The song is musically and lyrically a tribute to J Mascis, the original slacker and frontman to the band Dinosaur Jr. It was originally called J Mascis For President.
@@jonathandufern7421 They were with Warner Bros. for a minute. They sound how they want to. I saw them several months ago with Built to Spill. Dinosaur Jr. was as loud as ever.
“Never heard music by sonic youth before. So here we go with Teenage Riot” 🤣 Oh buddy, you have no idea what’s about to happen and I can’t wait to see it.
"It's a whirlwind of a song" is a perfect take on this. Getting in the pit for this song at a couple of their shows felt exactly like that. The energy just picks up, has these peaks that were just so much fun for that.
Sonic Youth is one of my favourite bands of all time. Their approach to composition, musicianship and innovative use of alternative guitar tunings redefined what "rock" music could be for me. While their studio recordings are great - particularly the classic run from Evol to Daydream Nation (which this song is just one of the many highlights from) - I think they really have to be witnessed live to get the full experience.
incredible band. Personally DayDream Nation is my favorite album from them. They are second favorite band of all time right behind Nirvana in which Bleach is the best album.
I think the best historical/cultural referent is the idea of the ‘slacker’. The contrast between lethargy and energy, deliberately playing them off each other in an ironic way is classic gen-x shit. Like literally foundational to the generation myth, referenced in the novel called ‘Generation X’ from which that name originated.
you can't say they are fathers of noise rock when bands like velvet underground, the stooges and crass were doing noisy and experimental shit two decades earlier
It came to my ears in 98 in Brazil, ten years after the recording. I was 14 y.o at that time and it was my first contact with SY ever. That confusion of tempo is what makes it so lovely in my head. Also the mix of emotions that it evokes in me. It's fast, it's slow, it's sad, it's not sad, it´s an ambivalent song. 19 years later I saw Lee Ranaldo performing his own songs in my hometown (a Tiny Desk´s concert vibe) and I gave him a firm handshake after the concert and he was very thankful to my commments, so humble and open. He showed to be a really easy-going guy. I love Sonic Youth!
The idea behind Sonic Youth is to turn the experimental melody-less music of the 20th century, in particular, the drones and noises, the plinks and plonks of 20th century classical music, into pop music. The bridge was the new sounds from the electric guitar pioneered by Glenn Branca, and the main technique is Glenn Branca "hallucinated melody". When you play several notes simultaneously slightly detuned, but with a harmonic relationship, very, very loudly, you will create a hallucination of melody even in a static chord. This means that the melody is formed by your brain from extremely loud tones, every two listeners will hallucinate a slightly different melody. If you missed the subtleties of the music, you need to listen to it louder, that's all. The guitar theme sounds like WAY more notes than it actually is, that's what gives the feeling of a blistering tempo, when it's actually mid-tempo. This is a pop version of the hallucinated melody idea, so it's a 6 minute pop song. The lyrics are impressionistic in early REM style, while the laid-back delivery is copied from Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis, who was the inspiration for this song. The whole thing has a counterculture vibe that is hard to understand today, because all counterculture disappeared instantly after 9/11.
Good observation with the shoegaze comparison. Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine has said that he was more inspired by American groups like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. You were spot on with the phrase whirlwind, the almost hypnotic feel of this song is part of the appeal in particular
When I was a teenager (long ago) and this came out I thought it was pretty much the best indie guitar song ever. I can’t have been alone as it’s often imitated but never bettered.
Basically, the term "alternative rock" originally just meant that it wasn't what was being played on the radio. It wasn't a specific style so much as it was the absence of the generic, popular style. After Nirvana got big, the term got misapplied to what became, for while, the most popular form of music out there, and people started pigeonholing it, as people do.
