when did Sonic Youth peak

80s but hey they were no Live Skull

This is really tough, there's stuff I love and stuff I'm not fussed about in each decade. EVOL through to Dirty is the classic run but I love Sonic Nurse as well. I think I'd have to say '80s. Also for what it's worth I've never had a problem with the production on the '80s records and I first heard them in 2002.

i find the idea of bands (or filmmakers) 'peaking' not at all consistent with a perfect rollercoaster curve in all cases. (esp those who last ~ 30 years)

There are some v sublime songs on WM like Saucer-like, Washing Machine, Unwind, and Skip Tracer. even No Queen Blues features some super-saturated, all-strings-tuned-to-the-same-frequency, trembling/beating freq's -lushness going on.. the album is some kind of turning point for them, with the subsequent SYR series (silver sessions, hey!), their old equipment getting stolen, and then the near demo-like quality (muddled-ass/immediate version of Ineffable Me) of A Thousand Leaves. ATL is lush as hell, summer of '98 (goin' nuts), phaser/flange excess, Wildflower Soul, Hoarfrost, Snare, girl et al. ATL is raw and beautiful, their last great album, imo. maybe they peaked with Sweet Shine.

I Love ATL despite the longeurs. "Hoarfrost" is my favorite Ranaldo song on any album.

xp yeah my favorite Lee song is Saucer-Like despite that wackass beat poetry bridge

Karen Koltrane, too. lot of neat sounds and weird, dank atmosphere going on in that track.. and the pretty part of it, towards the end.

'Daydream Nation' and 'Goo' feel like the peaks with 'Murray Street' firmly establishing their high quality but very Sonic Youth Template form since 2001. Even the latest Thurston Moore album sounds like it's a child of 'Murray Street' to me.

Still a big fan.

it's not so much that I think the initial run is incomparably better as it is that I find Daydream like 2 standard deviations better than *anything* else they did.

i find the idea of bands (or filmmakers) 'peaking' not at all consistent with a perfect rollercoaster curve in all cases. (esp those who last ~ 30 years)

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Friday, May 12, 2017 3:47 PM

much less poets

lmao

1985-1988

I always listened to this band for sheer texture and a kind of weird animal vibe and for me Sister is it

I used to manage a really creepy middle aged guy who was really heavily into Sonic Youth and Swans. He was a teacher and would openly hit on the (adult) students. I would've sacked him but he was quite seriously ill and possibly only surviving due to the company's unusually generous health insurance, so I let him transfer to a different city instead.

Pretty sure I had a point I was making here but it's completely escaped me. 80s.

I long wondered what they would sound like if they used DI guitars and then they went and did it on Rather Ripped.

alfred otm, NYC G&F thru Rather Ripped is easily their best run.

― flappy bird, Friday, May 12, 2017 6:14 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i celebrate the entire catalog, but calling NYC G&F their best album is an impressive #challop

the only sy *album* i can still be bothered with is brave men run,

i kiss you

Ha, I noticed that too. He can't even be bothered with the whole album.

Oh, fun poll.

Went with 90s, which may be because that's the decade when I jumped onboard and really FELT SY

i celebrate the entire catalog, but calling NYC G&F their best album is an impressive #challop

― tylerw, Friday, May 12, 2017 10:49 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't think anyone said that. NYCG+F-Murray Street-Sonic Nurse-Rather Ripped is a helluva run though. Myself I wouldn't mind adding Washing Machine and A Thousand Leaves at the beginning of that run, too.

dlp said it in the third post!

Not being a dick either. I saw them live in the 80s, have followed them forever, and it's a completely amazing album. Just not what people wanted at the time. Not to sidetrack things. I still vote 80s.

Re NYC Ghosts & Flowers - there seemed to be a bit of a Sonic Youth backlash around that time. I think the NME was quite anti-SY around then, at least I remember reading about some Steven Wells hatchet job although I didn't actually ever read that article. That might've been about A Thousand Leaves actually but somewhere around then anyway. It's not one of my favourites, but I do have a soft spot for it I saw them live for the first time on that tour. Friend I went with was negative about their recent stuff before we went but he was converted after seeing them do it live.

Epic dissonant jams, clean-tone prepared guitar improv, and laptop glitch pretty much was what I wanted from them at the time; I was hoping they'd integrate the ideas from SYR3 and SYR4 into one of their major label 'song' albums. I really like the ideas on it but I don't think they really realised all of them on that album. A lot of it worked better live. It's a shame they didn't come back to those ideas.
xp

Brent diCrescenzo famously gave it a 0.0 in Pitchfork, which he later regretted.

Just looked to see if Amy Phillips' "Sonic Youth, please break up" piece in the Voice was about NYC G&F, but it wasn't - it was about Murray Street.

Apols dlp and Sund4r, had not seen that! 'tis a good 'un tho.

Brent DiCrescenzo... Sigh...

It's raining stupid twenty year old hardmanning p4k reviews here lately

Dirty, Goo, and Washing Machine all floor me.

