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Hello, music lovers! 🎵

On #threetunestuesday, I go back to listening to the music I grew up with and absorbing the sounds I had access to.
Today's post was prompted by a comment on my post from yesterday, in which the commenter thinks there is too much noise in music. There is indeed a lot of noise in the song I posted, but that's part of music, part of the tradition of experimental and alternative music, actually, where musicians try to incorporate all kinds of sounds into their songs, and sometimes, it's true, it gets unlistenable :)

One of the bands (not the first; they were around a decade earlier) that made noise listenable or integrated it well into their work was Sonic Youth. With their specific use of guitars, especially distorted sounds and long repetitive riffs, they set new standards for playing guitar music at the time and, as I said, used a lot of noise in the process. I saw them in Ljubljana in 1987 as part of the Sister Tour.

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For those of you who are not (yet) familiar with #threetunetuesday or #ttt - these are tags you need to set when you post.
It's a music initiative started by @ablaze, and with his words, the jist is as follows:

Every Tuesday I'm going to share 3 songs that I like to listen to and I invite your feedback in the comments below. Better still, why not have a blast of your own Three Tune Tuesday and mention me in the post and I'll come and find the post and upvote it. If you could also use #threetunetuesday tag that would be great, as that is what I use when sifting through all the entries every Wednesday. It'll be a sweet way for us all to discover new music. You'll also be in with a chance of winning the reward.

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Sonic Youth is an American band from New York, formed in 1981. They started as an experimental band with strong links to the underground art scene, and later, when music critics began to hail them as the saviors of the guitar sound, they were noticed by major labels.
They were the first to use alternative tunings, dissonance, distortion, and unconventional playing techniques in their music, creating a particular, noisy guitar sound that would later influence many bands and define noise and grunge. They worked together until 2011, releasing 16 albums.
I don't follow the individual members that much anymore, except for bassist and singer Kim Gordon, who, at seventy-one, is still writing and playing contemporary music and blurring the lines between conventionality and artistic experimentation.

If you want to get to know the group in more detail, I recommend the Internet Archive, which has over 2620 files, including text, images, sounds, videos, and films or Wikipedia, but with fewer sources.

Now, some of their typical songs.

Sonic Youth - Kool Thing

The song is from GOO, the sixth album from 1990. At the time, MTV was king and this video was a real shock, both musically and visually. It is an ironic satire and feminist critique of the stereotype of male rebellion, which is part of the corporate pop culture system that ruled at the time. (Very topical, because it's still like that now, if I may add...)

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Sonic Youth - Reena

Reena is a song from their 14th album, Rather Ripped, from 2006, melancholic and nostalgic, with Kim Gordon's vocals adding intimacy and vulnerability, and the layered and melodic guitars adding eternity.

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Sonic Youth - Mildred Pierce

The song is from the GOO album and hints at their artistic past and connection to the New York art scene, primarily through video. It is inspired by the 1945 film noir Mildred Pierce. The video stars Sofia Coppola, and the music is typically noise rock, without a standard musical structure but just raw energy and a burst of sonic chaos that increases until the song's end.

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And a bonus, from the album Daydream Nation, one of their most recognisable songs, since its release in 1988, on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Sonic Youth - Teen Age Riot