Sonic Youth’s 1987 masterpiece Sister

Sonic Youth performing in the 80s

It’s no secret to my friends that I love Sonic Youth. I often have a Sonic Youth avatar online, and I can go on about Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo’s (and sometimes Jim O’Rourke) experimental guitar techniques, the genius of Steve Shelley and Kim Gordon’s rhythm section, the incredible soundscapes they create, and how goddamn cool it all is. Just the idea of playing a guitar by hitting it, using a drumstick as a makeshift bridge, writing a song by inventing a tuning – I live for that shit. And it all started, at least for me, with Sister. The album was the first Sonic Youth album I listened to, and even now as I’ve listened to most things they’ve put out, from Confusion is Sex to Sonic Nurse, from Washing Machine to A Thousand Leaves, I believe that Sister (1987, SST) was a major milestone in Sonic Youth’s career. More complex and nuanced than the albums which came before it, it served as a template for their next 20+ years of soundscapes, noise and general coolness, as well as preceding and writing the rule-book for Sonic Youth’s most iconic album Daydream Nation.

The album begins with Schizophrenia, one of Sonic Youth’s most melodic songs (I still struggle to call it pop). It opens up with a simple, recognizable beat from Shelley’s kit, and after a few bars, a guitar comes in. Then, the second guitar and bass come in, playing a seemingly simple progression. This first part of the song can be recreated by playing chords in any key in a 1-5-4-1 progression. But Sonic Youth does not choose to perform it this way. Both Lee and Thurston’s guitars are tuned to an open tuning, with strings in pairs tuned to F#, G, and A. The pair play pseudo-chords by pressing down two strings at a time and letting the rest ring out, each guitarist playing a different octave (Lee playing higher). Thurston sings the first verse over this progression, loosely referencing the life of novelist Philip K. Dick, and the story of the death of his twin sister which haunted Dick throughout his life. After Thurston closes the verse with the line Schizophrenia is taking me home, the progression breaks down as both guitarists begin sporadically shifting the positions of their pseudo-chords and incorporating their tremolo bars, a beloved tool of both SY guitarists. Then, the guitarists begin playing harmonic pairs in line with Shelley’s rhythm, a technique enabled by the unconventional tuning to incorporate octave harmonics in a single strum. Over this pattern, Kim Gordon’s verse is sung in her unconventionally beautiful voice, a voice which finds beauty not in complex and nuanced melody but in a unique feminine monotonous whisper. This voice works for Kim’s role in the song, playing the sister who’s voice comes to Dick in a schizophrenic episode. After Kim’s verse, the song is further broken down both melodically and rhythmically, incorporating dissonant feedback from one of the guitarists (most likely Thurston), and resolving in an ominous, slow wall of sound.

This song is incredibly important to understanding how Sonic Youth changed over time as a band. It exemplifies a trend in Sonic Youth’s song structure – as weird as it is to say – progressive songwriting. Straying away from their beginnings playing minimalist Glenn Branca inspired no-wave and noise, Sonic Youth began writing more melodic songs which began to appear on Evol but truly found their home on Sister and Daydream Nation. These songs work in the same way a progressive rock song does – utilizing things like instrumental and vocal sections with different melodic motifs and different tempos while still maintaining the theme of a song. Its just in such a different setting than most progressive rock. Progressive punk, maybe. Side note from the Sister discussion but I believe Sonic Youth’s magnum opus, the 20 minute long The Diamond Sea off of Washing Machine perfects the Schizophrenia formula – it begins with a verse, then slows down and changes in timbre while maintaining its original melody, the verse repeated 7 minutes in at a much slower tempo, finally devolving into pure noise by the end.

Thurston doing his thing.

Moving further through Sister we arrive at Catholic Block – seemingly a hard-hitting psych-punk track in the beginning, built off a hardcore-inspired angular lick. This first segment begins with Thurston shouting about a Catholic Block inside his head, a rebellious track which seems to attack Catholic values and the negative ways they effect people. After Thurston is done shouting (at least for the moment), another guitar comes in, playing a different angular riff which resolves in noise. This is repeated several times before the song comes to a middle part where both guitars are rhythmically attacked for several seconds as the drums stop. Then, the original riff and verse begin again, equally as hard-hitting as the songs intro, due to the fact the listener’s pallet had been cleansed by the middle segment of the song. As Thurston declares he’s finished with the last line of this verse, Guess I’m out of words, Kim lets out a piercing scream. Her scream is slightly lower in the mix, made even more piercing in live performances where her mic is on the same level as Thurston’s. After this verse is over, the song once again dissolves into noise, until all instruments are cut out and only Thurston’s guitar remains, an incredibly high tremolo-picked note achieved by using a slide. This note is sustained for several seconds, before Lee comes in with a melodic open chord progression in the same key as the rest of the song, but played much slower. As Lee continues this progression Thurson lets the note come down several octaves with the slide to meet Lee’s part, ending abruptly at this point. I truly believe Catholic Block is one of the greatest rock songs of all time – even thought it may not have been planned out, every segment. The way the song disassembles itself not once but twice, taking the listener on an great musical journey.

