1999 (Im heighteen)


The first song i ever heard of Sy was... mmm TeenAgeRiot.

A cousin made me a mix tape with bleach and Daydream Nation.

I was nine. so... at first i did not know what the hell was going on.

1984 I think. That's when I bought my first SY album, if memory serves.

Bad Moon Rising, still my favourite album of their's.

hah, funny. Permanent Daylight has always been my favourite Radiohead song.

ha! ha! ha! magic!!! before it happens i already now!!! thanks! i wanna mean in the 90's!!!

In the year 2000. NYC Ghost & Flowers had just came out and I bought it just for curiosity. It was soo different what I've was used to hear so I fell in love.

Hey, I know where you live!

1995
Washing Machine
My new girlfirend was listening to that weird band with crazy gtrs and annoying noise.
i didn't have the choice but listen to WM all day long, every day.
That and Sebadoh's Harmacy.
I believe it took me about three weeks to buy all the regular LPs from then on.
wow

My memory goes like this:

mid-90's I vividly remember seeing the "Dirty Boots" vid on 120 Minutes one night and the video (at the time, maybe more than the actual music honestly) blew my mind. It really stuck with me, because I was like 15 or so at the time and it seemed like... "oh man, I wish I went to parties like THAT!"

THEN when I was about 18, by chance I saw a used copy of the DIRTY BOOTS EP at a random used record store I was passing thru and I picked it up. And y'know, maybe live tracks arent the best way to get into a band at first, but I thought it was cool and really liked the title track.

About a year later this girl I briefly dated had SCREAMING FIELDS on CD and I was like "Wow, let me borrow this." So I borrowed it and rocked it in my car for weeks, and I remember thinking "I dont GET this music... but something about it is awesome... I cant stop listening to it." At that time "Kotton Krown" had become my favorite track.

Eventually I had to give the CD back, so that same day I went to ANOTHER random record store and found a used copy of MADE IN USA. I had no idea what I was getting into my friends, but I was officially addicted from then on.

Tomorrow I'll start listening to them, I promise.

1988
Sister

it was 1985, first year college and my newly found friend Wha gave me a tape with SY on one side and Swans on the other. He was managing this band called Dinosaur at the time.

when i was about 14 or 15 (like alot of you here) i adored nirvana. so after he kept name dropping sonic youth i checked em out. my mom worked at a hair & nail salon and i would always walk across the way to the used book & record store and browse for hours (started crate diggin early) till my mom was done doing the nails of the wives of the texas rangers players. so i saw a cassette of goo and thought "man, that looks kinda stupid". but, kurt said they were awesome, so they must be awesome. so like i usually did, i 5 finger discounted that thing, went next door to the cici's pizza and had lunch while i listened to my new tape. the tape hadn't been rewound so i put it on side a and just pushed play. turns out it was cue'd up to the end of mote. keep in mind i had no idea what so ever what SY sounded like at this point, all i knew was that kurt cobain liked em so i should check em out. so i'm sitting there eating my buffet pizza, having a sweet tea and listening to the trail end of mote. it was fucking weird. at first i thought there was something wrong w/ the cassette, but alas that was just the way it sounded. i fell in love. i couldn't believe music like this actually existed. i played it for all my friends (hell i played it for any one that sould listen), but no one got it. but i did, and that was all i cared about. after that, i looked forward to my weekends w/ my mom. i would eagerly run to the book & record store and steal any and everything i could get my hands on that had even the slightest bit to do w/ SY. i amassed pretty much all there albums up to that point, and when i got to high school i replaced em all w/ the cd's. and that was it, i was a sonic youth fan.
years later i went back to that used book & record store one winter when i was home on leave from the navy and spoke to the owner. i told him about how i stole cd's, tapes, magazines and lp's (not easy to steal by the way) from him constantly for close to 4 years and apologized and gave him $150. it was no where near what i owed him, but i don't hink he really cared. he remembered me and said he kinda figured i was stealing but he didn't have that many customers anyways so it never really bothered him. he was a stand up guy, and he totally got it.

that's how I got into Sonic Youth.

I think this is pretty right on. I'm 29 and I'm not a big fan of Nirvana now, but when Smells Like Teen Spirit forced Guns n Roses off of MTV I was certainly one of the converted. I'd have to say Kurt was pretty instrumental in getting my generation into SY. Coincidentally, I've just been commissioned to contribute a short story to a book about the albums that changed our lives. I'm doing Dirty. But that was just a little self-promotion; not really on topic.

that's fucking cool

I remember listening to Bleach and thinking it was cool but that it seemed so "simple" an dthen when I heard Nevermind it was like all the threads in Bleach had come together in the kind of anthemic ROCK that just wins people over instantly.
I do not listen to Nevermind much anymore but when i do it still hits.

i was 12 and i read a review of dirty, bought it and never looked back! the next album i picked up was evol.

