Sonic Youth: Classic or Dud/S&D?

(anyway, i want O'Rourke to help them become a proper laptop/ guitar band/ collective, since their guitar tunings and "media dialog" seem very exhausted in 2004, by them anyway)

"It seems to me that a lot of the bitterness that gets directed at them - particularly at Thurston - for doing their elder statesmen schtick is coming from people who are just bitter that *anyone* would condescend to adopt such a mantle. "

that would be a hilarious comment from said elder statespeople if it were as immaculate and funny and otm as the whitey album was back then, comment along the lines of "indie" going grunge/electro-rock, and i would be keen to hear it, the whitey album perhaps finally vindicated as the fantastic timepiece it may be, prophet of punk idm.

i'm not bitter about anything particularly here, but i have noticed that i-know-more-records-than-you wise old man thing rolled out for years -- that would be fun if they made it funny -- ie if they hadn't been so po-faced, condescening and conservative in their earnestness all those times they weren't being funny,.. condescending and rude, not all the time, but still often "high art".

i just wished they'd taken more of the people on the comparitively intelligent course they were on circa '90.
In 2003, it's the "free" eps here vs. "artistic freedom" on Geffen there -- i just want to hear some worldly lyrics about current politics in these very strange times -- i want sonic youth to say something about US foreign policy, something i would consider actually taking a risk (as opposed to that "cool" = "slack" work ethic), and i want them to do it on Geffen, not the special EPs (ie not perceived as a throwaway/ work in progress/ improv. sess.)

reflecting on Daydream Nation, it is i suppose by defn. partly inward looking -- well, how inward looking is the american media right now ? watching CNN, Fox and BBC tv, the differences in emphases are quite staggering -- well i suppose everybody who's got cable in the US keeps half an eye on the BBC, right ?

"Sonic Youth", just say something about the current situation, do it on y'r major label Geffen, and get worldwide distribution. That would be what i would expect from some "intelligensia" elder-statesman, especially with said "group" having some A&R input into Geffen.
Rock music that communicates some of the doubts so many people all over the world have about the direction the US is taking right now, uses rock music to get around the media-brick-wall of American media, speaks to general college radio age people and hopefully provokes thought, rather than pandering to collector-completists and critics.

from what you have said Shakey, this experienced well-connected 'round-the-block group ought to be able to do some of that, maybe providing contrast to the sadly blighted-by-circumstance Murray Street. If i didn't think they once did have more stuff to say then _i_ wouldn't expect anything -- that's why i'm dissapointed with the seemingly politically ambiguous Murray Street. Rock music has been such a great political ideas generator in the past, however idealistic some of those ideas. Here's a band with alleged power and creative asylum within Geffen, so why aren't they on MTV ? Why not suspend high art or at least include it in a broader discourse ?

(at least in the UK stereolab can present as real or mock marxists -- would blunt political content from sonic youth however hypothetical be "un-patriotic" right now ? what _is_ their position ? please, someone point me to an interview or reference, anything really, where thust'in has something to say about important stuff like current US foreign policy, an interview where he's not simply hyping stuff like O'Rourke's inclusion or his sept 11 experience)

then you would want New York City Ghosts And Flowers, an explicit comment/attack on the anti-hobo/anti-culture policies of Mayor Giuliani that's beautiful, poetic and angry at the same time. and a fuck of a lot more cogent and insightful than 'Youth Against Fascism'.

I love all their albums. Their last five or so most of all.

I recently read Reynolds' c.1988 (?) Daydream Nation essay. That was bad too, alas.

(it's stuff like that US attitude where they have a "World Series" that's a sporting event that's completely domestic, stuff like that, which doesn't make the 4 cable sports channels where i live, doesn't feature large on the BBC or CNN either).
OK, they're "an american band" (like Grand Funk Railroad),.. is that it ?

(anyway, am going to sleep now, so see ya)

no, you're right. on those criteria they should no longer be allowed to detune their guitars. i'm off to throw all the post-Dirty albums on the bonfire right now. how could i have let a collusion of inspiring noise, intriguing melody and abmirable creativity blind me to this essential truth?

but i have to shut up anyway and get some sleep

I wonder what of percentage of sy fandom is US people, and if that US chunk has risen or shrunk.

anyway stevie and andrew,
thanks,
goodnight.

pinefox do you like music that doesn't need melody?

Speaking of, there's not much opinion on this thread regarding the SYR records aside from Goodbye 20th Century. I've only heard Goodbye 20th Century which is so awful it's almost good.

where did you read reynolds on 'daydream nation', the pf?

one of the members of Le Tigre had plenty of civil disobedience stuff happening in response to Giuliani's night life policies. If Sy had a song attacking Giuliani for [nyc ghosts] good for them. But that song on that album [nyc ghosts] came before Giuliani's new roles. So it is an inward song.

Geffen's meant to provide SY an oasis for artistic freedom. I won't believe that until sy say something about the whitehouse and it's supposedly Zionist/Christian direction and larger scale plans for [Nile through to the Euphrates]. Can that happen on that label ?
They don't have to do songs about anything, but assuming that consigns the sy brand from what it once was, a symbol for freedom for discussion about real ideas (ie other than love songs) to merely another annoying brand name.

The music might strike you as nice, but i thought they were more ambitious than just 'alternative' as in tunings.

Pat Metheny's 'zero tolerance for silence' got a nice bumper sticker from thurstin about how innovative it was, yet even w/out any words, the cd was distributed using alternatives to the trad. Geffen food chain,.. because it was "uncompromising" ? SYR are obv. part of a similarly different distribution chain -- i had to buy all my SYR eps from american mail order. The "Protest Records" initiative _is_ admirable, even if sy themselves didn't have a suitable song on the site. Yet both SYR and PR seem handily arms-length to Geffen to me.

