As AIR stumbles over the finish line, cloak us with a foil blanket as we share what we’ve learned this month:
CHRIS
Let’s imagine that in the early 1980s Kim and Thurston had never met, no eyes had passed over flip sunglasses, or a love for the more arty side of life. Lee had never met these two, and then Steve Shelley – then of the Crucifucks –had forever remained part of the punk scene? Would things have been any different?
For some of my esteemed fellow bloggers, their lives may have remained slightly less tortured. They wouldn’t have had to labour – and sometimes scream – through hours of screech, feedback and some vocals that are massively open to subjective interpretation. It has been a slog, I know. Jamie nearly left us, emotions were rife and arguments boiled under the surface about the merits of Kim Gordon’s vocals. Without this month, we would never have seen the many ways in which Jamie can interpret his disdain for Sonic Youth, and, at times, music in general.
Readers, this blog may also never have existed?
But, without a shadow of a doubt, without this band forming, the main implication would have been – in my eyes – a different alt-rock (if not musical) landscape. Whilst not always one hundred percent successful, Sonic Youth opened the doors to some different ways of looking at rock music – who would have thought an album like Dirty, which includes some sheer shite noise and sound chaos, could set the charts alight? And could have become a staple signifier of a sound and generation? Would we have Nirvana? As mentioned previously, Sonic Youth were massive champions for getting them on Geffen, which would eventually lead to their world dominating status.
Yes, it can be argued that if they hadn’t, someone else would have. But they didn’t, and Sonic Youth did. They showed you could rock, and think. Rock music didn’t have to be all about posturing and bravado, but they showed experimentation and ‘weird’ could be done on a massive, popular platform.
I previously mentioned that I had listened to all their albums in order before. Last time I did it much quicker, though. Maybe a couple of weeks. But, that time I didn’t give myself the chance to reflect like we have here. This time has been a lot more rewarding.
It has been an interesting month – I have particularly enjoyed seeing others responses to them, even the anger and hatred. Sonic Youth are a band I have always had on an unreachable pedestal. I couldn’t comprehend why people wouldn’t be in love with them? Why would people not bask in the sound of thirty minutes of feedback? How can a man hitting a guitar with a stick not be the most musically emancipatory thing you have ever heard?
I should quickly say that I still hold the above opinions; BUT, I can see chinks in the armour. Whilst I might still love it myself, it has been really interesting to see the challenges people have with them, the points at which it can all be a bit too much. I have enjoyed some albums more than I used to (Confusion is Sex, A Thousand Leaves) and some have been taken down from the hallowed heights (Dirty, Goo). Only slightly, mind.
It has been eye opening to see the way in which the music nodded to in their albums – particularly the more experimental – is now reflect in what I enjoy listening to now.
Some of the members of the blog didn’t know each other before the start of this month, a number of us still have yet to meet in the flesh. But, now, when we do meet we have much to discuss: I will be adamantly defending Kim Gordon, and Rory will converse purely in Post-Its attached to his forehead.
If Sonic Youth never met, this may never have happened. Sonic Youth brought us together. And, if for nothing else, is that not a good enough reason to be happy that the band met?
I can’t wait for next month.
ROB
Looking back, the first thing that really struck me about the whole thing was to think that we’ve essentially covered a new album every two days. More remarkably, I think we’ve all lived to tell the tale – although it was touch and go for a while.
At times it has felt like the longest month, at others it’s flown by as the albums come in thick and fast and you don’t really get chance to appreciate all of the nuances. I’m definitely looking forward to a more sedate pace next time…
Like Sonic Youth, it’s been a month of monumental highs and cavernous lows. I honestly don’t know how a band can elicit such moments of joy alongside moments where you want to lock them in a tiny room and throw away the key. Perhaps the biggest surprise is how much I enjoyed some of the less-heralded records. Sonic Nurse and Washing Machine in particular were both exceptional – yet never get talked about in the same breath as Goo or Dirty or Daydream Nation.
It hasn’t all been glorious sunshine. Kim Gordon frequently infuriates, and I can imagine her being a forceful character in the studio (which would account for the rather slack quality control when it comes to her songs). To be fair though, when she pulled it out of the bag on Rather Ripped, she excelled. It doesn’t mean 25 years worth of annoyance is worth it, but it felt like a small, well-won, win.
Then there’s what I call the self-sabotage of more accessible songs, either by drawing them out for far longer than necessary or by collapsing into sonic dissonance. They don’t make it easy to like a lot of their output, and some times it feels quite deliberate – like they’re testing the listener.
Of course, you don’t achieve iconic status by playing to the choir and it does mean there’s this free-wheeling, fuck you charm about a lot of what Sonic Youth does. They don’t care if you like them. Which is handy, as at least 50% of the Artist In Residence crew, probably detest them. Me? I enjoyed it – I’m just glad I don’t need to do another 15 albums next month…
MARTIN
I know this was a mammoth task. 15 albums in a month from hardly one of the most immediate bands to have existed. I expected that a lot of the albums would be hard going for people who’d never heard Sonic Youth before. I don’t mean that in a patronising way. Some of their albums were hard going for a big fan. Personally, I’ve enjoyed revisiting all the albums. It’s given me a renewed appreciation of the band and made me juggle my order of favourites around a bit.
While it has cemented me as a fan, over the course of all 15 albums I can agree that there is some absolute rubbish on there. On the whole though I like about 75 percent of all the recorded material to some degree. I have been interested to see what people who were new to the band made of it all. Most of the ones I expected to be hated were, but there’s been some surprises. Albums that I thought would be convincers that there was merit to the band, were sometimes still hated!
