"Silver Rocket" ( Daydream Nation): With its punky, wound-too-tight guitar/bass surges, Moore's bratty vocals, a bridge that sounds like the Eiffel Tower ablaze, and Shelley's speedy timekeeping, this is the definitive template for a certain SY composition that frequently recurred throughout their '90s and '00s albums. Flares and slashes dangerously for 135 seconds and then exits before you know what the hell happened to your clothes, which are in shreds on the floor around you. "Starfield Road" ( Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star): Possesses some of SY's most hair-raising guitar timbres. It's a literary roller-coaster ride through a fucked-up cosmos. Dick set to thrillingly urgent and caustic rock. "Stereo Sanctity" ( Sister): Lyrics inspired by Philip K. "Star Power" ( EVOL): As bubblegum pop as SY would ever get, save for their cover of Kim Fowley's "Bubblegum." Seemed like a surefire hit to me in '86, but, alas, the world wasn't ready for its foreboding, spine-chilling middle 8. "Intro" ( Bad Moon Rising): Odd tintinnabulating and sighing guitars put you on tenterhooks for what's to come. The LP is currently recovering from this slight in an undisclosed used-CD bin. Note: Tracks from Ciccone Youth's The Whitey Album were ineligible. Who else has covered Takehisa Kosugi and the Carpenters? Who else has collaborated with Merzbow and Chuck D?īelow, I pinpoint the goldest of these avant-rock luminaries' golden sounds in order to supply you with what this OG fan thinks is the ultimate Sonic Youth listening experience. Within Sonic Youth's expansive sound world, avant-garde sensibilities commingle with pop instincts in a manner rarely equaled.
SY guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo brought unusual tunings and prepared axes to underground-rock prominence-translating Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham's cacophonous clangor to the Coachapalooza masses-while writing songs (with help from core members Kim Gordon and Steve Shelley) that stick in your head like feisty arguments. Over the last 28 years-as both musicians and champions of great, obscure bands-they've done more than most to improve the world's soundscape. Sonic Youth are the most respected elder statesfolk in alt-rock.
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