NYC Ghosts & Flowers has blown me away
 

Been rocking the Youth at lunch and the title track NYC Ghosts & Flowers has exploded in my brain

the way it creeps into your head with the slow build up of Free City Rhymes and then abruptly erupts into renegade princess only to mellow out again with Never Mind and bends sideways like an ode to William Burroughs with Small Flowers Crack Concrete and then to go full on acid wave with Side2Side and StreamSonicSubway with Lee fucking with us on NYC Ghosts into a cathartic frenzy of bewilderment and pure synesthesia. Which is why at that point, Lightning finally makes sense.

yes yes yes yes

This album was part of my Sonic revival, not just chronologically because it came after ATL, but because in the brief interlude between ATL and NYC Ghosts & Flowers I lost my Sonic way and got caught up in punk and hardcore. Then my girlfriend bought me this disc for my birthday, I think in 2002. Shit. She thought I wouldn't like it because of all the spoken-word style and experimental styles, but quite the opposite, I was mesmerized, hypnotized into submission. I just didn't realize music could at once be (a) so beautiful and yet (b) so weird and yet (c) so delightfully bewildering. ATL was a mystical adventure to be sure, but it seemed to be less free-associative as NYC Ghosts&Flowers was.

Three things directly inspired my to pick up the guitar and create.

The first is the 1990s Nirvana Book of Tab, which was so fucking great its unbelievable. I didn't even own a guitar, I had an ergonomic wrist guard for my computer keyboard which was the same size as a fretboard, and I practiced the chords and fingerings on that in between those rare moments I had access to an actual guitar.

The second was NYC Ghosts and Flowers, because I was so inspired by the idea of experimenting subtly with a blend of feedback and yet intricate patterns and structures.

The final push was when I saw Shannon Wright play essentially a blend of Sonic Youth experimentation and feedback improv with the angst and edge of Nirvana. What was more important than just her sound, was that she was a two-piece, just guitar and drums. I never in a million years would have believed anyone would have even took a two-piece (white stripes aside) seriously until that moment of convergence at her show in the end of 2002. I had that epiphany of, "I can do that. I WANT to do that."

Ever since for better or worse I have been attached to the two-piece format, guitar and drums. To be sure, Sleater-Kinney helped me stay confident that you don't need a bass as a rhythmic foundation, but what motivated me perpetually was that drive to experiment like Sonic Youth and to keep it going like Shannon Wright.

I skipped Murray Street because I didn't really dig it, but when Sonic Nurse came out, that was a watershed moment for me. Sonic Nurse is still perhaps my all-time favorite stand alone album because of all the combined experiences associated with that album. Thank you Sonic Youth, we love you more than you can realize in our short lifetimes on this planet called Earf..

i must give that album another chance.
i've owned it a couple times, but just cant get into it
dont think i've owned it in many years

It may be my favorite song of theirs.

Actually...if it wasn't for the existence of Mote it would most CERTAINLY be my favorite song of theirs.

The buildup feels like it can rip a hole into the sky

Yes indeed logicalharmsss.

It took a cold day, and a long bus ride, for me to soak the entire NYC album up. It was indeed something I kept on back burner for too long. Blows Murray Snooze out the water.

"NYC G&F" is osme ol' folk bullshit.

kidding...

Rob I love you. That's awesome that you still have SY stuff that is hitting you like new a decade later. :)

I've always been a huge huge huge fan of NYCG&F (the album). I actually had some random SY albums/singles in high school, but it wasn't until right before NYCG&F was released that I fell hard in love with the band. Started buying every album and VHS and single and side-project and book etc I could find. So that was the first album they put out where they were MY FAVORITE band y'know? Becuase of that there is always this really special link I have to that album. It was the first SY album I had that "looking forward to" feeling and got on day one (vinyl and CD!) and it still blows my mind -- the whole album not just that song.

Very often this album is my soundtrack to my morning commute on the light rail.. it is such a harmonic convergence to listen to this album on the train, both this and King of Limbs only came to me while listening on the train/bus

Listened to this today.

Really great record, agree that it kicks the shit out of Murray Street.

I love that album and I always did.
for me there's an 'at night' feeling which is really particular to this album. It feels like they recorded it late at night if you know what I mean.
The song NYCG&F is one of the greatest SY songs.
Sometimes this album also reminds me Gainsbourg's Melody Nelson...

I fucking love this album, and i fucking love how an album can sound so fresh and exciting 10 years later. I have a hell of a lot of love for NYCGAF. I cannot believe how beautiful Free City Rhymes is. NYCGAF is probably in my top 5 songs ever by anyone. ever.

its an album which grew on me (and i guess alot of other people?) slowly. i think thats why it's so special, i feel like it was a discovery. Like the best sy, the madness and confusion exploded into something so beautiful that was mine.
None of my friends are into sy much and so other than you lot the music is kind of my secret.

this album, the track Washing Machine and Sympathy for the Strawberry are so unreal it fucks me up.

I don't get all the hate for it honestly

Well isn't this fuckin lovely? NYCG+F doesn't suck afterall. I always adored this motherfucker. It's beat and arty in a way that says "fuck you".

Nah, it sucks. Let's not kid ourselves. A few fan-boy posts does not change the fact that it's SY's worst album. Seriously.

I don't think it's their worst. At all.

SYR4 is their worst. It's a good idea on paper, but I can never seem to fully enjoy listening to it. Though I try every year.

NYC rules more and more.


"worst" is a subjective term.

so many fans cannot listen to Confusion, or RR, or whatever. for me, the album I like least is EJST&NS. I really do not like it.

