Sonic Youth - NYC Ghosts & Flowers

Do I really have to write an introduction for this post? It’s fucking Sonic Youth, man! Formed in NYC in 1981; Thurston Moore was heavily influenced by the revolutionary guitar noise of Glenn Branca; Steve Ranaldo was a part of Branca’s guitar ensemble and joined with Moore and Kim Gordon. The band went through a couple of drummers until finding Steve Shelley, who has been with the band since ’85. SY is responsible for influencing bands that came after them, such as Pixies and Nirvana, and older acts like Neil Young to get in touch with his punky feedback-utilizing side. Sonic Youth are responsible for producing many masterpieces, from 1988’s Daydream Nation, to 1995’s Washing Machine, to this year’s The Eternal. One of the most controversial outings of the band’s career is 2000’s NYC Ghosts & Flowers. Lauded by some critics and completely trashed by others (Robert Christgau said that the album was “more beautiful than anything on Washing Machine” while Pitchfork gave it a brutal 0 out of 10), this was an album I HAD to look into.

NYC Ghosts & Flowers comes with a back story that may or may not be important to consider when trying to understand the music, but is always included in critiques or written histories of the album. In July of 1999, all of the band’s gear was stolen, leaving them to start from scratch with new instruments. Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo make such remarkable and otherworldly noises emanate from their guitars that it is abundantly clear they must have strong bonds with their instruments. Faced with the prospect of breaking in new equipment, it seems the band went back to its roots in some ways and started making greater use of “prepared instrument” techniques. This involves manipulating a guitar with foreign objects – screwdrivers, knitting needles, wire, etc, to change the guitar’s timbre. According to our good friend Wikipedia, this technique had not been used by the Youth so extensively since 1985’s Bad Moon Rising. That being said, what stands out much more than the guitar playing is the lyrics. While Sonic Youth’s lyrics have historically ranged from very pop oriented in style (“My Friend Goo”) to the more abstract and poetic (), this album takes the band’s passion for beat poetry to its extreme and manifests itself in all aspects of the album - the cover art is a William S. Burroughs piece, for example. On many of the tracks, the lyrics don’t sound connected to the music at all. Sometimes this works great, other times not so great. The album starts off with its best track, and one of my all time favorite Sonic Youth songs. “Free City Rhymes” fades in with some atonal guitar notes texturally intertwined, gradually building with drums floating in at one point. After it reaches a breaking point at about two minutes in, the song changes completely – kind of like going from black and white to Technicolor. The music is warm, soft and inviting, with Moore singing about ghosts passing time. Sonic Youth can do loud and howling like no one else can, but I am glad that they allow themselves to channel their softer side as well, because it produces masterpieces like this one.

Track two, “Renegade Princess,” doesn’t work nearly as well. Thurston and Kim spit seemingly nonsense 3 syllable phrases (“jet black hair/tangled hair/blood inside,” etc) in whiny, affected voices that irritate the hell out of me. After this first part, things get way more tolerable as the song evolves into a more recognizable Sonic Youth rockin’ sound. “Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)” has Kim speak/singing, eventually screeching the lyrics “Boys go to jupiter/get more stupider/girls go to mars/become rock stars.” Kinda silly and slightly out of place but she makes it work.

“Small Flowers Crack Concrete” is the album’s most explicit beat poetry reading set to music. I have never had the opportunity to see Sonic Youth play live, but I did go to a benefit in which Thurston Moore read some of his poetry and talked about the poets he has been inspired by. It was a very interesting performance; Moore’s passion for poetry was evident, but the crowd wasn’t having it. A young girl kept screaming “Where’s Kim?” and song requests were shouted out throughout his time on stage. At the end, he acquiesced and with an acoustic guitar performed “Psychic Hearts” and a few SY songs. “Small Flowers Crack Concrete” works; Moore is a good poet, and his words in this track are both affective and memorable. The music holds things together for this song but isn’t particularly interesting, and that’s probably the way it should be. He lays on the beat poet mythology pretty thick with lines like “narcotic squads sweep through poet dens…the narcs beat the bearded oracles /replacing tantric love with/complete violence.” If you can let yourself get into it, it’s pretty cool.

The next track, “Side2Side,” is not very cool. It’s not much of anything, and absolutely does not hold up when removed from the context of this album. Kim Gordon presents us with a ridiculously long list of things that appear random – binoculars, shoes, records, blah, blah, blah. They don’t bother to reproduce this list in the lyric booklet. My guess is they’re going for a mood piece, but it fails to elicit anything out of me. “StreamXSonik Subway” is a quick burst of energetic punky noise that is much more familiar to Sonic Youth fans’ ears, and it is a welcome switch-up at this point in the album. Then comes Lee Ranaldo’s songwriting contribution, with the album’s title track. Ranaldo’s songwriting style lends itself so well to this album, it’s a shame that he couldn't have contributed a couple more songs. On other SY albums where his spoken word tracks stand out like a sore thumb, like “Skip Tracer” on Washing Machine, (albeit a beautiful and enjoyable sore thumb) “NYC Ghosts and Flowers” fits in seamlessly here. The album ends with a lo gurgle in “Lightnin’,” with the simple lyrics “lightnin’ strikes me down” repeated by Gordon. On their 2000 tour supporting this album, “Lightnin’” was used as their encore, and I’ll bet it worked quite well.

Though the album has extremely distinct highs and lows, it works as a very cohesive whole and is digested easiest in one sitting. I think this is why my review took so long to be written. The more time I spent listening to these songs, the more I wanted to listen and let my opinions form. This also accounts for the tone of the critical reviews upon the album’s release. The Pitchfork reviewer reacted so negatively to the self-indulgent style some of the lyrics took on, while Robert Christgau fell in love with the beauty of “Free City Rhymes,” when in reality neither review is particularly accurate. Both of these aspects work in part to form an album that is experimental in ways no other Sonic Youth album has been before or since its release. In addition, the material is so dense; I have used over 1,000 words here and never managed to mention the introduction of Jim O’Rourke’s production and the electronic textures he brought with him for this release. I was so interested in the direction the lyrics took, I still don’t feel I have a firm grip on all that is going on with the music.

But I must sum this up. Most of these tracks would not end up on a Sonic Youth’s Greatest Hits album (please let there never be such an abomination!) and in general this album will never be listened to by me as much as Washing Machine or Sonic Nurse but I am so glad it exists, and hope that every SY fan will pick up a copy and listen with an open mind. It is a difficult and worthwhile trip.

Whoo! I am exhausted. Next up, Joni Mitchell’s Dog Eat Dog.