It's a strange situation for a band like Sonic Youth to be in - the whole playing record industry games thing. As bands go, they are pretty much art-rock personified - they're not really rock musicians, they're artists who use rock music as the medium through which they create their art.

At this point I start to struggle with my post. I want to make a comparison between the way that Sonic Youth make their art available and the way that a contemporary visual artist does, and the fact that, because the type of art that Sonic Youth make is marketed in a particular way (e.g. through the record industry), it does not get seen as art, and how frustrating that must be for them, at times. But I don't know enough about contemporary visual arts to provide a decent comparison and then run with it. But hopefully that doesn't get in the way of the point that I'm trying (and probably failing dismally) to make.

I don't know, I have always considered them a rock band, even if they have an edge to them that sits well with art gallery types. The majority of their songs are way too structurally rock, and in many interviews the band themselves pointed out that they consider themselves a rock band, not an art-rock one, which is almost a derogatory term made up by lazy journalists.

They have also introduced pretty revolutionary concepts in rock music that is sold and distributed by a major label, even more so than bands like Nirvana, which simply didn't have that wide an output or a long enough career to make a point as brilliantly as Sonic Youth.

Here is not a band that went like a million others and destroyed themselves through drugs and vice, but a hard working group of artistic people that sustained high quality for longer than any other rock band in their position that I can remember. Keeping that in mind, their due still hasn't been paid in full.

I disagree. I saw them with SY and Dinojr. I waas pleased.

APPLAUSE!
great post
seriously!

Sonic Youth Should Release Something On Naxos!

I thought RCA was the major label for folks-who've-outworn-their-previous-major-label these days...

definately echoing what sarramkrop and sonicl have said -

sonic youth deserve to be a massive mainstream band. they have been wanting to achieve it for twenty years and i think that now they should and will sign to another mainstream label, preferably one bigger and with more distribution than geffen. they should keep making pop records like rather ripped and they should do a shit load of commercial tv interviews. they should do this for the simple reason that the people who usually listen to chart and nme bands will discover them, and hopefully will trace their lineage back to the early 80s. they will realise that a rock band can be more than a couple of cool guys w/guitars but can function as a genuinely intelligent, evolving, artistic and commercial unit whilst still retaining smarts and integrity. we still have their past output to listen back on, and becoming huge and commercial will give them more money to persue their own projects - projects which we will all buy and enjoy.

trying to resist the mainstream when they have come all this way, and wanting them to be as obscure and "indie" as they were back then is hugely reductive and pretty conservative really.
sometimes you've gotta work with something if you want to say anything meaningful about it. just look at pop-art.

selling out??
why would anyone want to keep the band a secret? i think sonic youth are smart people, way too smart to "sell-out" in the way i think people on this thread are talking about.
i.e. they have a good dose of humour, vision, and artistic integrity.

Why are people calling it selling out when some indie band of theirs sign to a major label? I agree with sarramkrop, they are definitely a rock-band and not a art-rock, which to me sounds like a pretentious untalented band. To me it never matter if they where on an indie label or major label.

word.

So... yr saying they should now just treat Sonic Youth as some fucking marketing ploy? A band, especially one as fucking incredible as SY, should never exist just so the people involved can turn a goddamn buck. Sure, it would be nice for them if more people knew them, but then again, more people would know them, and probably just download their albums*. But I have to disagree COMPLETELY when you say they should just start appealing to the lowest common denominater so they can make more money and fuel whatever side-projects they have... that's incredibly, absurdly stupid.

*That's the sad fact I've had to come to terms with, what with one of the biggest chain stores here (Music World) going bankrupt and closing all stores... but that's a whole 'nother can of worms...

I don't think anyone here is debating the specifics of what label they are going on. We know they are going to be a good band regardless, but I started this thread to see what others thought about them pulling a Radiohead. I'm not sure if they have a large enough/loyal enough of a following.

Yeah, they don't seem to sell many records. Not many of theirs have sold more than 100,000 have they?

exactly.

that's what music on mainstream labels is. that's how i heard about sonic youth.

without marketing, how the hell do most people ever discover anything?

i'm not saying that sonic youth should divert from the path that they are on musically. i'm saying they should carry on as they are - making edgy pop records and signing to big labels. i was reacting against people who said that they should digress to being "indie" again. as a band, it is known that they want to appeal to a lower common denominator. thurston wanted to be on top of the pops and the band express a weird attatchment to mtv.

does blast first even exist anymore?

i honestly have to ask, who gives a fuck what label they're on? they're too well-established by now for a record company to be able to tell them what to do. they're not a marketable band, they're a career band.

SS mothafuckin T

and another thing, how are people still into this "fuck the man, let's put our record out on kill rock stars because we are just TOO COOL to make a decent living on geffen" shit? i'm so tired of people trying to be different and radical and whateverthefuck. grow up, that shit doesn't work in the real world. there's not going to be any more musical revolution, all that shit is long gone.

BRAVO!!!

I wrote Blast First as a joke and because that it's a pretty cool name for a label.

Due to some exhaustive internet research it looks like Blast First was absorbed by Mute Records linked

sst are(were?) thieves. black flag wants your money too.

So what exactly is the point that you are making? It would be better if they would put another good Sonic Youth record, true, but I don't see why they shouldn't earn a few bucks while they're at it. After all, there are so many shit bands out there that make much more money than them, at least the dosh would be going to deserving hands that would push for good music to be produced and distributed.