Sonic Youth is my favorite band ever! I've seen 'em twice! (3 if you count when I was still in the womb). They incorporate a lot of less-common tunings, dissonance, and odd rhythms. Its a bit hard to make a solid comparison of their body of work to any other band. If this sort of song structure intrigues you, you may be interested to know they began as a No-Wave band. No-Wave was/is a general diversion from musical tradition in almost any way conceivable. Its very experimental, and therefor not an easy recommendation for most, but I happen to love it because a lot of great music was born of this band/sub-genre of punk/rock much like Jazz's influence. I'd encourage you to listen to more of their music spanning from the early records and on toward the 90's. You'll see a ton of evolution. In a way, I kind of envy you just discovering such a treasure as this band for the first time. Great vid, take care! :)
I'm by no means an expert on this stuff so someone please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, but I did explore some old-school alternative rock years ago and this is sort of the jist of its historical context from what I remember: Let's take a trip back to the 80s when mainstream rock radio was pretty mich dominated by cheesy overproduced hair metal and new wave (which was basically a cheesy, overproduced twist on 70's punk that was tame enough for mainstream). Lots of people koved that stuff back then but some people wanted something different, so they turned to more quirky, raw experimental stuff that was happening in the underground and on college radio. So basically it was an "alternative" to the stagnant rock music in the mainstream at the time, similar to how much of 70s punk was a response to the corny stadium rock and pretentious prog rock that was big back then. A lot of it grew out of the burgeoning 80s underground punk scene, so lots of post-punk, no wave, and even some hardcore too, but early alt-rock was really sort of a mish-mash of all sorts of different unique bands doing their own thing rather than one homogenized sound. You had bands like R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails, Dinosaur Jr, The Pixies, They Might Be Giants, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine and indeed Sonic Youth (one of the more avant-garde, noisier bands in the genre) all working under the alt-rock umbrella around the same time, and later you even had some Brit-pop in there too, and there was a certain scene that started growing in Seattle which eventually exploded when Nirvana dropped their second album Nevermind, basically killing off hair metal over night and kicking off the grunge craze. There were tons of alternative and "grunge" bands before Nirvana but this is basically the point when it became accepted by the mainstream and all the major labels wanted in on that money, scrambling around signing all sorts of bands hoping they could find the next Nirvana. Did that ever happen? I dunno, but at some point we ended up with the sort of watered down, homogenized post-grunge genre (think Nickleback, Creed, Hinder or any other band with a vocalist doing a shitty Eddie Vedder impression) that basically dominated alternative rock radio alongside pop-punk/emo for much of the late 90s and early 2000s, until the modern indie scene rose to prominence and took the throne. So yeah. I'm sure there's a lot more to it than that but hopefully that gives you a somewhat accurate, clearer idea of where alternative rock came from and how it morphed along the way into how we think of it today. If you didn't need into alternative rock until the 90s or 2000s then you probably heard a more commercialized, homogeneous version of it rather than the more eclectic mix of sounds from the 80s. I'm also pretty sure the whole thing with Clear Channel buying up and controlling most of the major radio stations in America also happened around the time post-grunge started taking over. As for a little more about Sonic Youth specifically, they started out in the no-wave scene (which was a movement that tried to do away with the common rock music tropes of 70s punk but keep the ethos) and moved more towards a more noisey, experimental sound using lots of alternate tunings and prepared guitars and all sorts of effects. But at the same time they also developed some strong melodic pop sensibilities which eventually allowed them some success in the mainstream despite being a more underground independent band. You can hear some of that in this song and throughout the album it comes from, Daydream Nation, which is widely considered a landmark record among alternative rock and 80s music in general. Also, if you played Guitar Hero III you might have heard their biggest hit "Kool Thing" before too, might be worth checking out to see if you recognize it. Their bassist Kim Gordon sings on that one so it sounds quite different from Teen Age Riot. She also helped get Nirvana signed before anyone knew about them so there's a fun fact as well.
"but early alt-rock was really sort of a mish-mash of all sorts of different unique bands doing their own thing rather than one homogenized sound" "at some point we ended up with the sort of watered down, homogenized post-grunge genre" This certainly helps clarify some stuff. I listened to Karnivool and was wondering how both Sonic Youth and Karnivool were alt rock but it being more of a blanket term rather than a hard genre makes a lot of sense. And yeah, my exposure to alt rock has been the commercialized stuff that Clear Channel pushed out (and continues to push out) on my local rock station. So hearing that history of alt rock was quite enlightening. It's funny how it started as a sort of counter culture of mainstream rock and lived long enough to be the very thing it fought against. And thanks for the mini history of Sonic Youth too. Really interesting to hear they switch between noisier musics to more poppy stuff and find a middle ground between the two.
Hey, look, someone besides me wrote the novel this time about the history of the genre/band! Thanks for saving me the trouble, man, and great explanation!
I tend not to listen to individual songs off this album. I just put the whole album on, and listen all the way through, in the dark, with the lights off. It's the kind of band that makes the most sense when you're totally immersed in the experience, and not everyone has the patience for that.
