when did Sonic Youth peak

sorry, a bit OT.. i feel like they (BEAK) somehow captured the feel of "expressway to yr skull" on this song:
https://beak.bandcamp.com/track/kidney - maybe it's just the loping quality of it

I can see it.

WOO
I'M CUMIN HOOOOMMMME

Multiple peaks. Murray Street was their most recent peak but the records since then all had much to recommend them.

Alfred, Sweet Shine would have to be in my Sonic Youth Top 10. Kim's vocals on that track are sublime.

I love the seven album stretch from '83 to'92.

fav album: Sister
fav song: Starpower

listened to this show yesterday and I'm willing to say it's a Sonic Youth Peak https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/152688686497/sonic-youth-cats-cradle-carrboro-north

yeah that show is so sweet - i had no idea they did two sets on the 2000 tour. there's some videos from that tour on youtube, but i haven't found any with O'Rourke performing his solo material.

lol

http://www.head-records.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/3605-420x423.jpg

"Schizophrenia" was their peak followed closely by "Candle" and most of 'Daydream Nation'. I couldn't really be bothered after that although I vaguely enjoyed the few things I heard on the radio.

great interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdzY49xlvdY

syr 7........ really? fuhhhhhhhhhh

I think (Murray Street), Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped are three amazing albums for a bunch of people who've made a tonne of music and are 40-something tour dogs, tbh

I love the s/t EP, love Confusion Is Sex, EVOL and Sister, enjoy Experimental Jet Set and Ciccone Youth most in the period after that and then skip ahead to Nurse

Oh and imho the SYR series is utter trash :/

master=dik /whitey album for me

oh, not is utter trash - but personal peak

syr 4 + 5 were pretty worthwhile, for me. 1 + 2 are pretty nice, for the most part. i like the hi fi version of the "ineffable me" riff on syr2. syr3 (with o'rourke) was off-putting at first, and densely layered, but it's a grower.

Goodbye 20th Century is one of the best things they ever did (especially their version of 'Having Never Written a Note for Percussion' by James Tenny).

Their live performance of SY4 at the Royal Festival Hall in London is the only time I've ever seen a headline act get loudly booed by sections of the audience.

I like almost everything they've done to some degree, often despite myself. Their recording of the Tenney is a good example: I recognize that it is far less impressive, and probably less faithful to the intent behind the score than e.g. this. (It's an open piece but I'm not convinced that it really makes sense to interpret it as an ensemble piece where different members get to hammer away at different pitches.) That said, the result is still enjoyable to listen to for me.

i really love sonic nurse

daydream nation has never clicked with me for some reason, idk why, but i love sister and goo

can i vote for all three

i really love sonic nurse

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Thursday, June 8, 2017 1

my man

Wrt the production discussion upthread, this guy managed to bring out and clean up the drums a little on Sister.

80s but they were never really that good.

^urban dictionary definition of a challop

I hated Sonic Youth, then I was intrigued by them, then I loved them, then I was annoyed by them, now I'm absolutely bored by them.

Can't really see voting comfortably for any of these choices, as every era seems to have just as much brilliance as it does pretentiously posturing wankery.

wankery in music is good, tho

answer is daydream nation, btw

I'm not a head but I like all their records that I've heard

Sometimes it is, sometimes it's just, like I said, pretentious posturing.

I consider the Grateful Dead and electric Miles some of my favorite music ever, for what it's worth.

i was gonna claim that intent is inaudible but i'm not sure it's true. it's easier to parse when discussing a group making a radical sonic departure or making a dumb movie or something. i don't know really know what sonic youth aren't that they're pretentiously posturing to be.. aren't they super innovative in terms of rock music? pretentions of "serious art music"-ness? sorry to pick, just braindumping

I pretty much always have that problem with the criticism "pretentious". It's one thing to criticize someone for e.g. trying and failing to write a meaningful concept album but it seems odd to me to add an additional criticism for pretending to write a meaningful concept.

this guy managed to bring out and clean up the drums a little on Sister.

Washing machine/A thousand leaves is the peak.

Our maybe self-titled/confusion is sex/kill yr idols

I dunno, definitely one of those 2 eras.