I do think they are a band who may be particularly unsuited to the format of banging through an album every couple of days. I can imagine that to be quite an exhausting experience for first time listeners.
Overall though, I still love them. Kim Gordon too. I do think it’s a terrible shame they ended the way they did. Us 90s indie kids thought it was Thurston and Kim Forever.
The legacy of the band will live on though, and like the song says,”There may be troubles ahead, but while there’s moonlight, weird tunings, screwdrivers and guitars, let’s make some music and divide the music listening world bang down the middle.”
MICKEY
I have a personal theory that we never truly love a song until we are able to subconsciously associate it with a fond or at least nostalgic memory. In truth, this is complete bollocks and I don’t know why I am saying this. This band has driven me over the edge!
Lets do the mathematics: If I had to give a percentage of how much of this band’s output I actually enjoyed I would say approximately 10%. If I had to give a percentage of how much of this band’s output I was able to tolerate I would say approximately 40%. I think the above speaks for itself and gives a clear indication of the sort of month I have had.
Lets ask myself some questions:
The hardest part of this month?
A: Discovering I didn’t love this band like I imagined I would.
The easiest part of this month?
A: Listening to Rather Ripped.
The best part of this month?
A: Chatting with the rest of the guys in the AIR music club. Sharing the ups and downs.
The worst part of this month?
A: Listening to Confusion is Sex and realising that this was going to be a long month.
Lets make a list of the albums I liked:
Dirty
NYC, Ghosts and Flowers
Sonic Nurse
Rather Ripped.
Lets make a list of the albums I didn’t:
I don’t have time. For the record I never disliked whole albums. There were always elements of each album that I enjoyed.
It’s probably unfair to judge an album after one listen. I am pretty sure given more listens I could have grown fonder of their music, especially their earlier stuff. But, then again I was very impressed with Rather Ripped after just one listen, so maybe I am not missing out on too much really.
Next month will see fewer albums, which hopefully will mean more listens.
Bring on May!
LUKE
So. Was it all worth it in the end?
I look back on my opening comments, and it seems I would’ve been happy with more songs that would stick with me as long as Antenna has. I’ve no doubt that there are some, roughly 12-15 or so, that I will return to time and again. That, mathematics fans, equates to roughly one song per album.
Regardless of whether that represents good value for my time, any band that produces a hat-trick of consecutive albums like Daydream Nation, Goo and Dirty deserves some respect. That’s to say nothing of the final run of albums – Rather Ripped in particular – which offered some gentle persuasion right at the last that perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it may have seemed.
It became a real challenge at the end of the month, as the albums came thick and fast. At times it felt impossible to parse through the different sounds on particular albums as we just didn’t have enough time to savour them. We bit off more than we could chew, but it was still a worthwhile experience, in the same way you might feel both pain and accomplishment after running a marathon, or seeing how many times you could masturbate in one day.
I like to think it’s bought us all closer too. At times it seemed all we had to sustain our belief in humanity was the thought that we were all in it together. We laughed, we cried, we argued, we loved each other passionately in a variety of mind-bending ways.
Regardless of what I feel now, I know that whenever I sit down to a Sonic Youth record in the future, I’ll look back on this month with a fondness that has been missing from much of my music listening as of late. This is why we established this rag-tag club in the first place. So, based on that criteria, I would have to say this was a mission accomplished.
JAMIE
I’m not going to lie, this month has been very testing for me. There were one or two times when I thought of calling it a day.
Before we began I knew one or two of their songs. I was hearing their albums for the first time. This was of course very different for other people in the group who knew the band very well. My opinion is that these individuals may have found it impossible to be impartial as the band had been nostalgically interwoven into their musical tastes with certain albums closely linked to growing up. I understand this. I would struggle to be impartial if I was blogging about Radiohead or Idlewild for instance.
My opinion is simple. I don’t think they are very good. I think they have moments of brilliance widely scattered over their back catalogue, but as a collection of albums as a whole, they are not a great band. For me, the average moments, the downright terrible moments and the unfathomably pointless moments largely outweigh the positive.
Despite this, I’m glad I’ve done it. I can only hope that in the future I get into a conversation with an avid Sonic Youth fan. Hopefully they’d say something like “I bet you’ve only heard Dirty or Daydream Nation.”
I can then say (almost like a ‘nam vet) “Listen Pal, you don’t know what I’ve been through” and can tell them all about my plight. At length.
*washes hands of Sonic Youth forever*
*with bleach*
RORY
This has been a taxing experience.
There were a couple of moments when I felt the whole thing might pay off, but it never quite happened. I also never seemed to enjoy the pivotal moments the rest of the gang (obviously Jamie notwithstanding) did. Dirty felt average, Sonic Nurse was audio haemorrhoids.
For me the most exciting part of the month was NYC Ghosts & Flowers. I clicked with this album, it felt huge and daring. As Sinead O’Connor would say ‘nothing compared…nothing compared…to this’.
I’m quite surprised this band is held in such high regard. The songs aren’t there, the music isn’t either. I get there’s a level of historical importance, but I can’t shake the feeling that they are a footnote in music rather than a page (yes I’m not sure that this works as a sentence either, but I’m more than happy to give it a whirl).
As an experience this has been fun, admittedly booze has got in the way of being a fully functioning member of Artist in Residence. I’m three reviews shy of a complete package, but feel free to tweet me for the reviews of those albums. I am more than happy to make something up on the spot.
Sonic Youth, it’s been a shitter. Still maybe we’ll bump into each other at a wedding sometime and we can laugh about how you wasted my time.
artistinresidence 