Artist.......: Sonic Youth
Album........: Live de la Semaine
Label........: n/a
Genre........: Rock
Catnr........: n/a
Source.......: DVBS
Rip.date.....: 2009-12-16
Str.date.....: 2009-11-00
Quality......: 196kbps/48.0kHz/Joint Stereo
Url..........: http://www.sonicyouth.com/
track title time
1. StΘphane Saunier - Intro 1:07
2. Sonic Youth - No way 4:23
3. Sonic Youth - Sacred trickster 2:15
4. Sonic Youth - Anti-orgasm 6:30
5. Sonic Youth - What we know 4:08
6. Sonic Youth - Antenna 6:29
7. Sonic Youth - Leaky lifeboat 3:38
8. Sonic Youth - Poison arrow 4:05
9. StΘphane Saunier - Ending 0:20
Runtime 32:55
Size 46.32
Release Notes:
Sonic Youth were one of the most unlikely success stories
of underground American rock in the '80s. Where
contemporaries R.E.M. and Hⁿsker Dⁿ were fairly
conventional in terms of song structure and melody, Sonic
Youth began their career by abandoning any pretense of
traditional rock & roll conventions. Borrowing heavily
from the free-form noise experimentalism of the Velvet
Underground and the Stooges, and melding it with a
performance art aesthetic borrowed from the New York
post-punk avant-garde, Sonic Youth redefined what noise
meant within rock & roll. Sonic Youth rarely rocked,
though they were inspired directly by hardcore punk,
post-punk, and no wave. Instead, their dissonance,
feedback, and alternate tunings created a new sonic
landscape, one that redefined what rock guitar could do.
The band's trio of independent late-'80s records ù EVOL,
Sister, Daydream Nation ù became touchstones for a
generation of indie rockers who either replicated the
noise or reinterpreted it in a more palatable setting. As
their career progressed, Sonic Youth grew more palatable
as well, as their more free-form songs began to feel like
compositions and their shorter works began to rock harder.
During the '90s, most American indie bands, and many
British underground bands, displayed a heavy debt to Sonic
Youth, and the group itself had become a popular cult
band, with each of its albums charting in the Top 100.
Such success was unthinkable when guitarists Thurston
Moore and Lee Ranaldo formed Sonic Youth with bassist Kim
Gordon in 1981. Moore had spent his childhood in Bethel,
CT; Ranaldo was from Long Island. Both guitarists arrived
in Manhattan during the height of the New York-based
post-punk no wave movement, and began performing with the
avant-garde composer Glenn Branca, whose dissonant,
guitar-based music provided the basis for much of Sonic
Youth's early music. Moore's girlfriend Gordon had been
active in the avant and no wave scenes for some time, and
the pair helped stage the Noise Festival, in which the
band made its live debut during the summer of 1981. At the
time, Sonic Youth also featured keyboardist Anne DeMarinis
and drummer Richard Edson. DeMarinis left the band shortly
afterward, and the quartet recorded its eponymous debut
EP, which was released on Branca's Neutral Records the
following year. During 1983, Edson left the band to pursue
an acting career and he was replaced by Bob Bert, who
drummed on the group's debut album, Confusion Is Sex
(1983). The band supported the album with its first
European tour. Later that year, the group released the EP
Kill Yr Idols on the German Zensor label.
Early in 1984, Moore attempted to land the band a contract
with the British indie label Doublevision, but the label
rejected the demos. Paul Smith, one of the owners of
Doublevision, decided to form Blast First Records in order
to release Sonic Youth records. Soon, he received a
distribution deal from the hip U.K. indie label Rough
Trade, and the band had its first label with strong
distribution. During all these record label negotiations
in 1984, the cassette-only live album Sonic Death: Sonic
Youth Live was released on Ecstatic Peace. Bad Moon
Rising, the group's first album for Blast First, was
released in 1985 to strong reviews throughout the
underground music press. The album was markedly different
from their earlier releases ù it was the first record they
made that incorporated their dissonant, feedback-drenched
experimentations within relatively straightforward pop
song structures. Following the release of the Death Valley
'69 EP, Bert was replaced by Steve Shelley, who became the
group's permanent drummer.
