How relevant and/or vital is Sonic Youth to modern pop culture?
 

If at all? With Daydream Nation, Dirty, Goo and to a lesser extent, Sister; they were functioning with their veins sliced into the major arteries of popular culture, if they were not actually the heart of it themselves; but with Murray Street onwards, it seems they have somewhat had less of a connection or impact on popular culture as a whole. Not discounting their hipness or ability to make meaningful, significant music, of course.

It seems almost as though they are not very popular within the context of popular culture now, which may or may not be very true(they were never Guns 'N' Roses popular anyway), but there was a time when their output was quite culturally significant, being the nexus of popular music and an exemplification of sorts of the music that popular bands were emulating on their own records.

This time has of course passed, but with a resurgence of sorts in alternative rock and bands like Bloc Party namechecking Sonic Youth(being a not so recent example), I wonder if Sonic Youth have any relevance on popular culture anymore... I believe popular culture has reached a sort of plateau at the moment, with bands like Fall Out Boy and stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera still dominating sales and cultural mindsets(not to mention Paris Hilton releasing an album).

This culturally shallow exposition is a dreary situation at best and I wonder in such a plasticky, non-toxic and bland climate, if Sonic Youth are still vital or exert any sort of influence. Thoughts, anyone?

In terms of influence, I'd say they're still relevant, but they've now been filtered through other bands, e.g. a band may have been influenced by Mogwai and not be aware of an SY influence upon Mogwai, but through the Mogwai conduit SY have still been influential upon them.

I'm not sure there is much of a direct SY influence on the mainstream allternative scene (if that makes sense) like there was in the late 80's and early 90s though.

sonicl is right. bands influenced by sonic youth are now into the 2nd and 3rd generation. a band influenced by trail of dead, who in turn were influenced by sonic youth is in direct lineage. I think sonic youth are as vital to the current music scene as the beatles, but in a history, background kind of way. the current music scenes are not sonic youthian.

Really, Bloc Party admitted influence? I read they were influenced by SY on their wiki page, but I expected it was an assumption. Which interview of theirs did they say that?

from what i've heard of bloc party i can't hear sy in them at all. The SYR series and the group's approval of quite a lot of the bands seems to have a lot of influence on the "noise scene"

Underground music and Pop music are 2 different entities.

SY doesn't have very much(if any) relavance to pop culture IMO. Pop culture = Brittany Spears, Jessica Simpson, Backstreet Boys, Nirvana. Unless you want to make the connection of SY being "responsible" for Nirvana's signing(which they were going to plug any old band to fit the mold), that would be about it.

There's nothing in pop culture today that I see a connection to with Sonic Youth. During the "Nirvana" explosion, maybe. But today, it's all about a weaker, more heavy New Wave(Killers, stuff like that) that's been influencing popular culture and not SY.

Lots of bands mention SY. Converge, Thursday, Bloc Party, etc all consider SY an influence.

The stuff SY is doing now isn't really affecting many people. Or at least it hasn't yet.

my uncles band is majorly influenced by sonic youth

Agreed
There's always been popular culture and "sub" culture, the latter
being more relavent to "culture" in general in my opinion.

i think they have the chance to be more relevant to pop culture than ever before.

indie music is gaining a lot of popularity, nearly approaching mainstream fame for some bands. with those bands gaining more and more in popularity will come the inevitable question: "what bands influenced you?" and i'm almost positive that one of the first bands mentioned will be sonic youth. that's when young fans of these bands will go and check out sonic youth and they'll effect pop culture even more when the new fans carry on the tradition of the old ones (cue the sentimental music).

what the fucking hell are you guys talking about...psuedo-intellectual post modern analysis is so fucking tedious

you're right. we should talk about wanting to see kim naked instead. who likes football? not that pansy soccer shit, i'm talking a-merican FOOTball!

Damn I hate it when he's right...but that's my opinion as well.

no way.

they're still influential to me. they're still influential to lots of bands.

I'd say that SY are very important to modern popular culture. It's just that most people don't know it. Without SY, we wouldn't have had the explosion of Nirvana; at least not on the scale that it had happend on. In fact, most of the alternative rock culture would not be the same without Sonic Youth's influence. We would have a very different music culture right now if it were not for Sonic Youth. It's just a great disservice to the band and good music in general for most people to be so ignorant and unkowing of the existance of such innovative and genius artists.

LOL. I'm always right.

I'm not really into American football. I liked having pickup games with my friends, but pro ball just bores the shit out of me. It takes too long to play a game of real football. They stop like every four seconds. Too many rules and regulations. It should be more anarchic, less rules and a total free for all. I want to see some fucking violence on that feild! Real hard tackles and people going for it with all they've got. Pro ball seems too sleak and boring.

Oh yes, I'm inclined to agree with kingcoffee 100%, I doubt rock music would have any relevance, spirit, soul or even existence if bands like Sonic Youth had not constantly revitalised and reinvigorated rock music to the point that it has become, for want of a better word, 'modern'. But within Sonic Youth's context of contributing to popular culture, I would say the spirit of their music and their insistence on finding beauty and melody within even the atonal and dissonant has had an impact that is sorely understated. Or at least that's my opinion. Somebody should really do a study on this. Or is there one already? :)

you make me think of that video game "NFL Blitz". that was the only time i ever enjoyed american football.

Theirs no way you can call Sonic Youth relevant anymore. Sure the last few albums have changed from what they were originally but to say they're relevant isn't right.
Look at it this way, say they split up would their be a massive outcry, full page spreads in magazines saying how upset they are by them splitting up? Honestly, no. You'd get a small mention in the news section and that's it. As for bands mentioning them as an influence that's a tiny amount of bands and bands who also themselves have no relevance. They turn up at a gig and play give them 10 years maybe less and bands like Bloc Party and Thursday will be forgotten.
As much as I love them I refuse to look at this from a biased point of view. Ans they say this board is dead, this is one of the best (meaning something with a hint of intelligence) threads around.