What happen to Sonic Youth?

The honest answer is nothing. They’ve been releasing albums like clockwork for nearly as long as I’ve been alive. The last album of theirs I bought was Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, though this was after Washing Machine had been released. In the span from about ‘96 to ‘98 I managed to convince myself they’d vanished.

Throughout my adulthood I’ve  never once ran across another person who use to love Sonic Youth. Many people seem to know who they are yet so few actually can name a song or album of theirs. Even my friends who are musicians haven’t ever owned an album of theirs. With this being the case it blew my mind to see that after nearly a decade of only listening to the few albums I owned that they keep creating and releasing music.

There must be a hidden underground fan base somewhere. Perhaps in the mountains of Arizona, I don’t know. Wherever they are I want to both thank you and reach out to you.

See, if you recall when my iPod broke down you may remember that I lost a lot of music.  Some of that music was most of one of the two remaining albums I have of theirs: Experimental Jet Set. Since I was still moving into my new place I hadn’t unpacked everything when this happen so I decided to hold off re-ripping a few albums until I was unpacked, and that was one of them. Well, I finally got around to ripping a whole pile of CDs that took the entire day to complete (in flac).

At the bottom of the pile was Experimental Jet Set, I was saving it. When I opened up the case my heart sank. The disc was in there but it was damaged beyond readability. Rather than get upset I did what most people do now on the internet and found a torrent. I handpicked the first few albums that I could find in good quality, then went to a decent quality discography to fill in the gaps. The next morning they were all on my computer and I had already shared them with other people.

I’ve since been listening to these albums over and over, when I’m alone mostly. Not even my wife can get through a whole album without asking me to skip one or more tracks on it. But I love it, every track of it. OK, granted the earlier stuff isn’t as well focused or organized as it could be, everything from ‘85 on is pretty much gold.

A few of these albums I hadn’t heard in nearly a decade, and yet I found myself remembering everything. Even the lyrics to a few songs. This music brings back such strong and vivid memories once long lost. The strange thing is that many of those memories are fogged over with a colored haze. I’ve heard before that some people dream in specific colors (like red, or black and white) but that always seemed like a completely ludicrous thing that I’d written it off as urban legend. Then, while listening to Washing Machines I had memories return entirely in one color of green or purple (not at the same time though).

This moved me emotionally. I now feel like I never missed a day of listening to Sonic Youth. I know that I’ve worn this maroon t-shirt from a concert of theirs since High School and it’s barely hanging together. It was a shirt that my friend picked up for me when I couldn’t attend said concert. It gives me a strange comfort to know that I no longer have to hold onto the memories of enjoying the band, but that I can still enjoy them now.

Now I’ve picked up albums that I’d never heard before, or I thought never existed.  Why didn’t anyone tell me about these. Yes, I’m pushing this off onto others because it’s only within the last few years that I’ve gotten back into music. So many of the albums and artists I loved in the 90’s haven’t aged as well as I wanted. Then Sonic Youth comes along and proves an amazing band can survive coming out of that decade unscathed. It’s even possible that I enjoy and understand them more now than I ever could in High School.