Sonic Youth

Certain Songs #2353: Sonic Youth – “Dirty Boots”

April 26, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Goo
Year: 1990

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And so while Sonic Youth spent their first decade bouncing from indie label to indie label to indie label, after Daydream Nation was released, they followed in the footsteps of peers like X, The Replacements, Hüsker Dü and most recently, R.E.M., and signed with a major label. While that trio all ended up at Warner Bros or their subsidiary Sire, Sonic Youth went with DGC, the newest label formed by David Geffen.

Yes, the same David Geffen who once sued Neil Young for the sin of not making what Geffen considered “Neil Young Albums,” but of course I’m assuming that as the underground burbled above the surface, Sonic Youth had ironclad artistic freedom in their contract — which they threatened to test by considering naming their debut Blowjob? but wisely changed to Goo.

Certain Songs #2352: Sonic Youth – “Kissability”

April 25, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988

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The first song on side four of Daydream Nation — and the last song before the prog-bating Trilogy of songs that closed the record — was Kim Gordon’s anti-casting couch screed, “Kissability,” which was both the shortest (not counting the answering machine recording with effects “Providence”) and the most intense song on the album.

Certain Songs #2351: Sonic Youth – “Candle”

April 22, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988

One of the cool things about Daydream Nation was that there are a lot of musical motifs that Sonic Youth repeat, only each time those motifs are slightly different. More than one song opens with lazily strummed guitars before the noise kicks in, or maybe they work weird time signatures during the opening instrumental parts, or maybe those opening instrumental parts go on for a very long time. Or in the case of “Candle,” all of the above!

Certain Songs #2350: Sonic Youth – “Cross The Breeze”

April 21, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988

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After the incredibly stellar first side of Daydream Nation — “Teen Age Riot,” “Silver Rocket” and “The Sprawl,” for those of you keeping score at home — they kept the streak going with the utterly gobsmacking “Cross The Breeze,” which is basically a cross between hardcore and prog, showing off the band’s chops while at the same time drilling through the center of the planet.

Or at least that’s what the instrumental parts sound like to me.

Certain Songs #2349: Sonic Youth – “The Sprawl”

April 20, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988

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And so it was probably lost to nobody that the longest song on Sonic Youth’s longest album to date was called “The Sprawl,” a reference to the setting of William Gibson’s initial cyberpunk trilogy, and the third straight Daydream Nation track with sci-fi overtones.

“The Sprawl” is a two-part epic which starts with a blistering humming Thurston Moore riff that never seems to resolve properly, propelled by Steve Shelley and Kim Gordon playing fast beats. (I initially wrote “fast beasts,” which would also work.) This first half of “The Sprawl” doesn’t isn’t as manic as “Silver Rocket,” but it’s still plenty fast, and Kim Gordon doesn’t even bother worrying about rhyming her words in the first verse.

Certain Songs #2348: Sonic Youth – “Silver Rocket”

April 19, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988

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If Daydream Nation’s opening track “Teen Age Riot” was the sound of an alternative nation daydreaming about President Mascis, then the second song (and second single) “Silver Rocket” did everything it could to dissipate that dream, starting with a peal of feedback and a silvery picking riff from Thurston Moore, which instantly heads into lightspeed hardcore territory, with drummer Steven Shelley smashing his snare drum to bits while Lee Ranaldo tosses out his own bits of silver and gold and Thurston Moore breathlessly intones the lyrics.

Certain Songs #2347: Sonic Youth – “Teen Age Riot”

April 18, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988

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Like Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade, Sonic Youth’s 1988 literal landmark Daydream Nation is a double album that snapped everything into place for me with a band that I’d previously not been fully into. And like Zen Arcade, it’s usually their top-ranked album whenever anyone makes GOAT album lists, though neither album is my favorite by that artist.

That said, having your head rearranged is never a small thing, and with Daydream Nation, I can pinpoint the exact moment it happened.

Certain Songs #2346: Sonic Youth – “Tuff Gnarl”

April 16, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Sister
Year: 1987

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Of course when I say that Sister is the beginning of Sonic Youth’s great four-album run, it wasn’t anything I thought about in 1987, as I was still on the fence about Sonic Youth at that time. So much so that while I know Cindy & I drove down to see them and Firehose at the Scream in Los Angeles in September 1987, I didn’t even mention it in my journal, maybe because I thought I would remember all about it for the rest of my life? (Once again future Jim is hampered by past Jim’s weird method — or lack of method, really — of chronicling things). Though I did mention that we saw the Miss Alans that weekend, so priorities, I guess?

Certain Songs #2345: Sonic Youth – “(I Got a) Catholic Block”

April 15, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Sister
Year: 1987

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If “Schizophrenia” started Sister off on a relatively calm note, then the mood was totally broken by the next song, Thurston Moore’s “(I Got a) Catholic Block,” which roars out of the gate at a punky speed and has not just what is recognizable as a catchy riff, it’s a riff that matches the melody of the the song, making it for all of us lapsed Catholics to sing along.

Certain Songs #2344: Sonic Youth – “Schizophrenia”

April 14, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Sister
Year: 1987

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OK, here we go. One of the tests of all-time great artists is the “four albums in a row” test, which is exactly what it sounds like: did that artist release four albums in a row that are amazing. Yes, I know it’s all kind of wrong, but it’s also all all kinds of fun.

And in retrospect, I think that Sonic Youth begins their four-album run right here and now with 1987’s Sister, an album where they were consciously trying to write more structured songs.