Sonic Youth
NYC Ghosts & Flowers
[Geffen]
Rating: 0.0
No, I have not forgotten to put the numbers into the rating spaces above. In over two years
of writing for Pitchfork, I've waited for the one album that would warrant a 0.0-- perhaps even
covet the lesser o.o. In my five years of reading Pitchfork, I can only remember a couple of
0.0s, likely spouting from the scalding keyboard of Jason Josephes. Now, finally, my generation
has its Metal Machine Music-- an unfathomable album which will be heard in the squash
courts and open mic nights of deepest hell. At least Lou Reed had the good grace to keep his
mouth shut on his grinding hallmark of pretentious ejaculation.
We Chicagoans are stubbornly proud. We shout insults to New York with mouths full of all-beef
hot dogs and Old Style beer. This general resentment mostly stems from being dubbed "The
Second City." However, landmarks like NYC Ghosts & Flowers refocus our dislike with
greater alacrity. Sonic Youth's umpteenth album wads everything we hate about New York into
one convenient tissue. The only thing missing is the Mets. Sonic Youth remind us that white
New Yorkers still grow soul-patches and goatees, wear berets and Rastafarian caps, dine on
grilled tofu in an emulsification of goat butter and kumquat, and watch Dutch documentaries
about fisting, thinking it's original, intellectual, or influential.
These 40+ year olds continue to operate under the perception that they matter. However, one of
the prerequisites for being "experimental" or "underground" is that, down the road, somebody
has to be influenced by the work and appropriate elements into the common collective. The
minimal noodling on NYC Ghosts & Flowers merely retreads the rancid corpses of beat
poetry and avant-garde noise.
In a way, Sonic Youth's offenses are no different than, say, the Bloodhound Gang. Where the
Bloodhound Gang push recycled Beastie Boys and "South Park" jokes on will-less consumers, Sonic
Youth scrap together Yoko Ono, Glenn Branca, and Allen Ginsberg into major label product. But
just like living in the Big Apple, you're merely paying more for it. These are not new ideas.
These are ideas that were arrogant and unlistenable upon birth 30 years ago. Sonic Youth are
even old enough to know that! Thurston Moore stuck the sleeves of John Cage albums into his
spokes and Kim Gordon played house with her Kathy Acker action figures.
Shockingly, aside from some distortion crescendos on "Renegade Princess" and "Nevermind," the
volume here is kept at a muted minimum. Flashing and bleeting overrules chords. Now both words
in the name "Sonic Youth" fit incorrectly. A "song" might be merely thwacking a bass repeatedly
("side2side") or rubbing callused fingers over gainless guitar strings (mostly everything else).
The horror-score chiming of "Free City Rhymes" comes closest to older Sonic Youth-- or at least
the worst moments from A Thousand Leaves-- and features the album's only qualified
"singing." Elsewhere, it's straight spoken word, or in Gordon's case, "grunted word"-- the
quality of which brings to mind freshman poetry classes where that one Doors worshiper recites
beat prose to the general embarrassment of the entire class. Each line is a prime example, but
some demand extra warning. For example, Kim Gordon moans (in lowercase), "boys go to jupiter to
get more stupider/ girls go to mars, become rock stars," before daring God with the closing,
"strike me down/ strike me down/ with lightning." Her underwear fascination continues on
"side2side" with sighs of "bra" and "special/ underwear."
Producer Jim O'Rourke keeps the guitars thin and the electronic bleeps ready in a Hefty sack
while Thurston drops his voice into comedic Norse mumbling on "streamXsonic subway." In a
rushed cadence, he spits cyberpunk mumbo-jumbo like, "clipped on my streetmatick clogs/ pushed
thru the hyped-out fervent fogs/ found my way with sensoid jogs/ new radio structure." Picture
this barked over what sounds like a riding mower running over a line of Tonka trucks. Whoever
stole Sonic Youth's equipment, please give it back. Or, perhaps, you didn't steal enough.
And this being democratic badness, Lee Ranaldo speaks hilarious William S. Burroughs
impersonations on the title track. "Hey did any of you freaks here ever remember Lenny," he
asks as if he's wearing a trenchcoat in a opium den.
As Chip Chanko pointed out:
Sonic Youth = communism
Daydream Nation = Russian Revolution
Experimental Jet Set = "Hunt for Red October"
So, essentially, an idea that seemed right on paper and in initial, riotous action, but one
that has since corroded into a hollow sham. Plus, one could only wish Sonic Youth even
approached the sound of Daydream Nation here. Instead, we're left with structures based
on toggling the pickup selector on a Fender. The last two lackluster albums at least left
beautiful epics like "Diamond Sea" and "Hits of Sunshine," but this record merely squirts out
electro-duck quacks over nothingness on the opening to "Lightnin'." Everything down to the
grammar and paintings inside is lamentable. Peppering speech with "fuck" and typing "that's
whatchoo got crawling in yr panic net" fails to qualify as inventive or hip these days. Melody
and harmony have been banned in Sonic Youth's camp. Merit badges are now awarded for bleeding
squeaks from amps and rhyming "punk" with "slunk."
A 0.0 is monumental. I have to keep questioning this decision, but the evidence is there. It
takes a giant to fall and make this big of a splash. Home movies may be sloppy, but titanic
disasters like "Hudson Hawk" and "Bonfire of the Vanities" go down in history when even the
the dam of skill, better judgment, and experience fails to stymie the flood of bile. Sonic
Youth seem intent on staying in New York. Ghosts & Flowers sounds like a conceptual
dedication to their home. New York, their mother, should even feel ashamed. Chicago sleeps
soundly knowing we didn't produce such an album... doh! Jim O'Rourke! Just move, already!
-Brent DiCrescenzo