Sonic Youth
The 25 Best Soundtrack Albums of the 1990s
In the 1980s, music and film collided for cross-promotional blockbusters both transcendent (Purple Rain) and transcendently cheesy (Footloose). In the ‘90s, soundtracks continued to sell in the millions, capturing cultural moments like the Seattle grunge of Singles or the Britpop and electronica of Trainspotting. Auteurs like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson reached deep into their record collections to set the mood while movies like Above the Rim and Menace II Society pioneered the concept of soundtracks as hip-hop mixtapes. A great soundtrack can propel an unsuccessful single, like Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose,” to the top of the charts, or revive a decades-old hit, like Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It can also push a cult singer-songwriter like Elliott Smith or Aimee Mann to an Oscar perf...
Sonic Youth, Mudhoney Members Unearth Stooges Cover Recorded in 1997
The Stooges’ Ron Asheton, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley, Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, Minutemen/Stooges Mike Watt and Sean Lennon, along with producer/musician Don Fleming and Jim Dunbar, joined forces in 1997 as Wylde Ratttz to record covers and originals for Todd Haynes’ 1998 film Velvet Goldmine, an homage to David Bowie and the ’70s glam scene. From that session, the band recorded a version of the Stooges’ “Fun House.” To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Stooges’ second album, the group has unearthed “Fun House.” The cut features guitarist Asheton with Mudhoney’s Mark Arm on vocals and Sabir Mateen on tenor sax. The original version of the song is 7:45; this version stretches to nearly 12 minutes. Anoth...
Thurston Moore Shares ‘Cantaloupe’ Off Upcoming Solo Album
After announcing a new solo album called By The Fire a couple of weeks ago, Thurston Moore shared another track off the project on Friday. “‘Cantaloupe’ is a song about the dance of romance and surrealism, where the hallucinations of wild dreams come true,” the Sonic Youth founder wrote in the Bandcamp description. By the Fire is Moore’s latest project with the Thurston Moore Group, which features former Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, My Bloody Valentine bassist Deb Googe, and guitarist James Sedwards. The album is slated for a Sept. 25 release on Moore’s Daydream Library Series label. Moore paired the album announcement with a song called “Hashish.” He also recently released a nine-minute-long instrumental track called “Strawberry Moon,”&n...
The 10 Best Punk and Alternative Bob Dylan Covers
Bob Dylan is one of the most widely covered artists in popular music – hit versions of his songs by the Byrds and Peter, Paul and Mary helped make him famous, and Dylan covers by Jimi Hendrix and Guns N’ Roses permanently remain in rock radio rotation. And even artists from the punk and alternative scenes that tend to have less reverence for ‘60s nostalgia been drawn to the Dylan songbook, often giving his compositions dramatically different arrangements. With Dylan’s first collection of new songs in eight years, Rough and Rowdy Ways, out now, here’s a look back at 10 Dylan songs that were memorably reimagined by punk, post-punk, indie, alternative, avant jazz and industrial artists. 10. My Chemical Romance – “Desolation Row” “Desolation Row,” the mighty 11-minute closer from 1965’s Highwa...
Sonic Youth Release 12 New Archival Projects
Sonic Youth had added to their ever-growing library on Bandcamp, and just in time for the site’s fundraiser. The group has dropped 12 new archival and side-project releases. It goes along with the other 12 that they dropped in March along with a slew of others that have trickled out in recent months. They’ve also recently shared their out-of-print 1987 EP Master-Dik, and some live albums. Last week, Sonic Youth shared their semi-official Hold That Tiger live album that was recorded in 1987 and released in 1991. These projects include four instrumental droney jams recorded in Melbourne on June 22, 2004, a Lee Ranaldo show from Toronto in 2001, Live In Yugoslavia 1985/1987, Live At Brixton Academy 1992, Live In Irvine 1990, Wylde Rattz proj...
Sonic Youth Add Hold That Tiger Live Album to Bandcamp
This year may not be going according to plan, but Sonic Youth fans can find solace in the fact that the band has been beefing up its archives on Bandcamp. Since March, they’ve shared 12 live shows, their out-of-print 1987 EP Master-Dik, and some live albums. Today, Sonic Youth added another rare live album to the profile: Hold That Tiger — a “semi-official bootleg LP” that was recorded in 1987 and released in 1991. Here’s what the band has to say about it: Originally released as a semi-official bootleg LP in 1991 by friend and music writer, Byron Coley, on his Goofin’ imprint (we would eventually hijack the Goofin’ moniker for our own band-run label a few years later). The recording was nearly 60-minutes in length, so to prevent manufacturing a cost-prohibitive double lp, th...
Sonic Youth Share Rarities EP From 1987 and All Tomorrow’s Parties 2000 Show
As Lee Ranaldo told us back in February, there was going to be a bunch of activity on the Sonic Youth archival release front (that didn’t include his own activity either) this year. He certainly wasn’t lying! Today (May 15), Sonic Youth added two more releases to their Bandcamp page: the long out-of-print 1987 EP Master-Dik and a live show from 2000’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival. Last month, they dropped 12 live shows and earlier this month, the 1993 live album Blastic Scene. Here’s what the band had to say about the April 8, 2000 show: Sonic Youth’s first live performance in 2000 and their last as a quartet for some time was a predominately instrumental set at the very first All Tomorrows Parties Festival. Curated by Mogwai, the event took place at Camber Sands Holiday ...
Lee Ranaldo Shares Cover of John Lennon’s ‘Isolation’
Earlier this year, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo released a collaborative new album with Raul Refree and also launched his own Bandcamp page where he shared a bunch of rarities. Now, the guitarist has unveiled yet another buried gem from his catalog: 1998’s Amarillo Ramp (for Robert Smithson). In conjunction with that release, Ranaldo shared a video for a cover he did of John Lennon’s “Isolation,” which, like the others who have tackled the song in recent weeks, feels fitting. Here’s what Ranaldo had to say about the song: “During this time of enforced global confinement – the ‘planetary pause’, as I’ve been calling it, I’ve been sorting thru some old releases, and came across my version of John Lennon’s‘Isolation’, which was recorded back in 1991 and released on the 1998 album Amarillo R...
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