Sonic Youth is a famous American rock band that was popular between 1981 and 2011. The main features of the team's work were the constant interest and love for experiments, which manifested itself throughout the entire work of the group.
Biography of Sonic Youth
It all started in the second half of the 1970s. Thurston Moore (lead singer and founder of the group) moved to New York and became a frequent guest of one of the local clubs. Here he got acquainted with the direction of punk rock and participated in a small local group. The team was not successful. But thanks to the participation, Moore understood how a musical career is built in New York, met with local musicians.
The team soon broke up. Moore was already drawn into the local music scene and decided to start building his career. He began rehearsing with Staton Miranda, who had his own band. Miranda attracted singer Kim Gordon from there. They created the trio The Arcadians (the names were constantly changing, it was already the third) - later the Sonic Youth group.
The Arcadians were a popular trio. In 1981, the trio performed solo for the first time with a large program. The venue for the performance was the Noise festival, which was organized with the participation of musicians (lasted more than a week in the center of New York). After the festival, the group was supplemented by musicians and renamed to the name under which the world later recognized it.
In 1982, the debut disc Sonic Youth EP was released. The EP contained less than a dozen songs and was an attempt to take a close look and learn from listeners' feedback. At the same time, the musicians tried to rebel - in their work they tried to do everything that was then unacceptable for the musical sphere.
A year later, the first full-fledged release of the group Confusionis Sex came out. At this point, a number of musicians left the line-up, a new drummer came. Such "personnel" reshuffles made themselves felt, changed the sound, but brought creative stability to the group.
The new drummer gave the musicians freedom and the opportunity for guitars to open up in a new way. This release showed the band to the public as hard rock fans. At the same time, Moore and Gordon got married. The team bought a large car in order to independently travel around the cities and give concerts.
The creative path of the group Sonic Youth
The concerts were organized on their own, so they were not held in all cities and covered only small halls. But the return on such concerts was very large. In particular, the group gained credibility. Gradually, prominent rockers of the time began to respect the musicians. The audience, having heard about the madness that was happening at the performances, gradually increased.
The new EP Kill Yr Idols claimed the title of international. Since it was released not only in the USA, but also in Germany. Britain was next in line.
One of the new labels decided to release the band's music in small numbers. A year later, the musicians began to collaborate with SST. Collaboration with her has yielded more results. The album Bad Moon Rising attracted the attention of critics and listeners in Britain.
The group took a very strange position. On the one hand, by this time she had not received wide popularity and world fame. On the other hand, a sufficient "fan" base allowed the musicians to fill a small concert hall in dozens of cities around the world.
Rise of popularity
In 1986, EVOL was released. Like previous releases, it was released in the UK. The record was successful. This was largely facilitated by a new approach. The album was more harmonious. Here, along with aggressive songs with a fast tempo, one could also find very slow lyrical compositions.
The album gave the musicians the opportunity to make a very big tour, during which the Sister album was recorded. It was released in 1987 not only in Britain but also in the USA. The release proved to be very successful commercially. Critics also praised the record's acoustic sound.
The peak of the group's popularity
This was followed by the "relaxation album" The Whitey Album. According to the musicians, by that time they were tired of touring and decided to record a "relaxed" release. Without pre-prepared plans, ideas for compositions and a strict concept. Therefore, the release turned out to be very light and ironic. It was released in 1988 in the USA.
In the same year, an album was released, which many critics consider the best in the band's career. Daydream Nation is a symbiosis of crazy experiments and simple melodies that literally "eat" into the listener's head.
It was the peak of the group's popularity. All well-known publications wrote about the musicians, including the famous Rolling Stones. The guys got into all sorts of charts and tops. This release received many prestigious music awards. Even today it continues to be included in the lists of famous rock albums of all times and peoples.
The release had only one dark side of the coin. The label that released the album was not ready for such a success. People demanded and waited for this release in dozens of cities, but distribution was negligible. Therefore, commercially, the release was "failed" - only through the fault of the label.
After signing a contract with a new label, a GOO release was released. The error of the previous disc was fixed - this time everything was in order with promotion and distribution. However, it seemed to many critics that the guys played too much in “correcting mistakes”.
The record was commercially oriented. The songs sounded difficult, but with the use of popular "chips". Nevertheless, GOO became the first release in the career of musicians, which hit the Billboard chart.
Later years
During the 1990s, the band's work was very popular. By the release of the Dirt album, the musicians became real stars and collaborated with rockers of the first magnitude (Kurt Cobain was among them). However, the guys began to be accused of "losing their roots" - they were even more moving away from experiments into the popular rock sound.
Nevertheless, the team had a number of major tours. Preparations began for the release of a new album - Experimental Jet Set, Trashand No Star, which hit the top 40 (according to Billboard).
However, the success of the record was very doubtful. In the rotations and charts, the songs did not last long. Critics spoke negatively about the album for excessive melody, uncharacteristic of early work.
Late 1990s and early 2000s marked by a decrease in popularity for the Sonic Youth group. From that moment on, the guys recorded compositions at their studio. They had unique instruments at their disposal (in 1999, some of them were stolen along with the famous trailer for concert tours), which allowed the musicians to experiment a lot.
It wasn't until 2004 that the guys returned to the fan-favorite sound, which was first shown on the Daydream Nation CD. The Sonic Nurse album brought the listener back to the band's original idea. Until 2011, the team regularly released new releases, until it became known that Moore and Kim Gordon were getting divorced. Together with their divorce, the group ceased to exist, which at that time could already be called truly legendary.
