Talk:Sonic Youth

Grunge

I think Grunge should be mensioned since they had a Grungey kinda sound and were in the Grunge scene in the early days so shall i add Grunge (early)?? ill add grunge now and later if you think i should change ill be happy to hear it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Megabar09 (talk • contribs) 17:09, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

No, no, absolutely no. Not only were they from the other side of the continent, they formed long before the grunge scene started, and had their height before grunge came into the mainstream. I have no idea how you think they were ever part of the grunge scene, especially in their 'early days'. They were in the no wave scene early on. Zazaban (talk) 02:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe doing their Goo and Dirty period. 100% is very grunge. 222.154.243.247 (talk) 04:33, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

That might work on the pages for the individual albums, but Sonic Youth isn't usually seen as a grunge band. Zazaban (talk) 21:29, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Bull in the Heather / Tibetan Freedom Concert

I removed this sentence:

[Bull in the Heather], which gained even more attention when it was played at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in 1996

If there is a reliable source to prove that Tibetan Freedom Concert made it more popular, put it back. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 16:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Featured Article nomination

I'd like to try and promote this article to featured status. Unfortunately, i don't have the Azerrad book, which this article heavily cites. Can anyone please check the Azerrad citations here?

Thanks. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Genre

I am removing the links to the 'industrial' categories added by an anonymous editor. I have never seen an external reference that categorized Sonic Youth as industrial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Martinde (talk • contribs) 11:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Sonic Youth/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

As part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles' Project quality task force ("GA Sweeps"), all old good articles are being re-reviewed to ensure that they meet current good article criteria (as detailed at WP:WIAGA.) I have determined that this article needs some work to meet current criteria, outlined below:

• There are a lot of unsourced sections of the article, most not anything that could be considered common knowledge and thus not need verification. Some examples include:
  • "After their first record, Edson quit the group for a modestly successful acting career and was replaced by Bob Bert."
  • "Sister sold 60,000 copies and received very positive reviews, becoming the first Sonic Youth album to crack the Top 20 of the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll."
  • "In 1992, the band released Dirty on the DGC label. Their influence as tastemakers continued with their discovery of acclaimed skateboard video director Spike Jonze, who they recruited for the video for "100%", which also featured skateboarder turned actor Jason Lee. This song, along with the Gordon tune "JC" contain lyrical references to the murder of Joe Cole, a friend who worked with the band as a roadie. The album features artwork by Los Angeles-based artist Mike Kelley. In addition, Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise opened on numerous occasions for Sonic Youth in the late 90s. "Dirty" features a guest appearance by Ian McKaye (Minor Threat and Fugazi) playing guitar on the track "Youth Against Fascism"."
  • "The album was filled with low-key melodies and even produced a hit single, "Bull in the Heather". Moore and Gordon's daughter, Coco Hayley Gordon Moore was born earlier in the year, and many of the songs from the album were never played live because there was never a full tour to support the album due to Gordon's pregnancy."
  • "Gordon collaborated in Free Kitten, and started a clothing label X-Girl, based in Los Angeles. Ranaldo and Moore have played with many experimental/noise musicians, including William Hooker, Nels Cline, Tom Surgal, Don Dietrich, Christian Marclay and Mission of Burma, among others. Shelley runs the Smells Like Records record label, as well as playing in backing bands for Chan Marshall (Cat Power) and Two Dollar Guitar."
  • And so on and so forth.
• What makes DVDtalk, thrasherswheat.org, guitarplayer reliable sources? Also, citing Wikipedia is a definite no-no.
• File:Sonic Youth Teenage Riot.ogg has a rather poor fair use rationale, as specific song information is not mentioned in the article, and it's not the subject of significant critical commentary here.
• Paragraphs by definition require at least three sentences, and there are multiple locations (including the lead) where there are one and two-sentence groupings.