Young Man . I am an old Fart Boomer and a devoted life long rocknroll fan and sometimes I have to react with you guys . There are Artists I haven’t got to and Sonic Youth is one of them . I used to hear that Sonic Youth was just noise . I don’t hear that. This is melodic and good . I have to listen to more Sonic Youth and have to react with Reactors like you because you are also Teacher with insights I am not capable of
Would be interesting to see your reaction to something off one of their early albums, Something like Kill yr Idols, Brother James, I'm insane, Brave Men Run, Shadow of a doubt, Expressway to yr skull, etc. which is much more experimental and dissonant. One of the things about them I find most interesting is their progression from their early sound to this sound. It's almost like they deconstructed and dismantled rock composition and rebuilt it back in their own sort of image.
So what you’re saying is Sonic Youth were an astonishing band and we’re lucky to have experienced them. I thought that’s what you meant. Joking aside, I always enjoyed the mantra like lyrics of some sonic youth songs, and hang a chorus.
Looking forward to this week as I don’t listen to alternative. Does anybody know a history of why this genre is called what it is?? Alternative to what?? Overall liked the song. The repetitive opening really sucked me in. The switch up caught me off guard. Completely different energy but a similar rhythm to the opening. The overall feeling had a feeling of being in high school- fun, laid back, no worries (I was blessed with a great experience). On another note- Woohoo! Got my tank top!
I can kinda get that 'high school' feeling here -- the fun and no worries kinda vibe. I don't really get the laid back vibe but that might just be me. And thanks for grabbing a shirt!
It was alternative to mainstream rock. The distinction made more sense in the 80s when hair metal was the dominant popular form of rock music. Bands like Sonic Youth, Pixies, Replacements, etc. were coming from more of a punk tradition, but didn't fit in with the various 80s genres that punk had evolved into like hardcore music. Similar to post-punk a whole lot of very different and disparate bands got lazily flung into the category mostly because they didn't fit neatly into other genres. Once alternative hit the mainstream with grunge in the early 90s it basically became the popular form of rock and the genre name basically lost the significance of its original meaning because there wasn't anything it was an alternative to after it killed hair metal.
I've tried to learn how to play the guitar in this... I gave up pretty quickly because you don't realize at first listen how far removed it is from traditional rock guitar playing.
When I was learning to play guitar in the mid-90s I lucked out by finding a guy named Keith at a place called Zone Music. He had perfect pitch and a pitch adjusting tape recorder. I could bring him any song and after a listen or two he could play it and show me how to play it. I brought him a lot of Nirvana and other alt bands but when I finally brought him Sonic Youth’s Teenage Riot, he took pause. He knew right away this was something else entirely. He played it over and over, shifting the pitch, toying around on the frets. After about 10 minutes of me sitting there just watching him do his process he looks at me and says, “Are you ready to learn this song?” He then shows me how to play it in standard tuning (!!!) and it sounded perfect! He asked me to bring in more SY and boy, did I oblige him!
@@crayoniii Pretty impressive considering there's two distinct guitar parts going at the same time, and there's also multiple strings playing the same note throughout to produce a sort of natural chorus effect and distinctive timbre akin to Glenn Branca compositions
Don't know if you caught it, but the guitars are intentionally slightly off-tune, or rather tuned atonally. They did that the exact same way for this song, using a tuning fork to get it exactly "right" (wrong). There's something about it that that feels "weird" and grabs your attention. Unless you listen to it a lot or have perfect pitch, it's easy to miss.
It's a "Teenage Riot". There is no past, there is no future. "You're it No, you're it" This is setting up ambivalence to the self... getting past the ego. "Spirit Desire" "Spirit Desire" "We will fall" This is setting up flow, energy, a State of Being. Then you have the whirlwind. As you say, no Landmarks... What's missing in the studio track is the coda at the end of the song, it's natural end point... Pure Energy... *Feedback* from the guitars up against the Marshall Stacks. See the live performance here: m.ua-cam.com/video/jVpjyCWjNrk/v-deo.html
Having seen them play the Teenage Riot coda live more than a few times, I can safely say I’m very happy it didn’t make it onto the studio version. This is coming from a guy who loves the “noisy” parts…usually.
Sonic Youth is just the quintessential Gen X band. They just perfectly capture the spirit and the atmosphere of the time for older Gen Xers. I was a younger Gen Xer but they really did capture the essence of teens and young people in that period in the 80s, the no-frills, in-your-face, abrasiveness and fearlessness, the danger and excitement of the times, the obsession with horror movies, lol (this was when Freddy Krueger was new and was a huge deal culturally). I think back now and think that I was lucky that I was a little kid in the 80s and not a teenager. This is actually one of Sonic Youth’s lighter songs from the 80s, but even their darker music is all honest and real about what was going on outside of the mainstream with the youth.
