Artist Spotlight

Before Indie rock was cool, there was Sonic Youth a post-punk genre band from Brooklyn New York who were into fashion and fuzzing out their guitars.  The band was almost too original for the time period that they had  very heavy cult following, but that was it for years.  They had early albums such as their self-titled release, Confusion Is Sex and Sister which started getting some mainstream attention from critics and was considered by Pitchfork Magazine as one of the greatest albums of the 1980′s.  It wasn’t until 1988 that Sonic Youth started making an impact with their art, fashion, experimental style in the already burnt out music scene, where New Wave is a dying star.  The band had gained some ground in the Indie Rock world and once they released Daydream Nation an experimental daydream of epic musicianship and songwriting.  Daydream Nation was immediately well received by critics and already considered an album of epic proportions with most tracks ranging in the 7 minute area.  The album has been considered by many magazines and critics as one of the top 100 albums in the past several decades as well as put into The Library of Congress’ audio collection. 

Now receiving mainstream success Sonic Youth did the inevitable and moved to a major label despite much bitterness from long time fans.  The band released Goo a fairly successful first run at the mainstream but many of their songs still ranged in longer playtime.  Their next release was their most popular among mainstream fans and it was entitled Dirty, an album that had much shorter and simplified songs then previous releases.  Though the album had huge hits that gave them MTV recognition, it was criticized by fans as having too simplistic guitar riffs and lack of depth and many accused them of selling out.  In my personal opinion, the album is fantastic and showed a simplier side to the band with experimental guitar riffs with just shorter jam outs.  The band started playing major festivals such as Lalapalooza and Woodstock ’94 as well as opening up for major bands at the time such as Nirvana and Soundgarden.  The band also appeared on The Simpsons episode of  “Lalapalooza” where Sonic Youth was constantly getting yelled at by Peter Frampton for stealing food from his cooler. Yet throughout most of the 90′s Sonic Youth released odd records such as Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star and more returns to their older style in A Thousand Leaves, which has continued into today’s current albums by the band.  The band’s most recent releases Rather Ripped and The Eternal have gotten much praise from critics and fans alike and say it’s Sonic Youth at their best again.  If anybody enjoys 90′s grunge or just great experimental alternative rock then I suggest giving Sonic Youth a chance.  The dark trippy guitar effects and beautiful voices of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon give the band so much depth it’s easy to find dozens of songs to love by the band.  With over a dozen albums over the years it’s easy to dislike many but love just as much and to get started I would suggest Daydream Nation because it’s absolutely flawless from beginning to end.  If you want to start off easy I would suggest Dirty which has their more mainstream hits with more simplified musicianship.  Either way the band is as cool as Indie rock is today and so is this song below.