I recognized them before, but my first album I really liked was "washing machine" short after its release. but it took some time till I really fall in love with them afterwards

A friend of mine was living at mine and had bought Sister and played non-stop for about 2-3 weeks, first time i heard it i hated it!, then when DDN came out i ,for some unknown reason bought it and liked it alot more, after that i bought Sister knew all the lyrics and everything subconciously or something and loved it the 2nd time round - bought every album since!.

Listened to Goo in 1992, then bought the first EP and the Dirty Boots EP. Thought Kim Gordon couldn't sing and that's what hooked me (such a difference between live and studio). Since then I bought every album.

I saw the video to Sunday in 2005 when I was 18, I really liked it, I meant to get into them for a while because they are Brian Molko's favourite band, but after Sunday I just forgot, and then about a year and a half ago I really wanted a new favourite band so I bought Goo (I was confused at first), and gradually fell in love with it, and then bought Rather Ripped and Screaming Fields of Sonic Youth, it has taken a year and a half to work my way through most of their catalogue, I'm not finished yet lol.

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O'connor
the end of the ugly


Awesome recount! I guess when I first started listening to SY, I didn't find the tunings and noise to odd because I had been listening to a lot of old PIL, Bauhaus and Cure for years previous. I just really appreciated the off kilter approach SY used. It felt like there was a hole they were playing around.

I got my first Sonic Youth cd in about 96 from my friend. I was reluctant to embrace them but one of the tracks on DYN is 'eric's trip' which is a band I fell in love with. It took a few listens and after that i've been a huge fan ever since. I've seen them play about 3 times and also Lee solo twice. It's been a long time and a huge loss missing them when they come around Ontario as the relationships with my other music friends aren't as close anymore. Favourite works include Murray Street, DYN, and recently Washine Machine grew on me. Goo also got me huge in 05.

listened to daydream nation, just to see what all the hype was about - didn't like it at all. only liked silver rocket because i was young and stupid and liked only hard rock at the time.

few years later, caught someone listening to unmade bed and i was hooked. it's funny how my love for sonic youth evolved. first, it went from me only liking their recent stuff and then i eventually started liking their older, more experimental releases.

i think going nuts and spending $10+ on a thurston noise cd and completely liking it tells me that i like sonic youth. a lot.

4 years ago my friend shows me Confusion is Sex/Kill Yr. Idols. I was hooked. Soon after that he gave me DDN. After that my love just grew and I investigated. I am now forever hooked on their music.

Rather Ripped's arrival.
Something tells me I am quite alone here...

2001. I got into them shortly before Murray Street was released. I was 15 at the time. Man, that seems like yesterday, but it's been 7 years. I didn't really get into music until I was 14/15, so it didn't take me long to get into them. Before that all I really knew about music was that I liked DEVO, David Bowie, Queen, and new wave music. I was more of a video game/cartoon/science-fiction nerd and didn't listen to too much music before 9th grade.

Interesting, though, that you would become a fan through an album, which I consider, very mature in its SY nature. A lot of people don't give the album much credit, but I think it is a beautiful album and shows a lot of maturity. My brother; who is a musician, once told me flashy drum solos are a sign of immaturity. I think this album proves its point.

yeh its a foockin good tune :)

I know this is old. But I started about 2 years ago when I was 11 or 12. I listened to Pattern Recognition and I fell in love with it and then fell in love with Sonic Nurse and now I'm here.

I see you're a Frusicante fan. Do you like Smile From The Streets You Hold?

I am a Frusciante fan. And from some of the songs I've heard of it, no, no I don't. It'd be listenable if he didn't record it whilst he was dead beat junkie for money so you could actually hear what he is singing. ;)

Do you?

You're not alone here. I'm also one of those folks here who got into Sonic Youth stuff very late. But (!!!) I have to admit that it was Confusion is Sex + Kill Yr Idols (which happened to be the second album I purchased) that hooked me on Sonic Youth. This stuff just fucking blew my mind, I haven't heard anything like it before.

I got into them in 2005 after hearing Teen Age Riot. I'd always known of them, but never heard them. When i did though! So now i own all the albums and can't get enough.

sometime before 1996 i first heard of them, cause when they appeared on the Simpsons i recognized the name

i started listening in 2000 if i recall correctly, buying DDN

It's one of my favourite albums.

i was 14... around 1989. a mate in a class gave me a tape of daydream nation from his older brother.... at the time everyone was in their metal phase in the class.. i had already discovered surfer rosa and then daydream....... never looked back since....

Back in 2007 I believe. I listened to Goo.

To be honest only a few years ago. This chick I was into and I were talking about nirvana and the ramones and rock n roll in general and her favorite band was sonic youth. I remember when I was in 4th grade I was really into nirvana and one of my baby sitters who was older showed me some sonic youth but I was too young to "get it". So later when I was talking with this girl (about 19) I checked em out again and loved it.

So I bought "Goo" and started there cuz I liked the art work.

Interesting song to get you hooked. I love Plastic Sun.

Before YOU