My sister-in-law was the "alien" in Mark Romanek's video
for "Little Trouble Girl". She is 1/4 Japanese

I love this performance of "Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)," O'Rourke looks cool as fuck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSF7s7wc0oQ

I used to fantasize that they'd go full-on with the 'weird sounds', like some of the material in the SYR series, NCG&F etc; songs built on foundations of odd, prepared guitar sounds, atonal bits of percussion, reined-in feedback and other.. but they just kind of settled into this 2nd rate Malkmus-esque (nu-Neil Young) riff rock in the 00s. I don't know, it just got more bland. Rather Ripped sounded invigorated, and it's got a few novel songs/ideas, but it mostly falls into riff-based rock territory. I didn't know anyone else as fanatical about them during the mid 90s, save for a friend who encouraged and reinforced listening to the more 'out there' side projects, like Lee's solo stuff (East Jesus, Broken Circle/Spiral Hill), along with the William Hooker material.. and Thurston's freestyle collabs, like Barefoot in the Head, Piece for Jetsun Dolma, Pillow Wand, Fuck Shit Up etc. much of that material is singular/exceptional. but after a while, even those sorts of projects became repetitive, w/Thurston's incessant and heavy-handed behind-the-bridge raking/wanking, and Lee doing a lot of collage stuff that sampled his older work--interest gradually waned. Piece for Jestun Dolma (with Tom Surgal and William Winant) still stands as one of my favorite recordings, along with Amarillo Ramp (to a lesser extent). SYR5 is underrated. and Lydia's Moth/Not Me (Moore/Surgal) is a sweet little gem.

Piece for Jetsun Dolma and Thurston's work on the Heavy soundtrack was sort of "peak" (Thurston) material for me. Barefoot in the Head is another one - recorded in 1988 and featuring Jim Sauter + Don Dietrich, it's one of the few Borbetomagus recordings I've become familiar with. the liner notes are fuckin' priceless, as well

Thank God for AMM, The Dead C, and US Maple though. and Rafael Toral

sonic youth peaked when i saw them at bonnaroo

Not enough love for Evol in this thread, I mean how good an album must be to get praise.

Expressway to your skull, Shadow of a doubt, Tom Violence, Green Light, Secret Girls, that's peak SY for me.

Epic dissonant jams, clean-tone prepared guitar improv, and laptop glitch pretty much was what I wanted from them at the time; I was hoping they'd integrate the ideas from SYR3 and SYR4 into one of their major label 'song' albums. I really like the ideas on it but I don't think they really realised all of them on that album. A lot of it worked better live. It's a shame they didn't come back to those ideas.
xp

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r)

This is a far more succinct point I was trying to make (xp), after having already read (half-consciously) yr post earlier in the day.

when did sonic youth peak
can the subaltern speak
man my brows are on fleek

There are peaks, or instances of beauty and beautiful form on most every sonic youth album. Except for The Eternal, i dunno. it's possible they channeled more fire and an unhinged locked-in-edness (less self-awareness?) during the 80s, invoking some truly otherworldly episodes.. Theresa's Sound-world and JC, though

I wish there was a recording of the London debut cause it was quite spectacular and not witnessed by many. Forced on stage almmst before the doors opened they pretty much exploded, think they blew up a bass amp.

I really liked their 80s shows when I saw them most.
But also really love teh Dublin set from '98 where they sounded like the Velvets around Melody Laughter and the Nothing Song.
I need to find teh tape fo teh show I bought and transfer it for further listening.

Music obviously peaked with "The Diamond Sea".

- me at 16

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Friday, May 12, 2017 1:53 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me too

but this

They obviously peaked in whichever decade the respondent was 16 in.

― emil.y, Friday, May 12, 2017 1:56 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is precisely otm

Their mid-80s run (Bad Moon Rising/Evol/Sister/Daydream Nation) is great, Goo is a misstep, Dirty is crap, Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star is almost good, and everything afterward is completely irrelevantbrilliant.

fixed

Is the mark of a great band the fact that there is zero consensus on their best work?

This is a great thread, btw, and I sorta regret voting 90s now, because what someone said upthread about the run between NYC and RR is absolutely true, that was a major peak. I just love WM so much, clouded my judgment for a second (because if there is any period I don't like as much it's Goo > Dirty)

Still love this band

This band saved my life. Before I heard "Teen Age Riot" I thought the Mission U.K. was super rockin'. My shit taste was gone in an instant.

The point of SY is that they DIDN'T peak, every song, every riff, was about being in the moment and made the music so quicksilver and instinctive and goofy and transcendent and half-assed and charged and hilarious. Even in the course of one song they flipped from alchemy to catharsis. Genius struck on every record, sometimes frequently, sometimes a couple of eye popping moments in a sea of mediocrity. Some days it's Silver Sessions, some days it's Stereo Sanctity, sometimes it's Or, sometimes it's the muffled, fucked up tape at the start of Schizophrenia, sometimes it's the oscillating amp at the end of Providence, or the crystalline jam of Sympathy for the Strawberry.
Hey, a mildly drunk wannabe critic - what did you expect in a thread on SY?

Hey, a mildly drunk wannabe critic - what did you expect in a thread on SY?

I was going to derail this conversation by asking why people hate on on 'Goo' but I'm going to go find a more gooey thread.

They peaked at various points throughout their career.