Pitchfork

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's. 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 distorted crescendos on "Renegade Princess" and "Nevermind," the volume here is kept at a muted minimum. Flashing and bleating overrules chords. Now neither word in the name "Sonic Youth" is apt. 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), 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 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 dam of skill, better judgment, and experience fails to stymie the flood of bile. Sonic Youth seem intent on staying in New York, and 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!