I guess I am throwing that word out there (the dreaded "pretentious" — which I don't like either, but if the shoe fits) because of the way the band presented themselves. Well, not so much the band, as much as Thurston and Kim. Like it or not, they were definitely out there to make an "ARTISTIC STATEMENT WITH GUITARS." Which, I don't know, just bugs me.

isn't that every art rock band ever

i get what you're saying though - they (Thurston & Kim) had an aloofness that was really irritating

how they positioned themselves as unflappable coolhunters and tastemakers... i only hear it in the music when they go in that wack ass beat poet shit

FFS, the muffled, burred sound of Sister is one of its greatest features for me. Right from those opening tomtom hits I feel like I have slipped into this weird little detuned cotton wool universe.
― attention vampire (MatthewK), Thursday, June 8, 2017 8:22 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this! sister's sonic palette is unique. don't touch it!

pretentious ppl make really good ass music sometimes

Oh, absolutely. Which is why I said I couldn't really vote, as all periods have instances of utterly inspired mastery.

But they did make an artistic statement with guitars. I don't see what the pretence was.

Also, guys, that's someone's private remaster of Sister on Youtube; not like it's an official release or anything. At least they're doing something more interesting than that deluxe remaster of DN.

I love "The Burning Spear" so much but it's just undisciplined Liquid Liquid. I said SYR is trash but SYR 4 is kind of a weird exception, I resented it when it came out because it seemed like some push toward "legitimizing their pop music in the eyes of [whom?] by staking a claim within the avant-garde musical community" which is disappointing in six different ways at once, but in retrospect I'm totally into both the spirit of its curation and the quality of its execution

it seemed like some push toward "legitimizing their pop music in the eyes of [whom?] by staking a claim within the avant-garde musical community"

I never felt like this was the intention fwiw.

Not that I'd know but it's just not how I ever saw it. Band members had been doing avant and improv side projects fairly consistently for a while by that point and had played with Branca around when they started releasing anything as a band. And "whom" seems like a key question there: I never imagined that the band was really that desperate to impress the very small niche of people who know who Christian Wolff and James Tenney are.

I don't feel like it was the intention either! But I did at the time.

I will try to describe it. I was told by friends that Sonic Youth had issued some statement to people calling them sell-outs for playing Lollapalooza, saying they'd take the money, build their own studio, and start their SYR series. The false equivalency of "difficult music" with "antiestablishment" has no truck with me as I don't think sonic dissonance and politics are related. The idea that a rock band would play improvised new music, or, in the case of SYR 4, perform compositions by avant-garde composers, as an effort to gain back the perceived loss of credibility from "going mainstream" just makes me feel insane about a long list of bullet-points, i.e. the ridiculousness of fan ownership, the ridiculousness of making "difficult music records" to appease that ownership, that aforementioned false equivalency, etc. etc.

In short, I perceived that the SYR series and 4 in particular was a stupid exercise at appeasing stupid fans and their stupid perceptions of what a band was supposed to do. At the time I felt this. But now I don't care. It's a good recording of some good compositions, good work team!

I mean I used to feel weird about Ciccone Youth and SY's cover of Superstar or whatever because I thought they were piss-takes. I used to think Thurston was fucking annoying for wearing his list of influences on his sleeve in interviews like he felt he needed a pedigree. I remember in the 90s the scourge of authenticity and the smug superiority. I don't care any more. Ciccone Youth rocks and I love the cover of "Superstar". Idk sorry for the long types. I don't know how to feel about this band lol

Did anyone watch that beck/thurston 120 minutes interview I posted above. Not sure if they're both assholes, only one of them (and which one), or if it's just me who is the asshole.

Like c'mon Sund4r I know they live and work in NYC and they're as avant-garde as anybody but you don't think there's something kind of suspect and smug about a second-billing festival band issuing a survey recording of avant-garde compositions? I guess it's the survey-esque nature of the thing that frustrated me xp

Also lol at that interview. "Maybe a Heino record.. or Xanadu..." "Well, I'm sure all these viewers can really relate to you on that!" idk! it was the 90s! everybody was like that, no? Beck is just not selling it particularly well

(I'm a fan of that interview!)

Supporting/encouraging Beck was the biggest aesthetic crime anyone in Sonic Youth was ever involved in.