NYCG&F beats jetset like a mofo

Probably the most legit SY-related post I've ever read...




because seriously....that shit is quite the snoozfest.

i'd rather take another shot at NYC then Jason Knuth Sessions again
but then again, i can listen to Confusion over and over
in fact. i may have over the years.
just depends on what kinda mood i'm in

i believe the only studio album i haven't heard or owned is Murray Street
so i guess i can't say what's a crappy album then
alot of my friends can't handle Sonic Youth because it's too harsh for them
coming from people who like Butthole Surfers & Primus, i dont get it
it should be right up their alley. but whatever.

and now i'm curious about SYR4 just cause it's a snoozer
so it should be something good to pass out while listening

I used to listen to silver sessions for Jason Knuth on headphones while doing my home computing. it really would drive a worm wedge into my lower consciousness...
After a while I began to love that skronk. It is most def not for everyone though.

ESJSTNS does suck as a composition, but a few of those tracks are really good when listened to randomly say on shuffle mode or something. I never understood all the vitriol towards Rather Ripped, not only was it a really really kick ass fucking kind of album, but the stage-show from that tour as almost as fun as Sonic Nurse for the opposite reasons. It was like, "Ok, we have simply blown yours and our fucking minds with all this Sonic experimentation and improv jamming, so we are going to make a throw-back rock-and-roll album that Ringo Starr would be proud of and y'all can all have simple fun at our shows for a change instead of just standing there mystified."

I seriously love almost every SY album. Confusion. Love it. Whitey. Love it. Murray. Love it. Ripped. Love it.

SYR4 -- I enjoy reading about the compositions, but many of them I don't enjoy when they hit my ears. I could probably sequence a single disc from it of tracks I do like though. So that's not saying much.

Just never got in to this record. Tried several times, and it just never hit me. The style just isn't something I enjoy.

I will say though FCR is one of my favorite songs from the band.

NYCG+F has stayed in my head for a decade, even though I have rarely played it over that time. It is possibly the closest thing they ever did to a "concept album". (I accept that term makes many groan.) I remember being pissed at first....a dorky little 8 song 42min thing. (Is my memory good?) But the motherfucker grew on me real fast and has haunted me ever since. I just love the way it flows and adheres. I love that there are 4 Thurston songs and 3 Kim songs and 1 Lee (epic) song. The short songs here are brilliant too, not just throwaways or interludes. There is no fuckin Plastic Sun here. Following Washing Machine and A Thousand Leaves, two gigantic motherfuckers, it's brevity and subtlety may have been a shock to many, as it was to me at first. But this little album created waves for me which still ripple. I'm rather ripped by it.

There will be no Murray Street bashing here.

fucking plastic sun is awsome!

i guess it's not that bad
i'm just listening to it one by one on youtube
but can't find the studio version of Side2Side so far
i shouldn't be so soon to dismiss the album
but i remember at first when i first heard it i was disappointed
maybe it had alot to do with having their gear stolen or something
but even now when i listen to it
it sounds like it's a quiet album
i guess Renegade Princess aint quiet sounding
but so far, it's not a bad album. but whatever
i doubt it'd ever get into my top 10 list
top 20, maybe. but that's got some competition with the solo projects now

1. Sister - 10/10
2. Daydream Nation - 10/10
3. Evol - 9/10
4. Washing Machine - 9/10
5. Dirty - 9/10
6. Murray Street - 9/10
7. Confusion Is Sex + Kill Your Idols - 8/10
8. Sonic Nurse - 8/10
9. Goo - 8/10
10. Bad Moon Rising - 7/10
11. Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star - 7/10
12. The Eternal - 7/10
13. Rather Ripped - 7/10
14. Sonic Youth - 6/10
15. A Thousand Leaves - 6/10
16. New York City Ghosts & Flowers - 5/10

Yes, NYCG&F is their worst "proper" record, IMO...

This was the first album of theirs I heard, because it was the only sonic youth album they had at the library. I was ten years old.

And I loved it from the start. I had heard sonic youth be described as "weird" music, and the album fit the image I had of them in my head.
Their other albums don't even come close to the experimentation shown on this album. If I had heard them first I might have written them off.

P.S - except for pink steam and jams run free, Rather Ripped is a suck fest

I love Renegade Princess, I always have a sort of heebie-jeebies while listening to it, especially in the culmination/break part.

I've talked about this in the past, but if you listen to NYCG&F and SYR5 back to back, it's fucking awesome.

The show in Providence for the NYC Ghosts tour was one of the sickest I've ever seen.It's a beautiful record IMO.

was so pissed I didn't go to that show!! :(

I feel the same way about having ditched DayDream Nation revisited at the Hollywood Bowl. I love the fucking Hollywood Bowl, it is literally the most irie venue on the world..

Radiohead turned that entire place into an acid trip, because it also by no coincidence seems to have the loudest sound system, the bass is unimaginably strong in its reverberations. I could only imagine the feedback from The Sprawl or the Trilogy feeding out through that system.. alas.

Daydream Nation revisited was at the Greek Theater near Griffith Park, later Sonic Youth opened for the Pavement reunion tour at the Hollywood Bowl. Both were awesome shows. I recently saw the Neil Young and Crazy Horse show at the Bowl, and thought the PA was too quiet, but maybe my seats weren't very good as we were farther back than usual and off to one side. I wish I had experienced it with sound as you describe.

NYG&F is an interesting road less traveled, perhaps more literally experimental than most SY albums. The title track is devastating.

Very good LP, a bit sparse and over-indulgent at times, but a nice minimalistic approach, they were well into Reich, Cage et al at the time so the influence can be felt.

ever heard of Spotify?
Hello 1983!:D:D:D

Silver Sessions is really good, i rate it above all the SYR releases

sorry, i dont get out much
www.mytrailerpark.com

hahahahaha this website!!!!! ultralol, you brightened my dim morning.