Excellent review. SY have always been punk's professors, but your review thankfully made them sound more punk than professor. P.S. This song is my favorite to run to...or now in my old age, lightly jog to.
I never really listened to Sonic Youth, but my friends did back in the day (high school/post high school). I'd say this is alternative to punk and/or metal. My punk friends were fans, I was more into metal. Definitely pre-grunge, so could be alt to that also. Sounds a little grungy to me, but I'm not the savvy one here. I didn't dislike the song, just didn't really give them a chance.
this is from Sonic Youth's best era, the album Daydream Nation, you could also listen to the album before, Sister, or the 2 albums after Goo, and Dirty , if you did want to check them out.
Sonic Youth is punk af! They were heavily influenced by punk. Silver Rocket and ‘Cross the Breeze are punk songs through and through and that’s just from one album. With all due respect, you’re TRIPPING.
I'm a pretty open minded composer myself but have to say Sonic Youth and Jesus & Mary Chain are two bands with very low level musicianship, like them all you want but I'm astounded they got anywhere. At least bands like Metric, Feist and Arcade Fire are all good musicians!
The key to understanding this song is dancing to it. It is not meant for gazing at ones shoe in quiet contemplation. It starts as a meditation to sway to, then turns into a bop to bop to.
i think you would have perceived the strengths of the song more clearly if u knew how early it was in the history of this sound... your use of the term 'shoegaze' is interesting because this predates a lot of shoegaze (with due respect to the jesus and mary chain)
my take is that the song is supposed to establish a rhythm for the life of someone who would want to bring a bit of that 'teenage riot' into their daily esprit... so the function of the entire assembly is to instill a rhythm, a foot-tap, a driving, rumbling foot tap of great pace.. and the inflection of the cycles is inherently positive, so yeah it's trying to gift a positive, forward momentum and sense of energy
I dunno man you just seem to have been pretty deaf to the metaphor of the song.. it's meant to sound like a riot of many different parts working in unison, "whirlwind" was right.. also, might be because you're classically trained but in the track you seem deaf to the syllables of the lyric being another instrument
Sonic Youth is one of those bands that I have a ton of respect for their originality and influence but which I don't personally enjoy that much. For me they always seemed too in love with their ability to make weird sounds (makes sense considering they're considered the pioneers of noise rock), and while I often find the sounds they come up with fascinating I've also always felt like their technical and songwriting abilities lagged far behind their sonic experimentation. I really wish Pixies had made the list for this week because I think they have a similar "weirdness" to them but were able to write much better songs.
I remember an interview with the Pixies where they talked about their songwriting and how they would name the songs what they sounded like, and Joey joked "Led Zeppelin 1... Led Zeppelin 2..."
The song is musically and lyrically a tribute to J Mascis, the original slacker and frontman to the band Dinosaur Jr. It was originally called J Mascis For President.
Two of the most legendary bands of all time
Dinosaur Jr. is great. I always said if they had better production they would have been up there with the rest
@@jonathandufern7421 They were with Warner Bros. for a minute. They sound how they want to. I saw them several months ago with Built to Spill. Dinosaur Jr. was as loud as ever.
Hell even Nirvana idolized them. Grandfather of grunge!!!
@@lobotomyscam1051 I love those Warner era records, too. Mike Johnson was underrated.
“Never heard music by sonic youth before. So here we go with Teenage Riot”
🤣 Oh buddy, you have no idea what’s about to happen and I can’t wait to see it.
"It's a whirlwind of a song" is a perfect take on this. Getting in the pit for this song at a couple of their shows felt exactly like that. The energy just picks up, has these peaks that were just so much fun for that.
Sonic Youth is one of my favourite bands of all time. Their approach to composition, musicianship and innovative use of alternative guitar tunings redefined what "rock" music could be for me. While their studio recordings are great - particularly the classic run from Evol to Daydream Nation (which this song is just one of the many highlights from) - I think they really have to be witnessed live to get the full experience.
incredible band. Personally DayDream Nation is my favorite album from them. They are second favorite band of all time right behind Nirvana in which Bleach is the best album.
@@brendoderf4748agree Bleach is their best. so raw
As soon as the song starts I just can’t stop smiling. Fuck I love Sonic Youth. ❤
I think the best historical/cultural referent is the idea of the ‘slacker’. The contrast between lethargy and energy, deliberately playing them off each other in an ironic way is classic gen-x shit. Like literally foundational to the generation myth, referenced in the novel called ‘Generation X’ from which that name originated.