I am putting the article on hold for one week, longer if significant improvements are being made in that period. Keep me updated or ask questions on this page. Thanks, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:51, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

The article should be pretty easy to source, since there are at least four biographies on the group. I personally have access to three. However, I'm not sure if I can contribute to the article in the time alloted for two reasons, the first being available free time, and the other being I find it difficult to research Sonic Youth (I find reading about them at length boring and tedious). WesleyDodds (talk) 06:18, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

The last two refs point to wiki articles/sections. Ceoil ^sláinte 16:04, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

• As no significant progress has been made in the time allotted, I am delisting. The article may be renominated at WP:GAN at any time, but I encourage improvement in the above issues first. I don't watchlist old reviews, so take any questions or comments to my talk page. Thanks, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 18:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

What happened

As far I can tell from the official SY website and their MySpace, among other places, Mark Ibold is officially a current member of the group. Why has he practically disappeared from the article? --S-man (talk) 18:36, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Associated acts in infobox

Some of those listed look like they don't belong. Unless some justification is provided within the prose they will be removed.--Michig (talk) 07:15, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I see no evidence for those names. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 14:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Genres in infobox

Does this list of genres seem excessive to anyone: Alternative rock, noise rock, experimental rock, No Wave, post-punk, indie rock. I think alternative rock and indie rock could go with no loss. Any thoughts? ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 22:46, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

They are all accurate. Having spanned three decades, the band has spanned a few micro-genres as well. Morganfitzp (talk) 22:21, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Sonic Youth EP classification

My change to remove Sonic Youth from the Discography section of this article was reverted with an explanation of "per sources, including the band members". I'm sure they think it is a studio album, but why should the artist's opinion on the record's classification override the technical fact of this being an EP and not a studio album? It is clearly an extended play. They can call it a single if they like, it won't technically make it one. Lachlan Foley (talk) 20:31, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

What makes it "clearly an extended play"? Azerrad's book calls it an album, and includes the band describing it as an album. Dave Thompson's Alternative Rock lists it as an album, Martin Strong's discography books list it as an album. Even discogs.com lists it as an album. We generally go by reliable sources over editors' opinions. --Michig (talk) 21:09, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

It's not merely an opinion; extended plays are releases that are longer than singles and shorter than full-length albums. How many studio albums have five tracks and go for just over 24 minutes? What the personal opinion of the band or some journalist has to do with this established classification, I don't know. Lachlan Foley (talk) 01:49, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I've got plenty of albums that have the same number of tracks or fewer, and plenty that are shorter than this one. --Michig (talk) 07:23, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

So you fail to get consensus but go ahead and move it back anyway? --Michig (talk) 06:02, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree, Michig. Not good. Sources are what count, not editor's opinion. Technically, in the music business albums may be treated differently than EPs, contractual obligations, marketing obligations, etc, so there could be good reasons for its classification as such. Wwwhatsup (talk) 01:53, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

It's a Mini-LP, neither an EP nor a studio album, so there you go... Violetcries 12 May 2013

If I may, um, interject here, I think a studio album is an album recorded in a studio. No matter how long or how many songs, if it's a studio recording, it's a studio album. (Put it this way: as far as I know, no version of iTunes differentiates between whether something is an album or an EP - the column just says, "Album". To me, it's more accurate to say LP or EP.) Single, EP or LP are varying album formats, but all are albums. Without digressing too much, I will end it here and say if it was recorded in a studio, then it's a studio album. It is my personal view that this even applies to EPs wherever necessary, so whatever format this album is considered to be, it's a studio album and should be treated as such. LazyBastardGuy 23:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

This is worthy point of debate in indie music: Without backing from a big label, indie artists have less time and money to write and record their music. The 1980s saw many indie artists putting out "EPs" in lieu of "LPs", but they are still albums because they are sequenced collections of songs. Sonic Youth was originally 5 songs on a 12" record: an album, albeit a short one. The distinction should be made on Wikipedia (and elsewhere on the web) between the EP (extended play) as being an extended single (hence the name), and a mini-LP being a short album, but still an album nonetheless. Morganfitzp (talk) 21:53, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Timeline and Kim Gordon guitar practice

On the timeline, we should add the periods when Kim Gordon don't play bass guitar but guitar, because it is meaningful, for example on A Thousand Leaves, there is bass only on two tracks (I mean it's a 3 guitars + drums album, what is pretty special and contribute to the specific sound of this album). In later albums with Jim O'rourke and Marc Ibold, these two guys sometimes play bass guitar and Gordon guitar too.

