walking upstream…
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth grew out of downtown Manhattan's no wave scene, retuning guitars into clanging, detuned drones borrowed from avant-garde composer Glenn Branca and channeling that noise into something closer to pop songcraft. Across landmark albums like Daydream Nation (1988) and the major-label breakthrough Goo (1990), they became the connective tissue between art-noise experimentation and the alternative-rock mainstream, mentoring and opening doors for a generation of underground bands.
the sound in question
1990
Kool ThingSonic Youth
walk the tributaries ↓
Glenn Branca1980s · Avant-garde / No wave / Experimental
Thurston Moore has said directly that Glenn Branca's guitar-tuning experiments "really is what informed a lot of what happened in Sonic Youth"; Lee Ranaldo was playing in Branca's electric-guitar ensemble at the 1981 Noise Fest performance where Sonic Youth itself first played.
listen: upstream & here
1980
Lesson No. 1Glenn Branca
1987
SchizophreniaSonic Youth
listen forThe clanging, dissonant guitar drone underpinning "Schizophrenia" comes straight out of the overtone-heavy, detuned-guitar language Branca laid out on "Lesson No. 1."
The Velvet Underground1960s · Art rock / Proto-punk / Experimental rock
The Velvet Underground's willingness to let a song dissolve into feedback and repetition rather than resolve gave Sonic Youth explicit permission to stretch songs into extended noise excursions; multiple retrospectives on the band's formation name the Velvet Underground alongside the Stooges and MC5 as its core touchstones.
listen: upstream & here
1968
Sister RayThe Velvet Underground
1988
Teen Age RiotSonic Youth
listen forThe extended, near-atonal guitar breakdown inside "Teen Age Riot" descends directly from the Velvet Underground's 17-minute feedback odyssey "Sister Ray."
Patti Smith1970s · Punk rock / Art rock / Proto-punk
Thurston Moore has singled out Patti Smith's looser, less anthemic songwriting as formative, pointing specifically to the deep cut "Godspeed" as "less straight-ahead... it seemed almost improvised" — a model for structuring songs outside of straightforward verse-chorus rock.
listen: upstream & here
1978
GodspeedPatti Smith
1990
Kool ThingSonic Youth
listen forThe loose, spoken-sung cadence that opens "Kool Thing" carries some of the same unhurried, half-improvised quality Moore heard in Smith's "Godspeed."