Bad Moon Rising had attracted significant attention
throughout the American underground, including some offers
from major labels. Instead, Sonic Youth decided to sign
with SST, home of Hⁿsker Dⁿ and Black Flag, releasing EVOL
in 1986. With EVOL, the group a became fixture on college
radio, and its status grew significantly with 1987's
Sister, which was heavily praised by mainstream
publications like Rolling Stone. The group's profile
increased further with the 1988 Ciccone Youth side project
The Whitey Album, which was a tongue-in-cheek tribute to
Madonna and other parts of mainstream pop culture. The
band's true breakthrough was the double album Daydream
Nation. Released on Enigma Records, Daydream Nation was a
tour de force that was hailed as a masterpiece upon its
fall 1988 release, and it generated a college radio hit
with "Teenage Riot." Though the album was widely praised,
Enigma suffered from poor distribution and eventually
bankruptcy, which meant the album occasionally wasn't in
stores. These factors contributed heavily to the band's
decision to move to the major label DGC in 1990.
Signing a contract that gave them complete creative
control, as well as letting them function as pseudo-A&R
reps for the label, Sonic Youth established a precedent
for alternative bands moving to majors during the '90s,
proving that it was possible to preserve indie credibility
on a major label. Released in the fall of 1990, Goo, the
band's first major-label album, boasted a more focused
sound, yet it didn't abandon the group's noise aesthetics.
The result was a college radio hit, and the group's first
album to crack the Top 100. Neil Young invited Sonic Youth
to open for him on his arena tour for Ragged Glory, and
though they failed to win over much of the rocker's
audience, it represented their first major incursion into
the mainstream; it also helped make Young a cult figure
within the alternative circles during the '90s.
For their second major-label album, Dirty, Sonic Youth
attempted to replicate the sloppy, straightforward sound
of grunge rockers Mudhoney and Nirvana. The band had been
supporting those two Seattle-based groups for several
years (and had released a split single with Mudhoney and
brought Nirvana to DGC Records), and while the songs on
Dirty were hardly grunge, it was more pop-oriented and
accessible than earlier Sonic Youth records. Produced by
Butch Vig, who also produced Nirvana's Nevermind, Dirty
became an alternative hit upon its summer 1992 release,
generating the modern rock hits "100%," "Youth Against
Fascism," and "Sugar Kane." Sonic Youth quickly became
hailed as one of the godfathers of the alternative rock
that had become the most popular form of rock music in the
U.S., and Dirty became a hit along with the exposure,
eventually going gold.
Sonic Youth again worked with Vig for 1994's Experimental
Jet Set, Trash and No Star, which entered the U.S. charts
at number 34 and the U.K. charts at number ten, making it
their highest-charting album ever. The high chart position
was proof of their popularity during the previous two
years, as it received decidedly mixed reviews and quickly
fell down the charts. Later in 1994, Moore and Gordon ù
who had married several years before ù had their first
child, a daughter named Coco Haley. Sonic Youth agreed to
headline 1995's American Lollapalooza package tour, using
the earnings to build a new studio. Following the
completion of the tour, Sonic Youth released Washing
Machine, which received their strongest reviews since
Daydream Nation. After a series of experimental EPs issued
on their own SYR label, they resurfaced in 1998 with the
full-length A Thousand Leaves. NYC Ghosts & Flowers, which
featured Jim O'Rourke as a producer and musician, followed
in the spring of 2000. O'Rourke became a full member of
the group, touring with the band and appearing on and
producing 2002's Murray Street.
The five-piece Sonic Youth returned in 2004 with Sonic
Nurse; one year later, however, O'Rourke departed the band
to pursue a career as a film director. Late in 2005, the
remaining bandmates issued SYR 6, a recording of a benefit
concert for the Anthology Film Archives that Sonic Youth
had played alongside percussionist Tim Barnes. Rather
Ripped, a fusion of the mellow, sprawling feel of the
band's previous two albums with a more stripped-down
sound, was released in 2006. In 2008, the band resurrected
the SYR series: J'Accuse Ted Hughes arrived that spring as
a vinyl-only release, while Andre Sider Af Sonic Youth
chronicled an improvised performance at 2005's Roskilde
Festival. They also assembled a compilation album for
Starbucks, Hits Are for Squares, featuring the previously
unreleased track "Slow Revolution." Before the busy year
concluded, Sonic Youth made additional headlines by
leaving the Geffen label and signing with Matador, which
prepared to issue the band's 16h album, The Eternal,
during the following spring.