I disagree. Kim played bass live throughout the periods you mention. It is fine to include her as playing bass and guitat for most, if not all, of SY's studio career, but live she almost always played bass, sang and did not play guitar (unless you can find a source that states otherwise).Stratpod (talk) 14:47, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Kim played guitar and bass starting on Dirty era both live and in studio. There were a lot of songs without anyone playing bass until Jim O'Rourke filled the spot, and so they started switching instruments on many songs (btw, Jim doesn't appear as a bass player and probably he played a lot more bass than keyboards)... I don't remember seeing Mark playing guitar at all (and also Kim played a lot less bass lines)... The info about who played what is pretty accurate here: http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/lp/albums.html also for the 'A Thousand Leaves' you can look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjmakcIP5x4 and see her almost not playing bass.190.137.168.118 (talk) 09:18, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Request for multiple Sonic Youth infobox chronologies

I attempted to add an extra {{Infobox album}} 'chronology' parameter to each Sonic Youth record article to distinguish what type of record it is (e.g. Sonic Youth studio album chronology, Sonic Youth EP chronology, etc.), and this was reverted by a user with the explanation "Sonic Youth's discography isn't big enough to warrant two separate chronologies". I disagree: I think Sonic Youth have a pretty large discography and that is certainly represented by the amount of respective Wikipedia articles, so I think this would be a good idea. Lachlan Foley (talk) 05:59, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Sonic Youth is a [...] band

I think there should be a consensus established on which genre(s) is to be listed in the lead sentence of Sonic Youth articles. Currently I have seen "alternative rock", "alternative rock/noise rock", "noise rock" and just "rock" used. I am unsure at this stage what I think it should be. Lachlan Foley (talk) 06:02, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I would think alternative rock, although I'm not sure how we'd go about reaching a consensus about this! I think alternative rock is a more useful general label for the bandStratpod (talk) 10:55, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Ciccone Youth

Ciccone Youth is an AKA of Sonic Youth; this information could easily be incorporated into the Sonic Youth article. Lachlan Foley (talk) 06:42, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

I support this. No need for Ciccone Youth to have a whole article: It was a one-album in-joke and to my knowledge they never played live under that nameStratpod (talk) 16:16, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Support. It is a variation of Sonic Youth in the 1980s, where Mike Watt was a member. AllMusic calls it "More of a good-natured prank than an actual band". +mt 21:27, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Whether or not there's a merge I think it would make sense to add a subsection about Ciccone Youth to the History section of this article. The CY releases are already included in Sonic Youth's discography.... Ivanevian (talk) 14:23, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely support the merge; while we're at it, The Dukes of Stratosphear article should also be merged into XTC. PJtP (talk) 01:17, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I say merge. It was a side project; an "in-joke" as someone else said. (I actually came to the SY entry today looking for CY info, and didn't think first to search "Ciccone Youth" in the process due to its being a side project of SY.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.29.172.83 (talk) 05:29, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Support. To avoid an AfD. Karst (talk) 13:49, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

 Done - Merged Ciccone Youth into Sonic Youth as per consensus. --Niwi3 (talk) 20:16, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Ciccone Youth again

I think side-project is not an appropriate description of Ciccone Youth. It was more an alias or psuedonym. I also think it is incorrect to say they disbanded as they were never really a separate band. I further think it is misleading to say that they collaborated with Mike Watt when he was involved with only one song for Ciccone Youth and he did it himself without Sonic Youth's aid. Nomadic Tribesman (talk) 16:33, 19 September 2020 (UTC)