The Sonic Youth song Neil Young held in the highest regard: “It’s a classic”
At 80 years old, it is fair to say that Neil Young has been around the block more than a few times over the course of his illustrious career in music, but, in contrast to many of his counterculture contemporaries, the songwriter has always managed to stay abreast with emerging artists and underground scenes.
You could certainly forgive Young for burying his head in the sand after his heyday had passed. After all, he performed at Woodstock – the pinnacle of the hippie age and an event which is often cited among the most important in the entire history of American music. Coupled with the intense success of both his solo material and his tumultuous collaborations with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Young is undoubtedly on the upper echelon of North American songwriters, both in terms of quality and commercial success.
Seemingly, though, the insatiable artistic appetite of the songwriter has never ceased in his eight decades on Earth. In fact, if you look over the course of his extensive discography, you will find that Young has – at one point or another – embraced everything from old-school rockabilly to cutting-edge synthpop.
Not only did Young embrace those emerging sounds, but he also paved the way for some, too. Namely, the songwriter formed an unlikely influence on the distorted development of Seattle grunge, thanks to tracks like ‘Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)’ and his penchant for abrasive guitar tones.
As an extension of that influence, Young always seemed to keep his ear to the ground when it came to the emerging sounds of grunge, noise, and any other underground rock sounds blossoming throughout the 1980s. One such outfit that seemed to pique Young’s interest during that period was Sonic Youth, the noise rock titans building upon an education in the underground world of New York no-wave.
Interestingly, it wasn’t until the era of grunge (not that ever particularly adhered to the sonic conventions of that era) that Kim Gordon’s outfit impacted the mainstream, with 1992’s Goo, but Young’s appreciation for the group stretches back much further than that.
“It’s obvious that I like Sonic Youth,” he declared to Guitare & Claviers Magazine back in the early 1990s. “In my book, they really do modern rock. They make magnificent music,” he added, name-dropping an often underrated effort from the group’s 1986 album EVOL. “You know that one, ‘Expressway to Your Skull’? It’s incredibly good, so beautiful. It’s a classic. Superb melody and even better live,” he continued. “They have quite a few that are that good.”
On one hand, hearing Neil Young merely mention ‘Expressway to Your Skull’ seems somewhat bizarre; Sonic Youth, particularly during their mid-1980s period, were about as far away from the musical mainstream as it was possible to get, so it can only mean that Young was actively seeking them out at that time. On closer inspection, though, the two artists do share a common sensibility and appreciation for abrasion.
Young’s guitar playing might have made him the king of grunge, according to some, but his influence was felt much more widely within underground rock, and that is represented beautifully by the mutual appreciation between him and Sonic Youth.
