Sonic Youth, the greatest band within the past 20 years?
 

I dont know how anyone else feels, but I think Sy is the greates band around and has been that way for 20 yrs. Who else is so experimental and outside the box? How the hell did they get to the level that they are at with such a diverse sound. There is not one band who has been to artistic and so real and so unique in a long time. I challange anyone to name a group who has broke a boundary, who has steppped outside the ordanary and had created something new. People say history repeats itself and that bands sound like a band that was big years ago. This means that Sonic Youth has started a new way of looking at music, a new way of creating and developing. Maybe, just maybe, there is a band out there who has taken in all that sonic Youth has opened and expanded it. As a school musician, and to have a fortunate experience in a professional musician family, I was trained to think one thing. " Everything is repeating itself and music and creativity is dying, no one in years have changed the insight of the music, has broke the boundaries, has created a new mind a new way. But U know what? SY has, Main stream, ideal rock has taken over our society but a group like SY has expanded our ears and our minds. We as musicians need to listen to what they are trying to create and take what they are training our ears and minds and go forward

I think your on to something there dude! Although I wouldn't say THE greatest, I would say ONE of the greatest bands of the past 20 years. If Thurston's original objective was to reinvent how we view popular music. I think they certainly have done that.

The interesting thing about Sonic Youth is that their music is highly engaging in a whole new way. A lot of their ideas shouldn't work but do. Their music is chaotic and abrasive but at the same time beautiful. You find you are as much engaged in the 'Noise' parts as the more songform based parts. They never rejected the past (as many progressive art movements often do) but subverted it. Why SY has succeeded in my opinion is because they are impossible to pin down. In their noiser moments they were far more interesting than the rest of the pack, but when trying to call them a noise band you realise in their 'Tuneful' moments they were more tuneful and catchy they most indie bands could ever be. One only has to look at the amount of different views on their music on this forum to appeciate, how they permutrated the fanbases of so many different genres. Most importantly though, they are a standing example that music does have new places to explore. When the musical history books are written im sure SY will have a rather large chapter.

I "get" everything you're writing, joeyg.

They're my favorite band of today...and going back and getting cd's I've missed thru the last 2 decades....makes me realize this....

I have a few I consider highly talented, creative...and been around for that long....few....but SY tops them....Totally different music, but one of my faves in that time as well has been Los Lobos.....not as 'hardcore' as SY by any means...but their diversity and longevity and continued creation is great too.....

I believe..yes....I agree with joeyg.

I agree, I can't think of another band that has consistently released good to great albums for as long as sonic youth. Especially with every album sounded very different from the others yet still sounding like the same band.

I think Sonic Youth is most definitely the greatest rock band to come out in my lifetime (I was born in '81). There's nobody else that even comes close in my book. They're certainly the most influential band of the last twenty five years. Hell, as far as I'm concerned they're one of the greatest rock bands ever, right up there with The Beatles, The Stones, The Who and Velvet Underground. And as timtimtim pointed out, there's really not a single band in the history of rock music who has had the kind of run Sonic Youth has. They've been putting out great records for the last twenty five years. If anything they just continue to get better with age. I know that's not an opinion shared by everybody here but that's my take on things anyway....

I definitely think SY are the best band of the past 20 years. No other band has utilized such an interesting technique to play rock music like they have. They are too creative for their own good.

if rather ripped had been held from the public forever i would agree with you.

one word: boredoms, and they have gone far beyond sy's wildest dreams.

but yeah, sy are immensely important to me and they way i look at music right now. they are the ideal band.

i think saying Boredoms is a tad unfair, cos Boredoms owe a whooole lot to SY, and quite possibly we may never have even heard of them if it werent for SY introducing them to the west.

true but sy also have their influences, it's not like they came out of the blue sounding like that. it's like invalidating sy by saying that teenage jesus and the jerks, dna, mars, glenn branca, gang of four, velvet underground, les rallizes denudes, wire, the stooges, patti smith, p.i.l., talking heads, black flag, sun ra, joni mitchell, the fall, etc etc etc had an impact on sonic youth therefore they are not original.

the boredoms took the influence of american and british hardcore and post hardcore, mixed it with the most abrassive stream of 70's prog rock and used the nascent japanese underground sounds to create something completely different, and they were so willing to go as far as they could to the point of rejecting song structures and doing something new.

sy did something similar and yes, they are incredibly important, but they didn't create rock, they just distilled it into something fresh and amazing and has been mutating for the past 25 years.

one word.

PHISH (say it like you're pissed).

sonic youth and phish are the greatest bands of the last 20 years. sonic youth edging out for numero UNO!

Phish weren't that good. They had some great music, but they are greatly overemphasized in the Jam community.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha, phish, hahahahahahahahahahaha

good one!

yea i agree 100%. SY are def one of the best bands being able to be so creative, experiment and inventive. It Blows my mind still istening to their records.They really broke down restrictions of genre titles as soon as they had it throw at them. I think they will easily be remembered as fondly and hugely influential as the velvet underground back in the 60s.

Thats what I love about them the most they have not changed their sound , I couldn't have said it better myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If Phish is good enough to have past members of Sun Ra's arkestra work with them repeatedly and cover one of their signature tunes (Michael Ray and the Kosmik Krewe's version of Tweezer) I don't think they can be all that bad.

Hell, they have two degrees of seperation with Sonic Youth... Washing Machine's producer (John Siket) also produced Phish's "Story of the Ghost".

But you probably already knew that right. ;)

there's a lot worse than phish.

like black metal.

I used to listen to that black metal shit. That's why I owe my life to Sonic Youth.

But I agree that Boredoms have nearly matched them in greatness, even if they're slightly derivative. I don't like 50% of Boredoms's work, but I appreciate it fully.