courtesy of myspace.com/sonicyouth
Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth
Music critic David Browne’s bio demystifies an influential band — sans sensationalist gossip
By Arianna Stern
Published: June 17th, 2008 | 2:11pm
Sonic Youth means different things to different people. Some associate the band with the No Wave scene, some see them as part of the ’90s alternative-goes-mainstream era, and so on. Any writer tackling a bio of this band definitely has his or her work cut out.
In Goodbye 20th Century, music critic David Browne takes a conventional approach to the story of an unconventional band. After describing the personal histories of Sonic Youth’s foundational members, Browne follows the band chronologically from their first gigs to the present day. His relatively objective approach acknowledges the band’s impact on popular and underground culture without descending into the obnoxious sentimentality that characterizes so much of rock journalism.
Browne divides the book into three parts: “Rise,” “Infiltration,” and “Refuge.” “Rise” chronicles the band’s ascent in popularity from their formation to their decision to sign to DGC, the “alternative rock” offshoot of Geffen. “Infiltration” details the height of Sonic Youth’s popularity, the band’s connections to the underground — like Pussy Galore guitarist Julie Cafritz and indie labelhead Gerard Cosloy (of Homestead Records and Matador) — in addition to their reputation for maintaining the critical distance to deconstruct pop culture. And finally, “Refuge” shows the band self-releasing its records on the label SYR, with its individual members acting as artistic curators. Drummer Steve Shelley founded and maintains Smells Like Records, guitarist Lee Ranaldo has focused on production, and Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore work on visual art and Ecstatic Peace! Records, respectively.
The story itself is interesting enough that Browne doesn’t need to rely on sensationalist gossip. That doesn’t mean Goodbye 20th Century doesn’t suffer from a few pitfalls. Four hundred twenty-two pages of immersion is a lot to ask of a casual Sonic Youth fan. The band called “Sonic Youth” doesn’t even form until page 47. What’s more, the ending doesn’t fully fit with the rest of the book. To paraphrase, the final pages attempt to sum up Sonic Youth’s significance like this: Sonic Youth are a band composed of four mature adults with different ideas for the band, and they matter because they championed the ideal of individuality, which allowed other artists to find their own places in pop culture.
But the thing is, Sonic Youth hardly invented the concept of an American counterculture. Rather, they directed their nonconformist ethic toward songs with both noise and catchy riffs, resulting in high-minded weirdo rock with an attractive sense of fun. Sonic Youth makes music just pop enough to elicit mainstream audiences to their non-mainstream sounds.
Despite its few flaws, fans of Sonic Youth would enjoy this book. Though its length might intimidate some readers, Browne’s writing style provides the necessary information about the band’s history without exploiting their coolness, critical acclaim, or personal traumas. So maybe those 422 pages chronicling 27 years of history isn’t that much. If you can do it for Harry Potter, you can do it for Kim Gordon.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth (Da Capo)
By David Browne
422 pages, $26.00
Issue #28
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