Track 3, Beauty Lies in the Eye, is decidedly different than much of this album. It features a dreamy wall of distorted chords, with Kim singing abstractly about beauty and image. While different on what we’d see Sonic Youth do on Daydream Nation and much of the rest of this album, this song exemplifies Kim’s ability to write tuneful songs while maintaining artistic merit and punk credibility, something which would be evident on many Sonic Youth tracks throughout the 90s, including Sonic Youth hits such as Kool Thing and Bull in the Heather. A pallet cleanser from the aggression of Catholic Block, the melancholy of Beauty Lies is decidedly short lived, as it is followed by Thurston’s Stereo Sanctity. Stereo is a great noise punk freakout, complete with dissonant feedback and abstract lyrics about god-know-what. Some people say it is about Thurston’s commitment to classic equipment such as tube amps. It certainly contains references to the life of Philip K. Dick. I always thought it was a post-apocalyptic freakout track, probably because of the great line I can’t get laid cause everyone is dead. Whatever this track is about, its a great way to wake up in the morning.

After Stereo Sanctity comes Pipeline/Kill Time. A Lee Ranaldo track, it features his abstract poetry about a failing relationship shouted over he and Thurston’s effect-laden feedback, once again starting out aggressive and fast while later on slowing down and devolving into less comprehensible noise, in that classic Sonic Youth fashion. Eric’s Trip on Daydream Nation repeats this formula, and is equally as powerful if not better.

All hail Lee Ranaldo!

Tuff Gnarl repeats the aforementioned formula yet again. The track opens up with a somewhat melodic progression, over which Thurston half-sings and half-shouts about the sexual frustration of a young man, until the song breaks down into yet another noise jam. This particular noise jam is important in my opinion, though, as it serves as a great showcase of Steve Shelley’s skills as a drummer, often overshadowed in Sonic Youth as most listeners focus on Lee and Thurston’s guitar techniques. Just as Sonic Youth’s guitarists manipulate their instruments to create different timbre and textures of noise, Shelley is great at getting this effect. Listen to him during the outro of Tuff Gnarl, how he adds different rhythmic patterns to each thing Lee and Thurston do. A great and often underappreciated drummer.

Steve behind the kit



For the sake of word count and my own sanity, I’m not going to cover the rest of the album as intensely as I did the first six tracks. It is certainly worth listening to, I just believe the most valuable songs Sister has to offer are located near its front end. Pacific Coast Highway is a rocker fronted by Kim Gordon’s powerful snarl, similar to Daydream Nation‘s ‘Cross The Breeze. Cotton Crown (Kotton Krown? they like using K’s in the place of C’s sometimes) is a repeat of the Beauty Lies formula, a disjointed set of feedback-driven chords with an unsettling melody, sung by Kim and Thurston in a beautifully out-of-tune harmony (neither are classically trained singers, and the combination of their voices would probably give an opera teacher a heart attack, but it serves its purpose to complement the unsettling instrumental track on Kotton Krown). If I skip a track on Sister it’s final track Master-Dik, a strange track with more lyrical references to sexual aggression and Sonic Youth side project Ciccone Youth. It is still a good song, just doesn’t hold up to the rest of Sister, in my opinion.

A year after Sister came Daydream Nation, another truly great album which, Sonic Youth’s most musically iconic. After this came their departure from SST and signing to Geffen records, on which they would release Goo in 1990 and begin their 15 minutes of fame in the mainstream, touring Europe with Dinosaur Jr and Nirvana in 1991. While not forgotten, Sister‘s influence on Sonic Youth’s best material and the entirety of alternative and experimental rock music is often overlooked in favor of Daydream Nation. This post serves to chronicle the greatness and influence of Sister, as well as track the deterioration of my brain as I analyze recordings of people hitting guitars with things. Thank you for reading if you got this far.