You're 100% correct on the idea of this being part of the origins of the genre. Impossible to overstate the influence this band had.
Sonic Youth's influence on the 90s sound is understated in musical history. This is one of the most 90s song ever, and it came out in '88.
Sonic Youth, fathers of noise rock and among the forerunners of alternative rock
you can't say they are fathers of noise rock when bands like velvet underground, the stooges and crass were doing noisy and experimental shit two decades earlier
@@brunoe1891 true but sonic youth took it too the next level and completely changed the Alt rock scene forever
The secret sauce is the VERY altered tunings on the guitar, with each guitar having a different tuning.
Bass guitar is traditionally tuned. Kim, Lee and Thurston worked with experimental composer Glen Branca. Steve (drums) came from hardcore punk
Brings me back to highschool, such a great guitar song to jam out with.
Me too ! Back to high school and my cassette player ! ❤️💕🎸
It came to my ears in 98 in Brazil, ten years after the recording. I was 14 y.o at that time and it was my first contact with SY ever. That confusion of tempo is what makes it so lovely in my head. Also the mix of emotions that it evokes in me. It's fast, it's slow, it's sad, it's not sad, it´s an ambivalent song. 19 years later I saw Lee Ranaldo performing his own songs in my hometown (a Tiny Desk´s concert vibe) and I gave him a firm handshake after the concert and he was very thankful to my commments, so humble and open. He showed to be a really easy-going guy. I love Sonic Youth!
The idea behind Sonic Youth is to turn the experimental melody-less music of the 20th century, in particular, the drones and noises, the plinks and plonks of 20th century classical music, into pop music. The bridge was the new sounds from the electric guitar pioneered by Glenn Branca, and the main technique is Glenn Branca "hallucinated melody". When you play several notes simultaneously slightly detuned, but with a harmonic relationship, very, very loudly, you will create a hallucination of melody even in a static chord. This means that the melody is formed by your brain from extremely loud tones, every two listeners will hallucinate a slightly different melody. If you missed the subtleties of the music, you need to listen to it louder, that's all. The guitar theme sounds like WAY more notes than it actually is, that's what gives the feeling of a blistering tempo, when it's actually mid-tempo. This is a pop version of the hallucinated melody idea, so it's a 6 minute pop song. The lyrics are impressionistic in early REM style, while the laid-back delivery is copied from Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis, who was the inspiration for this song. The whole thing has a counterculture vibe that is hard to understand today, because all counterculture disappeared instantly after 9/11.
Good observation with the shoegaze comparison. Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine has said that he was more inspired by American groups like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. You were spot on with the phrase whirlwind, the almost hypnotic feel of this song is part of the appeal in particular
I thought that was a pretty accurate description.
The two guitarists in Sonic Youth met when they were performing guitar compositions with Glenn Branca
sonic youth are the golf standard of alternate tuning in alternative rock. great video idea, love to see more SY and my bloody valentine
When I was a teenager (long ago) and this came out I thought it was pretty much the best indie guitar song ever. I can’t have been alone as it’s often imitated but never bettered.
Basically, the term "alternative rock" originally just meant that it wasn't what was being played on the radio. It wasn't a specific style so much as it was the absence of the generic, popular style. After Nirvana got big, the term got misapplied to what became, for while, the most popular form of music out there, and people started pigeonholing it, as people do.
Ahhh the great times of noise rock...what a blast, man, were the Sonic Youth!
Took me 30 years to like this song and I’m a fan of the band. It clicked today! Such a fun song glad I finally “got it!”
Sonic Youth is my favorite band ever! I've seen 'em twice! (3 if you count when I was still in the womb). They incorporate a lot of less-common tunings, dissonance, and odd rhythms. Its a bit hard to make a solid comparison of their body of work to any other band. If this sort of song structure intrigues you, you may be interested to know they began as a No-Wave band. No-Wave was/is a general diversion from musical tradition in almost any way conceivable. Its very experimental, and therefor not an easy recommendation for most, but I happen to love it because a lot of great music was born of this band/sub-genre of punk/rock much like Jazz's influence. I'd encourage you to listen to more of their music spanning from the early records and on toward the 90's. You'll see a ton of evolution. In a way, I kind of envy you just discovering such a treasure as this band for the first time. Great vid, take care! :)
Sonic Youth live was something else.
