[porkmarras]

I read an article about The Velvet Underground that mentioned them and they intrigued me because they were deemed to play what in the old days was art-rock.A friend lent me 'Daydream Nation' and to this day our friendship is a very strong one.

[nicfit]

The first time I listened to BMR I was in the dark of my room.
When I got out my mother said "what's wrong? you have serial-killer eyes..". I was angry, indeed. When I realised that the music was the "thing" that influenced my mood I thought that this was a wonderful thing, and now I love SY.

[Molly]

I met Kim and Thurston and watched one of their shows.

[drrrtyboots]

daydream fucking nation. enough said.

actually, sister a month later. that was a deal-sealer.

[Dead-Air]

Originally Posted by clever name

The only two major SY releases which I haven't devoured are EVOL & BMR. My hands-down favorite for now, though, is the monochromatic NYC Ghosts & Flowers.

The two you've missed are among the best! (Bad Moon Rising, for me, will always be the best in fact.) Mind, NYC Ghosts & Flowers is by far the most underrated and misunderstood.

[lalie]

At that time I was taking my first English lessons at school, and from the start I really liked this language.
I wasn't listening to rock at all.
I didn't know anything about what was to become one of my main interest in life.
One day I saw Daydream Nation cover on the back of a magazine, I can't remember what it was. There were like 50 covers on it and I had no clue about those records...
But I read "Daydream Nation" and under it was written "Sonic Youth".
I thought it sounded definitely cool. I had to get that record.
I got it.
I still remember, I was sitting on my bedroom floor and I couldn't believe what I heard. It was so powerful.
Then I discovered the picture with the Leo t shirt, and there was a woman in that band and she was beautiful. Wow!
That's how it started, and it's silly but I'm very proud that I found it just by myself, and I'm glad that my brother loved them too and we can go to gigs together now.

[nads_youth]

The first time i listened to sonic youth was around '98/'99 maybe.. my music tastes were expanding. And I just found out the joys of mp3s. My dad bought two cds fulls of mp3s from his computer dealer.. most of it was shit, but there were some gems, and one of the was Sonic Youth - 100%.. oh lordy lord... then not long after that I saw the simpsons episode with SY in it.. then I went out the next day pretty much and bought Dirty.. then built my colection.... god bless sonic youth!

the end

[Malcolm81]

In 2000, I had just finished high school. I was very much into REM and disappointed with the direction they had taken, so I started exploring new things. I came to Eels, Pavement, Flaming Lips and more. I read an interview with Stephen Malkmus about a show, some read-poetry-and-play-music event he had been part of, and he said something about how the event was unfair because Thurston Moore was in it too, implying he couldn't compete with this great Thurston guy. So I googled for Thurston Moore, read about Sonic Youth, got interested, found out they had a new album out and downloaded NYC Ghosts & Flowers to see what it would sound like.
I listened to it at night and at the end of it I was really, really scared.

I asked my uncle (who has a big music collection) about SY and he gave me Daydream Nation explaining that it wasn't really that great, actually quite boring. It took me several months to get into DN, song by song. But when I did, I was completely hooked and started buying everything else they had published. They're still my most favorite band.

[Derek]

My aunt, who was a big Sonic Youth fan had got me into them.

Damn, my aunt is awesome.

[mindbomb]

I first listened to DN in about 95-96 when a friend said I should just buy that albumn. It caught my interest partly cause of Eric's Trip which were a band I was really loving at the time. I was hesitant about DN but once I got it I really enjoyed it and from there I bought 1000 Leaves when it came out and also got Washing Machine. Actually I'm not sure why I didn't fall in love with Washing Machine but I love it now. And after seeing Sonic Youth play a few times I'll always love them cause I think they're one of the best live experiences I've had. Lately I've been getting to them even more over the past little while. Murray Street is overall my favourite albumn by them. Love it.

[compulsive diarrhea, jico]

i instantly had multiple orgasms when i heard them for the first time.
that's usually the way i fall in love with something.

[HECKLER SPRAY]

In 2001, I saw few minutes of a report about SY, and I thought : "Holy shit !I've got to listen to this band ! " On a compilation, I listened to Saucer-Like and fall in love immediatly. And then, I bought my first album : Sister, my all the times favourite's. A fucking good sound, fucking good songs,... I'm still in love.

[Ripchord]

I was reading a Kurt Cobain bio a few years back and they kept making reference to SY. And so i bought Daydream Nation, and hated it. And a few months later i listened to it again and enjoyed it. And that was like a year and a half ago.

[Bollocks_to_Pop]

I was really into Nirvana at the time, (I've grown up since) and kept on hearing about Sonic Youth. I decided to buy one of their albums finally after about a half a year and the store I went to only had Goo and Daydream Nation. I didn't know which one to get. I decided on Goo since I had seen the cover art used as a poster bill where SY played with Nirvana. I loved most of the songs immediately. All my friends thought I was wierd listening to this music. I then saw a video of them playing Schizophrenia in '87 fell in love with everything about it, especially the drumming, bought Sister and there was no going back.

