Weekly Artist Overview: Sonic Youth - Page 3

Another re-packaged EP, Starpower followed, as did an offbeat film soundtrack, Made In USA. Then came Sister (1987), as much of a progression as EVOL had been. Instead of creating songs from noise, here the band (songwriting credits are listed as Sonic Youth) turns the noise into texture; their guitars are still tuned bizarrely, but at last the tunings seemed fully justified; instead of attempting to alienate listeners, the warm, in-control sound lured them in. The lyrics are a variety of compelling vignettes, slices of life on the brink of disaster, life on the edge of death. Listening became a pleasure more than a chore. It's still challenging music; aggressive and ugly in all the right places, and some surprising places, too. The leadoff cut "Shizophrenia" captures all this perfectly, with a real pop construction, descending into noise and chaos in time for the chorus. With Sister, the band, which had always been unique, found itself at the forefront of the indie movement.

     

A couple of more EP projects followed; Master-Dik Beat on the Brat, a hodgepodge featuring a Ramones cover, an interview snippet, and assorted studio experiments. A side project attributed to Ciccone Youth, The Whitey Album was a boho nose-thumb at pop culture.

The band's ultimate indie masterpiece, Daydream Nation, was released in 1988 on Enigma records. A double album that remains focused and alternates between in-your-face and hypnotic, it provided the band with their biggest college radio hit "Teenage Riot", and featured a number of their most ambitious works to date, including "The Sprawl" and "Trilogy". "The Sprawl" begins with another Kim Gordon spoken intro before kicking into an urgent staccato rocker, before exploding in noise and receding in an extended hypnotic jam, all with their trademark tunings. This is the ultimate triumph their vision; all the noise that came before had led, against all odds, to one of the very best albums of the late 80's, one that would have secured their legacy had they never recorded another note again. The antiheroes had become heroes of the rock underground.

Enigma turned out to be too small for them; faced with bankruptcy, the label eventually folded. In 1990, Sonic Youth finally did the unthinkable, and signed with a major label, David Geffen's DGC records.

Moving to major labels after scoring indie success has ruined far more good bands than it has helped. Sonic Youth managed to make the transition with an audacious shrewdness, retaining complete artistic control over their albums, and even getting A&R positions as a deal-sweetener. Their major label debut, Goo, was released in 1990. Perhaps it would have been unreasonable to expect even more groundbreaking on the heels of the remarkable progression that preceded it. Still, it doesn't give any ground, with a creepy Karen Carpenter-themed song "Tunic", and Public Enemy's Chuck D guesting "Kool Thing", and titles like "Mary-Christ" and "Cinderella's Big Score". It was their first album to chart, at #96. Neil Young invited the group to open for him on his Ragged Glory tour. Many of these shows were at arenas; Sonic Youth played for the mainstream at last.

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