Sonic Youth

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

April 21, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988

. . .

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

. . .

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

. . .

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

. . .

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

. . .

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

. . .

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

. . .

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.

Certain Songs #2343: Sonic Youth – “Expressway to Yr. Skull”

April 13, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: EVOL
Year: 1986

. . .

The final song on EVOL had three different titles. This kinda went along with fuckery where they listed the the songs on the back cover in a totally different order than they were actually on the record. And so, on that back cover, this song was listed as “Madonna, Sean and Me” and on the lyric sheet as “The Crucifixion of Sean Penn.”

A quick aside here: the Madonna/Sean Penn marriage clearly freaked up a lot of people — and not even the ones who paid their own money to sit thorough Shanghai Surprise — because beyond these references was also Lloyd Cole’s “Sean Penn Blues.”

Certain Songs #2342: Sonic Youth – “Starpower”

April 12, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: EVOL
Year: 1986

. . .

I’d been either ignoring or disliking Sonic Youth for four years when they came out with 1986’s EVOL, which confused the shit out of me because it suddenly had some songs that were, well, kinda sorta songs, I guess.

Prior to that, when I dropped the needle at KFSR looking for something to play from their 1982 self-titled debut, 1983’s Confusion is Sex or 1985’s Bad Moon Rising, it just all sounded like self-indulgent noise. Though I will admit Bad Moon Rising did have one of the greatest album covers ever. It just all reminded me of all of those other bands with fantastic names — I still think that. Blind Idiot God is the single greatest band name ever — and unlistenable music.

Certain Songs #64: Sonic Youth – “Skip Tracer”

January 1, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Washing Machine
Year: 1995

. . .

“HELLO, 2015!”

“HELLO … 20 …15!!!”

That’s what Lee Renaldo shouts at the end of this spoken-word piece with guitars, bass and drums near the end of Sonic Youth’s last universally acclaimed album. It’s not really about the future, but rather about seeing a band stumble through a live performance. But, to me, that “Hello, 2015” felt like a declaration of purpose.

Here’s what I wrote about it with my very first Pazz & Jop critics poll ballot in 1995:

“Hello 2015!” Lee Ranaldo screams, somewhat optimistically, near the end of this record, just before they launch us on a sparkling sailing voyage towards that very year.
It’s like, for the first time, they’ve really considered their place in our past and, more importantly, in their future. And they like what they see. And if they keep making records this strong and loose, they just might meet themselves on the other side.

In 1995, when Washing Machine came out, 2015 seemed an impossible distance away. Another century, another millennium, another universe. And yet, out of all of the bands active in 1995, I was sure that Sonic Youth was going to be one of the ones still standing here on New Years Day 2015 and shout back “Hello, 1995” as they did an All Tomorrows Parties set of Washing Machine in its entirety.

Meanwhile, 1995 still seems impossibly close, like if I turned around and walked around that corner over there, I’d be able to say hello to it. For much of 1995 I was living in Oakland and Rox was living in Hollywood, and – just like Ranaldo points out earlier in the song – LA was the most confusing place I’d ever been to.

Of course, little did I know 20 years ago that by the time 2015 rolled around, I’d have been living here for over 13 years, with that initial confusion (you drive SOUTH to get to the ocean?) long since dissipated.

So hello, 2015. Please be better.

“Skip Tracer”