NYC Ghosts & Flowers
Made after the theft of the band's instruments, and the most divisive record in their catalog.
Sonic Youth, 2000
- Released
- 16 May 2000
- Label
- DGC
A reaction to the theft of the band's instruments in July 1999. They fell back on old guitars from their studio and gear bought to finish the tour, and wrote six new songs in the following month, adding Free City Rhymes and Renegade Princess, which predated the tour. The band later said the theft was a blessing of a sort, because it forced them to start over. It was the first album since Bad Moon Rising to use prepared guitar.
Reviews split. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune said the band were again treating guitars as hunks of wood and wire, and Spin's Douglas Wolk called it their artiest, most texturally spectacular album. Pitchfork's Brent DiCrescenzo gave it 0.0, and in 2013 said he now loved it. Christgau called it the band's dud by acclamation, though he had reviewed it positively. Metacritic scored it 66.
Track listing
- Free City Rhymes7:30
- Renegade Princess5:47
- Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)5:33
- Small Flowers Crack Concrete5:10
- Side2Side3:32
- StreamXsonik Subway2:48
- NYC Ghosts & Flowers7:47
- Lightnin'3:51
Personnel
- Thurston Moore vocals, guitar, production
- Kim Gordon vocals, bass, guitar, trumpet, production
- Lee Ranaldo vocals, guitars, synthesizer, production
- Steve Shelley drums, percussion, production
- Jim O'Rourke bass on Free City Rhymes and Small Flowers Crack Concrete, electronics on Side2Side, production
- Rafael Toral Spacestatic guitar on Renegade Princess
- William Winant percussion on Side2Side
- Wharton Tiers recording
- Greg Calbi mastering
More from Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth (1982), Confusion Is Sex (1983), Bad Moon Rising (1985), EVOL (1986), Sister (1987), Daydream Nation (1988), The Whitey Album (as Ciccone Youth) (1988), Goo (1990), Dirty (1992), Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (1994), Washing Machine (1995), A Thousand Leaves (1998), Murray Street (2002), Sonic Nurse (2004), Rather Ripped (2006), The Eternal (2009)
Sources
- NYC Ghosts & Flowers, Wikipedia
- Sonic Youth, NYC Ghosts & Flowers (master release), Discogs