Sonic Youth Gossip - SPIN's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time

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SPIN's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time

I saw their post on FB. This is rad. Congrats guys!

Its much more interesting than the Rolling Stones recent all-time list. The RS list was too much a mix of the cliche and the unknown. I thought the SPIN list might go way to much on the unknown to tout their indie cred, but in this list a good blend of indie and mainstream and seems to be in the right order. I'm impressed, and SPIN magazine hasn't impressed me since the 1990s

Well, aside from Prince and Sonic Youth being there, the top ten list seemed way ahead of itself and should have been in the 89-80 section..

Quote:

Lee Ranaldo & Thurston Moore / Photo by Getty Images
1
Lee Ranaldo & Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth)

It's hard to imagine where we would be without Sonic Youth. It's unlikely another smart post-punk band founded around the same time — Big Black, the Meat Puppets — could have delivered us from hardcore's fury quite the same way. What would indie rock sound like if Sonic Youth's sublime din hadn't enchanted and derailed all the college rock bands of the mid-'80s? We would have only been left with a bunch of sanguine Feelies rip offs, never having the chance to divulge a crush via careful mixtape placement of "Shadow of A Doubt."

Thurston and Lee got their start in Glenn Branca's drone orchestra; early SY practices — pre-Lee — were Thurston and Kim dicking around with a guitar borrowed from Branca, strung entirely with high E strings. Thurston came up on anxious, primal stomp, galvanized by The Stooges' Fun House (his first album) and Suicide (his first show). He moved to New York City in love with Patti and Television, only to find those rarefied rippers had been supplanted at CBs by the nihilist bleat of no wave. Moore's autodidactic riffs have never been nostalgic; he's merely dovetailed from that downtown cacophony. He took that strum und klang, made it epic ("Secret Girls"), and worked dark languor into that scree.

Lee was a teenage Deadhead who whiled the Long Island evenings away noodling along to Europe '72. Soon enough, punk's visceral nature would lure him away from the tie-dye, and he'd make his way to the Lower East side and come under the spell of Branca. From Sonic Youth's earliest moments/albums, when much of their sound was built on the un-playing — coaxing feedback from a whine to a roar, the buzz of a cable in a loose jack, testing the temper of strings by jamming them with drumsticks& #8212; you can still hear that learned classicism in his playing (see the arpeggiation on "Hey Joni"). Ranaldo grew up on the White Album and Neil Young, he writes all of his songs for SY on an acoustic, which speaks for his putting craft ahead of spectacular damage. Sonic Youth's sound was, in many ways, destroying and sublimating all of rock'n'roll's conventions, and in that regard, Ranaldo's playing — fingers that could never fully forget that perfect major-chord pop — was essential; first you have to learn the rules in order to best know how to break them.

The two were the perfect complement to each other: Ranaldo's harmony and precision pitched against the nullity and oblivion of Moore's playing. The two combining and verging on the edge of control is what made for SY's greatest glories: the 59-second noise blast/"solo" on "Silver Rocket," the cool lassitude of "Expressway To Yr. Skull," Goo's album-closing blitzkrieg "Scooter +Jinx."

While Daydream Nation is still unquestionably the quintessential SY album, it's so because it's such an ensemble piece, everyone flawless and powerful at once. But 1987's Sister is where Ranaldo and Moore most clearly lay out their guitar thesis — it's an album length flirtation between their two styles. The songs have all the efficiency and uplift of the pop form, via Ranaldo; all with Moore working to deform them with mountains of distortion pedals and sharp, gorgeously wrong notes.

Sonic Youth's guitar frenzy freed us from punk's inelegance, gave us something exact and un-nameable, gave us some sweltering sensation of life and at the same time, removed us from it. They put soul into our noise.

Most Heroic Moment: Sister album opener "Schizophrenia." Pitting a slowly resolving mistuned jangle against slurring, distant distortion until the "chorus" (it's in the ear of the beholder), when they wind-up, sway, Lee does a little pointillist solo, and then the goad each other, chugging, building the tension until it gives way into a furious freak-out, carnal and electric. In that moment you can hear it all — melancholy, death, lust, possibility. JESSICA HOPPER

Its too bad she doesn't seem to have heard a sonic youth album in 16 years but a good review is a good review ;)

wwooowowowowo Never saw that one coming...

