History Music / SonicYouth

** And that's not including a bunch of other long songs on their [=EPs=], B-sides, SYR series, live releases, bonus tracks, and so on. Evidently, different band members had different opinions about brevity versus [[IncrediblyLamePun sprawl]]; some members evidently tended to favour concision, while Moore has commented, "If I was the leader [of Sonic Youth] as much as everyone says I am, every song would be 20 minutes long." Also, as seen in the lists above, some albums have a lot more of this than others; some didn't have a single track break the six-minute mark, while others (''Daydream Nation'', ''A Thousand Leaves'', ''Murray Street'', ''Sonic Nurse'') have around half their songs qualify or sometimes even more.

* IncrediblyLamePun: ''Master-Dik'', ''Whores Moaning'', ''The Whitey Album'').
** Actually, "dik" is the Dutch word for fat; most of the ''Master=Dik'' EP was recorded for radio in Amsterdam. Which makes the song/album title a very weird BilingualBonus.

* PunBasedTitle: Quite a few. Perhaps most famously, "Hey Joni" double as a ShoutOut to the {{blues}} standard "Hey Joe" (best known in Music/JimiHendrix' version from ''Music/AreYouExperienced'') and Canadian singer-songwriter Music/JoniMitchell.

* ClumsyCopyrightCensorship: The artwork to ''Sister'' was a series of photo collages, which included a copyrighted picture of a 12-year-old girl taken by photographer Richard Avedon and a picture of the Cinderella Castle from Creator/{{Disney}}'s [[Ride/WaltDisneyWorld The Magic Kingdom]]. Thus the front and back covers have big black bars over the offending pictures. A recent reissue at least replaced the black bar on the back with something more subtle -- A conveniently placed bar code that only partially covers up the Cinderella Castle pic.

* StylisticSuck: the cover of "Addicted To Love" from ''The Whitey Album'' is just Kim singing over a pre-recorded karaoke version of the song. For the official music video, Kim simply went to a "video booth" at a Macy's, paid 20 dollars, and mimed the lyrics over various ChromaKey StockFootage backdrops.

Sick of being jerked around by distribution deficient indie labels, Sonic Youth jumped ship and signed on to Creator/GeffenRecords' sublabel DGC in 1990. Their first album for Geffen DGC, ''Goo'', represented a concentrated blast of alt-rock noise, and accordingly sold better than previous albums and spawned the band's biggest hit: "Kool Thing." In the same year, Kim's staunch support persuaded Geffen to also bring on board devoted Sonic Youth fans Music/{{Nirvana}}, making them indirectly responsible for the popularisation of {{Grunge}} in TheNineties. Nirvana and Sonic Youth quickly became friends too (Sonic Youth's ''Whores Moaning'' EP was a blatant ShoutOut to Nirvana's ''Hormoaning,'' and its cover showed one of Music/KurtCobain's toys). Their follow-up, ''Dirty,'' was produced by Butch Vig and engineered by Andy Wallace (the guys behind ''Music/{{Nevermind}}'') and also proved to be a decent success.

Thurston's explanation for the name is that it's a combination of Music/{{MC5}} guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith's nickname and the tendency of contemporary reggae acts to include "Youth" in their names (such as "Big Youth"). The "youth" part has kind of become bitterly ironic since Thurston, Kim, and Lee are in their sixties now, with Shelley and Ibold (the youngest members) not far behind. In a magazine interview, Bob Mould of Music/HuskerDu fame remarked (at least ten years ago) that "Old Youth" would be a more appropriate name. The song "Granny Cool" -- by his other former band, ''Sugar'' -- is probably a TakeThat aimed at Kim Gordon. Mould apparently regards Sonic Youth as pampered and overexposed; however, he's more or less [[HypocriticalHumor the same age as Sonic Youth's core members, and he too]] continues to release rock recordings.

''Sonic Youth'' was a legendary NoiseRock / AlternativeRock band known chiefly for its noisy, experimental avant-garde tendencies and extensive use of prepared guitars, unorthodox tunings, heavy distortion, and feedback in their songs. They've been a significant influence on Alternative Rock in TheEighties and were a key influence on Music/MyBloodyValentine and, by extension, the entire {{Shoegazing}} movement. Formed in 1981 in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, their final lineup was as follows:

* CulturalCrossReference: The school level in ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'' has a list of teachers which says "K. Gordon, T. Moore, L. Ranaldo, S. Shelley". ''VideoGame/SilentHill3'' expands on Gordon's relation to the main characters -- sadly, it's a completely different character with just the NamesTheSame. Also, the name of the main character Renton Thurston from ''Anime/EurekaSeven'' is a combination of Renton from ''Literature/{{Trainspotting}}'' and Thurston Moore.

* AuthorAppeal: Kim likes writing songs about Karen Carpenter, re-framing her as a feminist icon who was a victim of oppressive patriarchal figures. The band's obsession with the Carpenters was one of the reasons for the critical revaluation of the duo during the 80's and 90's.

* AwesomeMcCoolName: Thurston Moore is a pretty badass name.