I'm by no means an expert on this stuff so someone please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, but I did explore some old-school alternative rock years ago and this is sort of the jist of its historical context from what I remember:
Let's take a trip back to the 80s when mainstream rock radio was pretty mich dominated by cheesy overproduced hair metal and new wave (which was basically a cheesy, overproduced twist on 70's punk that was tame enough for mainstream). Lots of people koved that stuff back then but some people wanted something different, so they turned to more quirky, raw experimental stuff that was happening in the underground and on college radio.
So basically it was an "alternative" to the stagnant rock music in the mainstream at the time, similar to how much of 70s punk was a response to the corny stadium rock and pretentious prog rock that was big back then.
A lot of it grew out of the burgeoning 80s underground punk scene, so lots of post-punk, no wave, and even some hardcore too, but early alt-rock was really sort of a mish-mash of all sorts of different unique bands doing their own thing rather than one homogenized sound. You had bands like R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails, Dinosaur Jr, The Pixies, They Might Be Giants, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine and indeed Sonic Youth (one of the more avant-garde, noisier bands in the genre) all working under the alt-rock umbrella around the same time, and later you even had some Brit-pop in there too, and there was a certain scene that started growing in Seattle which eventually exploded when Nirvana dropped their second album Nevermind, basically killing off hair metal over night and kicking off the grunge craze.
There were tons of alternative and "grunge" bands before Nirvana but this is basically the point when it became accepted by the mainstream and all the major labels wanted in on that money, scrambling around signing all sorts of bands hoping they could find the next Nirvana.
Did that ever happen? I dunno, but at some point we ended up with the sort of watered down, homogenized post-grunge genre (think Nickleback, Creed, Hinder or any other band with a vocalist doing a shitty Eddie Vedder impression) that basically dominated alternative rock radio alongside pop-punk/emo for much of the late 90s and early 2000s, until the modern indie scene rose to prominence and took the throne.
So yeah. I'm sure there's a lot more to it than that but hopefully that gives you a somewhat accurate, clearer idea of where alternative rock came from and how it morphed along the way into how we think of it today. If you didn't need into alternative rock until the 90s or 2000s then you probably heard a more commercialized, homogeneous version of it rather than the more eclectic mix of sounds from the 80s. I'm also pretty sure the whole thing with Clear Channel buying up and controlling most of the major radio stations in America also happened around the time post-grunge started taking over.
As for a little more about Sonic Youth specifically, they started out in the no-wave scene (which was a movement that tried to do away with the common rock music tropes of 70s punk but keep the ethos) and moved more towards a more noisey, experimental sound using lots of alternate tunings and prepared guitars and all sorts of effects. But at the same time they also developed some strong melodic pop sensibilities which eventually allowed them some success in the mainstream despite being a more underground independent band. You can hear some of that in this song and throughout the album it comes from, Daydream Nation, which is widely considered a landmark record among alternative rock and 80s music in general. Also, if you played Guitar Hero III you might have heard their biggest hit "Kool Thing" before too, might be worth checking out to see if you recognize it. Their bassist Kim Gordon sings on that one so it sounds quite different from Teen Age Riot. She also helped get Nirvana signed before anyone knew about them so there's a fun fact as well.
"but early alt-rock was really sort of a mish-mash of all sorts of different unique bands doing their own thing rather than one homogenized sound"
"at some point we ended up with the sort of watered down, homogenized post-grunge genre"
This certainly helps clarify some stuff. I listened to Karnivool and was wondering how both Sonic Youth and Karnivool were alt rock but it being more of a blanket term rather than a hard genre makes a lot of sense. And yeah, my exposure to alt rock has been the commercialized stuff that Clear Channel pushed out (and continues to push out) on my local rock station. So hearing that history of alt rock was quite enlightening. It's funny how it started as a sort of counter culture of mainstream rock and lived long enough to be the very thing it fought against. And thanks for the mini history of Sonic Youth too. Really interesting to hear they switch between noisier musics to more poppy stuff and find a middle ground between the two.
Hey, look, someone besides me wrote the novel this time about the history of the genre/band! Thanks for saving me the trouble, man, and great explanation!
Bought this on cassette tape on my 16th birthday. The start of a 35 year long romance with Sonic Youth. 'Sister' remains their best album.
I tend not to listen to individual songs off this album. I just put the whole album on, and listen all the way through, in the dark, with the lights off. It's the kind of band that makes the most sense when you're totally immersed in the experience, and not everyone has the patience for that.