If sy are into being revivalist, then let's not forget that there used to be a genre called "protest music". Laurie Anderson's breakthrough album was a protest record for instance, somewhat US-inward looking but otm with "O Superman" and "From the Air" and "Big Science".
(Of course songs like "Once in a Lifetime" and "O Superman" were much bigger hits in the UK and other countries where people might have had a different view of this hand-on-heart "land of the free" guff, though i'm sure plenty of patriotic americans are embarressed by their current whitehouse)

If sy don't want to take things that far, ok, but to me, having followed their output _as_ _it_ _came_ _out_ for 20 years, there has been a clear change of direction towards bougeouis "brat-rock", .. not "frat rock", but certainly rite-of-passage indie college music, not much of the punk-inspired ferocity "Kill yr Idols" or the more obvious "complaint music" of daydream nation, more "music dept." music.

Like REM, have fans gone on to become the parents band, not the youths ? REM are retiring or maybe re-configuring. They recognise you can do so much, get listened to by one group of people only at the expense of other audiences, as time goes by.

I'm a youth of roughly the same times as SY, and i think the branding and implicit radicalism have all become "mature" or measured, but it's this inward focus on america that upsets me when i think of them once being a quite independent force.

And a nyc trilogy ? Revivalist attempts to align with radical poets and artists that happened to come from the nyc of years ago will not make them radical, and de facto radicalism, like revisionists,.. one has to be suspicious.

(and the stereolab/sy laptop groop/groupthink idea, it was a joke, although i suspect stereolab egos would be much more ameanable to collaboration, in the interests of greater good/impact, with O'Rourke the obv. facilitator)

when wasn't this a careerist strategy ? and apathy about what ?

that's true. i keep forgetting that, imagining (as many old 'british punk' fans did) that punk was a musical reaction against establishment rather than the then-demonised establishment music (eg the Sex Pistols 'anarchy', Thatcher), although of course, the british punks put myriad different fans' grievances on the front page as expressions of anger/ frustration about something -- whichever, even protrayal of apathy/nihilism, it won't be misconstrued as guidance in america, misconstrued as advocacy of free expression,
ie these rock stars' apathy won't be misconstrued in the role model way that it has been for countless 'tough' rock bands

so in the "year that punk broke" in the US economy, you had to be apathetic about achieving any sort of mob manifestation of youthful anger/ frustration in the dominant media -- does this sound right ? you had to be cynical that things would be taken anywhere by any of this musical activity anyway ?

sy in their public appearances did always appear pessimistic about achieving anything beyond teenage rebellion, and that as if it was some sort of joke

the british punks -- well there were years of rock re-thinks in the '80s, with all sorts of splinters, coups and failures, and some of this oi yob stuff even, all with politics emblazened to suit their various ambitions

and so sonic youth, recognising the futility of changing minds, had their 'broken' or 'american punk' 'punk year', their MTV time, and now they're revivalist .. for whom ? bob dylan, or "new weird america", or musical heroes (idols) who haven't had a fair go because of the notorious commercial jazz industry (for example)

is it because the economies were different or because you can forget about trying to change anything in america anyway (given what happened to the hippies who at least had vietnam to complain about) ?

so it's as though they predicted the apathy and even presented as apathetic -- happy to be a music journalist's cult band ?

so "kill y'r idols" -- who were the idols ? was this just competitive or posturing, not aesthetic ? careerist-punk ? a catchy original punk slogan now abandoned, i reckon

but now we have another vietnam, with nyc the only smoking gun -- i'm curious to see where sy will go now, with nyc trilogy part3 beckoning, and with the media focus of Murray Street speaking for itself

sonic youth _is_ a catchy punk slogan, and finally people particularly younger people in the US have plenty to complain about again, so it's like full circle to a proper fit this time for the call-to-arms, and nyc pt3 will be as big as you's, your disillusion

maybe i should give it a break,
a thread "top 20 sonic youth songs and why" thread would interest me

i don't want to block others talking about sonic youth around here and i may have been a bit impolite,
but i'm real curious as to what various sy songs mean to different people

someone start a positive sonic youth thread and i promise i won't interupt, i'll do something else

it would be better if it wasn't me that started that new sy thread i want to,
but someone else is reading this hopefully

(b.t.w. i think i've made (incomplete) perfect sense, i might not be at all correct but i've left out some of the connections i'd thought of suggesting later on -- it is interesting to discuss this band -- people do seem to have a hesitancy to discuss the many aspects to sonic youth -- nah, it's just me)

Search songs: Schizophrenia, Genetic, Cotton Crown, Hey Joni, Providence, Skip Tracer, Brave Men Run, Brother James, Inhuman, Becuz, Sympathy For the Strawberry, Rain on Tin, Expressway To Yr Skull, Shadow of a Doubt, Hoarfrost, Eric's Trip, Free City Rhymes, Anagrama

Keep in mind that there's also a huge amount of shitty SY material out there. Be warned.

Oddly enough, I had a conversation this morning with a co-worker who said he used to like SY but thinks they took a major nosedive with those two albums. For him, SY was never better than the five-year period between Daydream Nation and Dirty. Of course, he's five years older than me and I think those were probably the first three SY albums he ever heard, back when he was a teenager.

(And meanwhile, though I like Dirty and Goo okay, I hardly ever listen to them.)

Evol
Confusion is Sex
Sister
Bad Moon Rising
Experimental Jet Set
Daydream Nation
A Thousand Leaves
Dirty
Goo
NYC Ghosts & Flowers
Washing Machine

(Note: I don't think Sonic Youth has yet released a truly bad album so even the last five on my list have some great moments.)