Review:

on 2009-08-26 thedeadgirls Said:

These days, Sonic Youth are viewed as juggernauts of the music industry. If someone is asked to name a band that has survived for a long period on their own terms, it's pretty safe to say Sonic Youth will be one of the first three bands mentioned in that conversation. For almost thirty years, they have been releasing genre-defying music that (sometimes) transcends the pop formula, and they have managed to be very successful.

However, it wasn't always this way. Sonic Youth's early years are best summed up with four words: Experimental out of necessity. When they started out, SY could barely play instruments. They simply knew they wanted to be in a band because they loved music, and they wanted to make more of it to put into the world. This is a very noble cause, but imagine (especially back in the pop radio saturation of the early 80's) all the shitty shows this band had to play, all the snobby hecklers they had to put up with, all the arrogant soundguys they got shit from, and all the general crap they had to endure just so they could make music. Remember, too, that Steve Shelley, a master of precise drumming, didn't enter the Sonic Youth picture until 1985 (right around the time they really started blowing up...hmmmm...). Before then, they had a slew of terrible to mediocre drummers, which only makde their live shows harder to grasp.

With that said, Bad Moon Rising is the quintessential early Sonic Youth record. It captures all the unpolished, underdeveloped glory of the band, and was the first clue to anyone with an ear for music or an eye for talent that Sonic Youth weren't going anywhere anytime soon. It contains their first "hit", the duet with Lydia Lunch entitled "Death Valley '69", which turned out to be the base the band built their career on.

The rest of Bad Moon Rising is lesser known, but no less important. The first three songs on the record are as haunting of an opening one can find on an album of any genre or time period. The quick "Intro" sets the pace with a simple 2 or 3 note guitar line played out of tune over a series of rumbling noises. From there, SY launch into "Brave Men Run", featuring what is still one of Kim Gordon's most effecting vocal performances. Fans of SY's more accessible era will notice the difference in drum sound and ability right away--that's Bob Bert on the stool, and while he isn't the best musician, his plodding, meandering strikes add an overall mystique to these recordings.

The next two songs seem like they were placed on the album to try the listener's patience--"Society is A Hole" and "I Love Her All the Time" are both long and languishing one-chord jams, probably influenced by several of the band members' various stints in Glenn Branca's experiemntal orchestra. In the cycle of the album, however, they work extremely well together, and make for a stellar closing to side one.

Side two continues in a similar vein, until the closer, "Death Valley '69", the one song that stands alone on the album (all the other songs are segued together). Now a noise rock anthem, the song hasn't lost a shred of coolness over the years, even with a production value that seems lackluster up against most of the band's output. All of its dry-mouthed psychosis sounds real enough to be the entire inspiration for Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers", though infinitely more entertaining.

Bad Moon Rising is a must-own Sonic Youth record, even if it might not be so apparent at first listen. When a band has been making records as long as Sonic Youth, certain things have to be taken into consideration before effective critiques can be made. In this case, its a stellar representation of an imperfect but relentlessly budding rock band, and it will live in infamy.
Rating: 7/10