Tynan's Anger

SONGS OF THE DECADE #57

[For more info, read the Ground Rules of The Song of The Decade List]

Sonic Youth - Sympathy for the Strawberry (2002)



For those that thought that a '90s lens was the weirdest decade to evaluate a band like Sonic Youth, allow me to introduce you to the 2000s. What do you do with a band in its third decade, with millions of albums sold, a continuously prolific output whose members are all in their late 40s and early 50s, but will never, ever, be the kind of band to play the Super Bowl? For those who couldn't even appreciate the weirdness of the '90s in the current decade, you could turned back to '80s, as the Daydream Nation tour proved that one fantastic album is all you needed to sell out arenas in the 21st century (the Pixies having previously proved you needed two).

In the meantime, Sonic Youth stil had music to produce, especially after the Self Portrait-esque flop of 1999's NYC Ghost & Flowers. "Sympathy for the Strawberry," is one of the longest songs ever from a band legendary for making 7 minute avant-garde sessions sound like 3 minute pop songs. So what we have hear is a "Heard it Through the Grapevine" for a generation quite familiar with having crazy guitars get their juices flowing. It uses texture, progression and dynamics as well as any art rock song of the past 30 years, and it fully established that no matter how much people now want to dance their messes around with Thurston, Lee, and Kim, the band will always have more than a little Limburger in them.

Labels: 2000s, lists, pop music, songs of the decade, sonic youth, sympathy for the strawberry