100%" (this was 1992) off of their Dirty album. Dirty is pretty much SY's "grunge" album, and therefore their most accessible--so if you just wanna dip your toes in the Sonic waters, you might want to start with that, instead.

 

I thought Dirty was great at the time, but, when I picked up their older records over the ensuing years, I realized that it was only okay, and that they could be so, so much better.