Young Man . I am an old Fart Boomer and a devoted life long rocknroll fan and sometimes I have to react with you guys . There are Artists I haven’t got to and Sonic Youth is one of them . I used to hear that Sonic Youth was just noise . I don’t hear that. This is melodic and good . I have to listen to more Sonic Youth and have to react with Reactors like you because you are also Teacher with insights I am not capable of
Would be interesting to see your reaction to something off one of their early albums, Something like Kill yr Idols, Brother James, I'm insane, Brave Men Run, Shadow of a doubt, Expressway to yr skull, etc. which is much more experimental and dissonant. One of the things about them I find most interesting is their progression from their early sound to this sound. It's almost like they deconstructed and dismantled rock composition and rebuilt it back in their own sort of image.
I feel like he listened to the wrong song. Maybe something from Evol.
One of the most interesting bands of all time. You should do something from the album Dirty. Probably easier to get into.
Sonic Youth , one of a kind 💥
Absolute masterpiece!
As a composer, you mightl enjoy Glenn Branca, who pioneered these guitar harmonic techniques.
I think this song screams Generation X, apathetically.
Time to get it, before you let it get to you
So what you’re saying is Sonic Youth were an astonishing band and we’re lucky to have experienced them. I thought that’s what you meant. Joking aside, I always enjoyed the mantra like lyrics of some sonic youth songs, and hang a chorus.
An interesting song to react to is star by boredoms. Shit is crazy as hell.
But did you catch Kim’s bass solo though?
Looking forward to this week as I don’t listen to alternative. Does anybody know a history of why this genre is called what it is?? Alternative to what??
Overall liked the song. The repetitive opening really sucked me in. The switch up caught me off guard. Completely different energy but a similar rhythm to the opening. The overall feeling had a feeling of being in high school- fun, laid back, no worries (I was blessed with a great experience).
On another note- Woohoo! Got my tank top!
Noise Rock - Alternative Rock
I can kinda get that 'high school' feeling here -- the fun and no worries kinda vibe. I don't really get the laid back vibe but that might just be me. And thanks for grabbing a shirt!
@@CriticalReactions Oh, no, it's definitely not laid back jaja. It's energetic and youthful like you said. Arcade Fire kind of energy
It was alternative to mainstream rock. The distinction made more sense in the 80s when hair metal was the dominant popular form of rock music. Bands like Sonic Youth, Pixies, Replacements, etc. were coming from more of a punk tradition, but didn't fit in with the various 80s genres that punk had evolved into like hardcore music. Similar to post-punk a whole lot of very different and disparate bands got lazily flung into the category mostly because they didn't fit neatly into other genres. Once alternative hit the mainstream with grunge in the early 90s it basically became the popular form of rock and the genre name basically lost the significance of its original meaning because there wasn't anything it was an alternative to after it killed hair metal.
@@jonathanhenderson9422 Spot on, I couldn't have said it better
I've tried to learn how to play the guitar in this... I gave up pretty quickly because you don't realize at first listen how far removed it is from traditional rock guitar playing.
When I was learning to play guitar in the mid-90s I lucked out by finding a guy named Keith at a place called Zone Music. He had perfect pitch and a pitch adjusting tape recorder. I could bring him any song and after a listen or two he could play it and show me how to play it. I brought him a lot of Nirvana and other alt bands but when I finally brought him Sonic Youth’s Teenage Riot, he took pause. He knew right away this was something else entirely. He played it over and over, shifting the pitch, toying around on the frets. After about 10 minutes of me sitting there just watching him do his process he looks at me and says, “Are you ready to learn this song?” He then shows me how to play it in standard tuning (!!!) and it sounded perfect! He asked me to bring in more SY and boy, did I oblige him!
@@crayoniii Pretty impressive considering there's two distinct guitar parts going at the same time, and there's also multiple strings playing the same note throughout to produce a sort of natural chorus effect and distinctive timbre akin to Glenn Branca compositions
@@conors8117 yeah, it wasn’t a perfect arrangement but it was good enough to rock out with my friends.
one of the best bands of all
time
Concept album. Just a starting point.
Don't know if you caught it, but the guitars are intentionally slightly off-tune, or rather tuned atonally. They did that the exact same way for this song, using a tuning fork to get it exactly "right" (wrong). There's something about it that that feels "weird" and grabs your attention. Unless you listen to it a lot or have perfect pitch, it's easy to miss.
It's a "Teenage Riot". There is no past, there is no future.
"You're it
No, you're it"
This is setting up ambivalence to the self... getting past the ego.