* {{Mondegreen}}: The reason why the band wrote "Society Is a Hole". To quote their website:
-->The title was born out of a Music/BlackFlag lyric that Thurston misheard. The song "Rise Above" contains the line "Society's arms of control", which Thurston misinterpreted as "Society is a fucking hole". Impressed with the lyric and later discovering it was incorrect, he took the line for himself.

* SpokenWordInMusic: "Providence", a song where the only vocals are a message [[TheMinutemen Mike Watt]] left on Thurston Moore's answering machine.

* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: ALL OVER THE FREAKING PLACE. Seriously, they've done everything from 1-10 and even bordered on 11 at times due to sheer noisiness and chaos. However, as a general rule, 5-7 is more typical- as typical as Sonic Youth ever get, anyways.
** On one side of the scale you have "Winner's Blues" from ''Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star'', a simple acoustic guitar track that rests at a 1 or at best, a soft 2. Similarly, songs like "Incinerate" and "The Empty Page" would be a 3. On the other is the intense noise freakouts of releases like ''TV Shit'', much of their early [[PostPunk No Wave]] era, and sections such as the [[CarefulWithThatAxe screaming section]] of "Mildred Pierce", reaching up to a 10 or an 11. [[BrokeTheRatingScale Then there's]] ''[[BrokeTheRatingScale Silver Session For Jason Knuth]]'', which is just guitar feedback and occasionally drum machines, making it like ''Music/MetalMachineMusic'' in that whether it qualifies as an 11 or not depends on if you consider it rock music at all.

Thurston's explanation for the name is that it's a combination of Music/{{MC5}} guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith's nickname and the tendency of contemporary reggae acts to include "Youth" in their names (such as "Big Youth"). The "youth" part has kind of become bitterly ironic since Thurston, Kim, and Lee are in their fifties now, with Shelley and Ibold (the youngest members) not far behind. In a magazine interview, Bob Mould of Music/HuskerDu fame remarked (at least ten years ago) that "Old Youth" would be a more appropriate name. The song "Granny Cool" -- by his other former band, ''Sugar'' -- is probably a TakeThat aimed at Kim Gordon. Mould apparently regards Sonic Youth as pampered and overexposed; however, he's more or less [[HypocriticalHumor the same age as Sonic Youth's core members, and he too]] continues to release rock recordings.

* ClumsyCopyrightCensorship: The artwork to ''Sister'' was a series of photo collages, which included some copyrighted material. Thus the front and back covers have big black bars over the offending pictures. A recent reissue at least replaced the black bar on the back with something more subtle -- A conveniently placed bar code that only partially covers it up.

Drawing on a wide variety of influences ranging from proto-punk acts like Music/TheStooges and the Music/VelvetUnderground and HardcorePunk to avant-garde musicians Music/GlennBranca, Rhys Chatham, and Music/JohnCage, Sonic Youth's early career was spent largely being a SensoryAbuse NoiseRock band and struggling with lack of recognition and cycling through a succession of drummers. Notably, the band sparred with music critic Robert Christgau over a dismissive review (renaming their song "Kill Yr Idols" to "I Killed Christgau with My Big Fucking Dick" in concert), had a disastrous debut in UsefulNotes/{{London}} ending in instrument destruction ([[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity which paradoxically got rave reviews]]) and released a mediocre debut suffering from horrible production, ''Confusion Is Sex,'' that hardcore fans love but everybody else tends to ignore.

** That said, each has at least one SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome; "The Burning Spear" and "Shaking Hell", in particular are classic Sonic Youth. Even ''NYC Ghosts & Flowers'' has the unbelievably sad title song.

* SubduedSection

* Richard Edson - Drums (1981-1982); left the band for an acting career, [[HeAlsoDid better known as]] Vito from ''Film/DoTheRightThing.''

* BangingPotsAndPans: Referenced in "Youth Against Fascism".
* CanonDisContinuity: ''Sonic Youth'', and ''Confusion Is Sex'' and ''NYC Ghosts & Flowers'' are this as well.
** That said, each has at least one SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome; "The Burning Spear" and "Shaking Hell", in particular are classic Sonic Youth. Even ''NYC Ghosts & Flowers'' has the [[TearJerker unbelievably sad]] title song.

** ''A Thousand Leaves'': "Female Mechanic Now on Duty" (7:43), "Wildflower Soul" (11:05), "Hits of Sunshine (for Allen Ginsberg)" (11:05), "Karen Koltrane" (9:20), "Snare, Girl" (6:38), "Heather Angel" (6:09)

* AWildRapperAppears: Parodied in "Kool Thing", with [[Music/Public Enemy Chuck D]] showing up just to deliver some deliberately vague, meaningless hip-hop cliches ("Tell it like it is... Yeah, word up!") The [[https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/music/staying-koolsonic-youth-survives-a-major-label-6412020 inspiration]] was Kim interviewing Music/LLCoolJ and being frustrated with his macho attitude and her own inability to connect with him.

* GreatestHitsAlbum: ''Hits Are For Squares'' is unusual for a few of reasons: For one it was released by Starbucks to be sold at their coffee shops; for another, since, as the title implies, they don't really have "hits", all the songs were hand-selected by well-known fans like [[Music/PearlJam Eddie Vedder]] and Creator/DiabloCody. It also contains an exclusive track, "Slow Revolution".