Thurston Moore
Profile

Kim Gordon
Profile

Lee Ranaldo
Profile

Steve Shelley
Profile

X-Drummers
Profiles

Chan Marshall
Profile

The Story of the Sonic Youth - The Early 90's

When Sonic Youth joined the David Geffen label
to record Goo there were concerns how the
band would develop in a commercial environment.
Thurston has always made it clear that their total
artistic freedom was a vital demand in their
acceptance to record for the label. Accutely
aware of outside perception Goo was to become
a spoof on commercial recordings in many ways.
Unfortunately this diverted the band from the path
that they had been following with the preceeding
albums, making Goo a somewhat dissapointing
record to most. The tension between the commercial interests of Geffen and the development
of Sonic Youth also became apperant on their second Geffen release Dirty. Lee Ranaldo
was not happy with the way the producer Butch Vig influenced the album. Only one song of
Lee ended up on the album. 'This period was the closest Sonic Youth ever came to breaking
up' Lee would later proclaim. Inspite of the tensions recording the album, Dirty turned out to
be a much more succesful album than Goo. This could certainly be attributed to the fact that
it is one of the most listener friendly albums by Sonic Youth.