[Shaka]

First time i read about them, it was in a magazine, a french magazine. I didn't really pay attention, but noticed the journalist said they were playing their guitars in a non conventionnal way, no specifics, just that. As i was starting to play guitar back then, i thought "hey why not ?", so i started to use and have fun with everything that was lying around me, including some screwdrivers... but other than that, i didn't actually heard any of their song, just read about them.

Later, it was in 98 or 99, i had this friend, a very close one, very special.... we would see each other on week-ends because we were too busy on week-days. So week-ends were for us. Especially sundays... Sunday was our day. And that's when i saw that weird video on MTV, it was late at night, in a show about indie rock. There was Macaulay Culkin in it, along with that strange guy who looked like an old science teacher i had 5 years earlier. She was a woman by the way, weird. I was completely blown away by that music, that video, and that fucking guitar riff at the begining ! That was almost exactly the same first riff i came up with on my first guitar in 1993... and then i heard (and saw) the title : Sunday. That was it. I had to buy that song, that album.

I listened to A Thousand Leaves and by the end of Heather, Angel, i was hooked on it. But it stayed there. I wasn't curious enough and didn't bought anything else from them.

Several years later, in 2002 iirc, a collegue at work saw the CDs i was listening to in my car, and the pink ATL one. "Hey, i saw them twice, they are huge", he said. He then told me a couple songs he said i should check, and i did. Downloaded them at work, listened to the first one he mentioned, Becuz, and was totally blown away again by T's guitar solo in the middle ! I swear my hair must have been straight on top of my head, i was like against the wall, i couldn't move, it felt like a mystic experience or something...

I bought NYCG&F, then all of the others in a month or two.

That's how i felt in love with their music. Very progressively, but it changed me.

[atsonicpark]

I had a few run ins with the band, an ex loved bull in the heather and shit... I'd seen a video (100%) on mtv2... whatever, nothing too important at the time...

I finally fell in love when I was hanging out with my friend.. I was 13.. we were hanging out in this shitty rundown meth city... we went to this dude's girlfriend's place, which was in a fucking barn... it was seriously 106 degrees outside -- it was hotter in there. It was UNBEARABLE. One fan that blew humid air. I was like "let's drive around dude.. let's go somewhere with air conditioning." I got my first taste of drugz at that point, as he said, "I brought you here so we can listen to my favorite album of all time..." and he put in confusion is sex and we listened without saying a word. It was so fucking hot, but the guitar tones melted in the thick humid air. It was truly the most alien music I'd heard at that point -- and surprisingly, I'd already heard, y'know, Melt Banana, Merzbow, Dillinger, The Locust, Atari Teenage Riot, all sorts of fucked up shit... but this music seemed to exist in its own world, and operated by its own logic,.. it was chilling... and addictive... and the coolest shit I'd ever heard... I bought a copy a few days later and I bet I listened to confusion is sex 500 times for the rest of that year... every single day... so yeah.

[hevusa]

NIRVANA!

[Andrés]

Back in '98 I was in high school and Sunday video was frequently played in a chilean music channel. I liked the song and that's all I knew about SY (besides the Nirvana connection) but it was the following year where a classmate lend me her Goo and EJST&NS cassettes where I feel in love with the band. I gotta admit that I had to listen to the songs many times to really like them but thanks to some weed I had scored I went to my best friend's house where we listened to some far out music (that was our everyday hobbie) and in one of those occassions I realized I had fallen in love with sonic youth!

[Adolfo]

I was about 9 years old when for the first time i heard Sonic Youth. I'm now 17. So there i was in a room listening to some vinils from my mom's record collection, records like TG's Live in Heaven, U2' Under a blood red sky , JD' Closer, The Cure's Faith etc... basically real cool shit that until this date i still like. On that pile, there was Sister. It seem so fucking strange to me. It was truly delightful all those guitars buzzing in my ears. At that age i already knew some english words, well... enough to decrypt what Schizophrenia was, not that i knew what it meant (i only knew that my grandfather, whom i never seen until this time, had that disease. ). Stereo Sanctity and Pipeline/Kill Time were favorites, but it was Cotton Crown that striked me the most, all that beauty... it was amazing.
Later on when i was 11, i found Goo, another record my mother had in cd. The cover was something. Mote made me want to pick up a guitar and try to play it. And what the fuck was Mildred Pierce? Who would do something like that. addicting.... but my favorite song of that record was Disappearer. So melancholic... i listened to that song hundreds of times...

[washer]

It all went pretty simply, actually. And wasn't even that long ago (early 2008, I presume). Some random research for new music ended up on Daydream Nation. From what I'd read, it looked to me that Sonic Youth was something that I would possibly enjoy pretty much... But nothing could predict my reaction of awe while listening to that middle section of "Silver Rocket" for the first time. That moment was easily the greatest musical epiphany of my life, as it not only was my first contact with what is today my favorite band ever, but also the start of my discovery of a whole bunch of new and more diverse music.