"Spirit Desire"
"Spirit Desire"
"We will fall"
This is setting up flow, energy, a State of Being.
Then you have the whirlwind. As you say, no Landmarks...
What's missing in the studio track is the coda at the end of the song, it's natural end point... Pure Energy... *Feedback* from the guitars up against the Marshall Stacks.
See the live performance here:
m.ua-cam.com/video/jVpjyCWjNrk/v-deo.html
Having seen them play the Teenage Riot coda live more than a few times, I can safely say I’m very happy it didn’t make it onto the studio version. This is coming from a guy who loves the “noisy” parts…usually.
Sonic Youth is just the quintessential Gen X band. They just perfectly capture the spirit and the atmosphere of the time for older Gen Xers. I was a younger Gen Xer but they really did capture the essence of teens and young people in that period in the 80s, the no-frills, in-your-face, abrasiveness and fearlessness, the danger and excitement of the times, the obsession with horror movies, lol (this was when Freddy Krueger was new and was a huge deal culturally). I think back now and think that I was lucky that I was a little kid in the 80s and not a teenager. This is actually one of Sonic Youth’s lighter songs from the 80s, but even their darker music is all honest and real about what was going on outside of the mainstream with the youth.
Excellent review. SY have always been punk's professors, but your review thankfully made them sound more punk than professor.
P.S. This song is my favorite to run to...or now in my old age, lightly jog to.
I never really listened to Sonic Youth, but my friends did back in the day (high school/post high school). I'd say this is alternative to punk and/or metal. My punk friends were fans, I was more into metal. Definitely pre-grunge, so could be alt to that also. Sounds a little grungy to me, but I'm not the savvy one here. I didn't dislike the song, just didn't really give them a chance.
Now you can give them a chance 👍
this is from Sonic Youth's best era, the album Daydream Nation, you could also listen to the album before, Sister, or the 2 albums after Goo, and Dirty , if you did want to check them out.
Sonic Youth is punk af! They were heavily influenced by punk. Silver Rocket and ‘Cross the Breeze are punk songs through and through and that’s just from one album. With all due respect, you’re TRIPPING.
I'm a pretty open minded composer myself but have to say Sonic Youth and Jesus & Mary Chain are two bands with very low level musicianship, like them all you want but I'm astounded they got anywhere. At least bands like Metric, Feist and Arcade Fire are all good musicians!
You're listening wrong
The key to understanding this song is dancing to it. It is not meant for gazing at ones shoe in quiet contemplation. It starts as a meditation to sway to, then turns into a bop to bop to.
i think you would have perceived the strengths of the song more clearly if u knew how early it was in the history of this sound... your use of the term 'shoegaze' is interesting because this predates a lot of shoegaze (with due respect to the jesus and mary chain)
my take is that the song is supposed to establish a rhythm for the life of someone who would want to bring a bit of that 'teenage riot' into their daily esprit... so the function of the entire assembly is to instill a rhythm, a foot-tap, a driving, rumbling foot tap of great pace.. and the inflection of the cycles is inherently positive, so yeah it's trying to gift a positive, forward momentum and sense of energy
I dunno man you just seem to have been pretty deaf to the metaphor of the song.. it's meant to sound like a riot of many different parts working in unison, "whirlwind" was right.. also, might be because you're classically trained but in the track you seem deaf to the syllables of the lyric being another instrument
In case you didn't notice i listen to this video a lot lol so my thoughts on your reaction are slow burners
Sonic Youth is one of those bands that I have a ton of respect for their originality and influence but which I don't personally enjoy that much. For me they always seemed too in love with their ability to make weird sounds (makes sense considering they're considered the pioneers of noise rock), and while I often find the sounds they come up with fascinating I've also always felt like their technical and songwriting abilities lagged far behind their sonic experimentation. I really wish Pixies had made the list for this week because I think they have a similar "weirdness" to them but were able to write much better songs.
I like both bands but Pixies were the better band. Doolittle is an amazing album.
Pixies are more concise songwriting wise
I remember an interview with the Pixies where they talked about their songwriting and how they would name the songs what they sounded like, and Joey joked "Led Zeppelin 1... Led Zeppelin 2..."
just say you didnt like the song....
I wish you wouldn't take over the music... most of the time we can't hear you anyway.
We need need more Muse, YOU need more Muse.
For alt rock week.
muse is kinda meh.
@@mistry6292 Nowadays sure. But they have released 4 great albums, including a few masterpieces.
Muse are dreck