Sonic Youth is also number one on Spin's list of "Rock's 30 Best Winning Streaks", with their future compromised by Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore's divorce, they wrote. Low makes an appearance at number twelve:

http://www.spin.com/articles/rocks-3...streaks?page=9

^ Woah! cool. That sounds very appropriate. SY bein' number 1 n all...

WOW! I wasn't expecting this. Actually is a cool list, different of what I'm used to see around the interwebs.

This just seems like a stab at updating the usual top 100 bullshit likely as a means of pulling in a young(er) audience long since tired of the usual rubbish. But still, these lists are always bullshit. Always.

Either way...Nice to see Eric Clapton not make the top few spots. haha. I can't be bothered to read all of it. I guarantee ya all the Ron Ashetons, D. Boones, blah blah blah have spots. It's all cliche.

...

Edit: Read some of the list anyway. Lydia Lunch, seriously? Musically, she fails in both talent and the creativity categories. Only "art" of hers I ever found to be halfway decent was her photography, and even that isn't anything spectacular.

She does claim to have seen Thurston cock, though (wow, so cool Lydia. Not really). She also shaped punk rock...bullshit. Dead Boys groupie turned radical femnatzi. Boring. I'd rather listen to Clapton which isn't saying much of anything at all.

Keiji Haino: I've heard similar things coming from ten year olds picking up guitars for the first time.

Oh well, hopefully this serves to at least get some folks interested in some stuff they may not of heard of otherwise.

Jam master jay did not play guitar. RIP

This list should be called "90 guitarists who don't matter and 10 who do"

Thurston and Lee are not ONE GUITARIST. Lee is leaps and bounds the greater guitar wizard

Sway, you really love to hate on Clapton.

Man, I must really have some issues.

I clicked the link and had to close the window within three seconds. Even if I were to agree with every selection, ug--I just hate you Spin. I just do.

great to see arto and hainer, chadbourne and frith for sure, ribot, johnny mcL, nels, ulmer, quine, derek b, buzzo, sharrock, but there's some odd ones in there or just horribly out of place, Carrie Brownstein, Jack white, albini, zappa, the edge, mascis.............also no love for Elliott Sharp, George Benson, Sam Brown, KK Null, Yoshihide, Kawabata, Narita, Agata, Ducret, Torn, Asahito, Kurihara, Hans Reichel, Mary H, Lussier, Rick Bishop, C Brotz, Plotkin or Hawkins Greg Anderson, Nix, Ellerbee, Oren A,Keith Wood, Licht, Skopelitis, Spruance, I'd even rate Frisell and Buckethead above quite a few they note.... a personal favorite who doesn't get a lot of publicity is Bill Horist out of Seattle...

I hates me some eric fucking clapton too
he is the Pat Boone of the Blues

listening to clapto playing I Shot The Sherrif is enough to make me hate whitey

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

Very true.

Listening to Clapton play near anything is just embarassing to white folks that have any real appreciation for the blues.

Cream was OK. Some of the stuff w/ John Mayall was OK. Everything else sucks. No wonder his more "hit" songs have all been covers. Dude can't write for shit.

Wait until Sonic Youth reform in 5 years time with Chloë Sevigny on third guitar. This list will put the good souls of Derek Bailey and John Fahey to rest one more time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ann ashtray

While personally, I don't dig much on Clapton, I always have respect for that brother because Hendrix was a big fan and so have a lot of ridiculously talented guitar players since ;) Its not my cup of tea, but I can at least tip my hat with respect. Of course I tip it to Justin Beiber too, I've been a street musician, and the realest music truly comes from on the street.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Of all people...

I don't know if Clapton's a racist in real life (probably not), but he has nevertheless exploited black culture, tamed it, and sold it in a pretty package to deaf white morons.

Suchfreinds, you really should get on board and start hating on that cracker fuck.