Thurston Moore'sThe Best Dayis out today, and already it's being hailed as the recordto satisfy heartbroken fans thirstingfor a new Sonic Youth album. Sure, since Thurston and Kim Gordon divorced,ending the dream of cool love,Kim has given us a new Body/Head album, Lee Ranaldo has released two solo-ish albums, and Thurston has contributed to both Twilight and a new band called Chelsea Light Moving. Still,this is the most Sonic Youth-ish of the bunch.
What does that mean? Hard to say.That's because their alternately-tuned, avant-garde/pop mix is easy to identify, toughto replicate.Like Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, their DNA is all over the last three decades of indie rock. Still, it's a bit of a search to find literal references, which is strange considering how much they like to referencetheirinfluences, often right in song titles. You're much more likely to find aband named after them (Blonde Redhead, Androgynous Mind, Eric's Trip, etc) than a song.
But we've dug deep and come up with tengreat songs that explicitly reference, homage, rip off or satirize indie rock's former elders.
You could easily mistake thesample that begins The Radio Dept.'s 2010 songas a heavy-handed thesis statement from the Swedish synth-poppers, who typically live in the space between gentle indie pop and lefty politics:
"People see rock and roll as, as youth culture, and when youth culture becomes monopolised by big business, what are the youth to do? Do you, do you have any idea?I think we should destroy the bogus capitalist process that is destroying youth culture."
But acute listeners might recognize the voice as Thurston Moore's from the essential grunge document1991: The Year Punk Broke. Watch the full clipofThurston interviewing the dumbfounded slackers in theSonic Youth parking lotand you'll probably recognize his speech as satire... especially once you realize the interview took place not long after their "sellout" jumpto a major label (and slightly before their tourmates', Nirvana). Underground purists have been spreading similar rhetoric ever since.
Chan Marshall has good reason to pay tribute to the alternative icons - she was discovered by the band's drummer Steve Shelley,and they remained collaborators for a number of years. Here, she takesSonic Youth's 1987 Philip K. Dick-inspired mini-epic "Schizophrenia" and mashes it with Skip Spence's "Weighted Down (The Prison Song)"into a fragile, world-wearied piece of indie folk. So, a Cat Power song.
A much more overt mashup, this Girl Talk song takes the uncannilyupbeat-yet-unsettling guitar lines of the aforementioned "Schizophrenia" and shoves theminto a dance contextalongsideCiara & Missy Elliott's "1, 2 Step"(around the 45 second mark). Given their dalliances with hip-hop it's a shame this is the closest they get to being crate-dug(unless you count alimp Lupe Fiasco verse).But this isn'tsuch a stretch. Sonic Youth have always had a thing for pop.
Both The Strokes and their early-'00s cool guy rock scene were extremely reverential for the aloof New York that Thurston Moorerepresented. So it's no surprise that one of their biggest hits is a "total ripoff" (Julian Casablancas' own words) of Sonic Youth's1994 hit "Bull In The Heather."See also: this gorgeous acoustic cover of Sonic Youth's "The Diamond Sea" by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Kurt Vile's long-haired drawl, enigmatic lyrics and alternate guitar tunings have always brought him the Thurston comparison, but if you ask him "Society Is My Friend" is the moment where influence accidentally becomes theft:
"There's a little Sonic Youth "The Diamond Sea" influence in there, and apparently a little subconscious thievery. Apparently the lyrics are similar to 'Society is a Hole' by Sonic Youth. I don't feel bad, 'cause they said they got their lyrics from mishearing a Black Flag song."
Long before Sun Kil Moon set Pitchfork on fire with "War On Drugs: Suck My Cock,"there was "Crankin' To Sonic Youth." The story goes like this: while at ATP London, some members of Fucked Up heard Thurston Moore refer to the band as "Dude Core" in an interview and decided to fire back. So they hooked up with EnglishVicephotographer Ben Rayner (no relation to theToronto Star music critic) and recorded this piss-take diss track, inventing the slang term "crankin'" - that's "crying and wanking at the same time"(theGoopuns write themselves)- and letting the indie music press do what it does best: blow a joke feud wayout of proportion.
As they aged into eldersof the scene, Sonic Youth's band name became more accidentally ironic with every passing day. They weren't above calling attention to it themselves,but apparently neither was Bob Mould. Though his previous band, Hsker D and SYare often mentioned in the same breath as godfathers of shoegaze, they apparently weren't too fond of each other. This strangelyageist song about a rock star who won't act her ageis believed to be about Kim Gordon, but it could equally apply to Mould himself.
Another example of '90s alt-rock's great ability to satirize itself, this hilarious track by Lou Barlow (likely still stinging from his ousting from Dinosaur Jr.) turns the great figures of underground rock into emblems for the "new generation of electric white boy blues":
Getting loose with the Pussy Galore
Cracking jokes like a Thurston Moore
Peddle hopping like a Dinosaur, J...
The song has it both ways, parodying the tropes of indie rock while re-blamingSonic Youth for selling it out:
Breaking down the barriers
Like Sonic Youth
They got what they wanted
Maybe I can get what I want too
Come on indie rock
It's gone big
Come on indie rock
Just give me indie rock
But the ribbing is mutual. Sonic Youth's landmark"Teenage Riot"famously imagines a world whereJ Mascisis president.
Raymond Pettibon's album artfor1991'sGoo has become so entrenched in pop culture that it's become an internet meme. So The Twilight Sad weren't taking ahugerisk when they played off Goofor their bits-and-bobs record, but they still feared getting sued. They didn't.
In full on Godfather of Grunge mode in 1991, Neil Young tapped the rapidly-rising Sonic Youth as the opener for his arena rocking Smell The Horse tour. It didn't go so well. The band was booed mercilessly night after night and they responded the only way they knew how: by producing as much noise as they possibly could. But Neil wasn't offended. In fact, he was inspired. The result: this 35-minutesingle-tracklive album made entirely of the feedback at the beginning and end of his songs. Sonic Youth are unsurprisingly fansof Neil Young's weirderexcursions, andthey're responsible for the strangest. In return, Neil is responsible for the band's very first (and very disastrous) acoustic performance.
10 Great Musical Homages to Sonic Youth by Richard Trapunski | Chart Attack.
