HELL YES in comparison to red krayola, beefheart, and the velvet underground they were fucking experimental in the utmost.

the velvet underground, as great and innovative as they were, had TWO sounds, droney dirge and dreamy floating rock.

Yeah, the Beatles' music was so varied. Helter Skelter is practically punk/metal, Revolution 9 is musique concrete.

I'm glad somebody else said what I was thinking. Both have great songwriting duos. Ween songs vary stylistically in the same way that Beatles songs did. However, I'd say the Beatles were a lot more influential than Ween is.

So in that aspect, I agree with the comparison of SY to the Beatles. Both are widely influential bands which pushed and melted the boundaries of rock, pop, and experimentalism and opened the ears of a generation.

and remember, the beatles broke up almost 40 years ago.

that's a LONG time in popular music terms, and an eternity in rock n roll terms

The Beatles have been the most influential rock band.

People used to say Britney is the new Madonna, but that's gone out of the window.

Okay, to adjust my point, Beatles had a more top down influence while Sonic Youth have a more bottom up. In this way it would be easier to compare Sonic Youths influence with the Velvet Underground.

Also in today's self-conscious indie rock world, there is a lot of Sonic Youth backlash be it deserved or not. I wouldn't know if the Beatles had to deal with this but I would doubt it to SY's extent. I still know a number of people that hold my Sonic Youth enoyment against me.

swa(y) the voiced of reason? This IS a golden age!

The Stones? Awesome?

Are you and GMKU fucking by any chance?

Anyways I'd say Sonic Youth are the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, T. Rex, Pink Floyd, and the Kinks all rolled up into one of our generation.

MAD REP!

:D i fucking love this board!

Haha, that's hilarious. How did I not spot that before.

because no one ever reads my posts... I'd say.

me = captain obvious.

No, I read it. It just didn't click how funny it was.

With insights like that, I should be crowned Board Sage.

Yes!

remember when blur and oasis kept getting compared to the beatles and the stones? now that was funny!

hahahah! yeah! fucking shit ass Blur and fucking redundant and stupid Oasis!

TBH I didn't think Blur were all that bad. Damon's voice irritates me sometimes but I really enjoy listening to Modern Life is Rubbish.

Not really. Polvo used metal tunings and complex time signatures and Unwound were too structured. Still fantastic bands, though.

all subjective people, all subjective

my Wife hates SY and loves The Beatles, but then she's got shit taste (except the beatles bit, and Me obviously)

Yes, music, art everything in general is subjective.

What do you see in her???
:p

you know what? that was a lie. She likes the SYR's (especially 3) but hates the 'normal' SY. How wierds that?

fuck thetechnical shit. this was in response to bands that SOUND LIKE sonic youth

and polvo, unwound (early unwound especially) and early bl;onde redhead all used the sonic youth sound vocabulary. My ex-wife used to not like polvo because they sounded too much like sonic youth to her. she came around.

The way you say that sounds quite threatening. You didn't beat her up did you?

I would never hit a woman! They are the bearers of the sexy!

Damn straight!

except "expressway to your skull" I don't see any SY song that could have been a beatles song.
Sure they can pretend to this statement due to their various hits but I think that only liam gallagher (oasis/wonderwall) as the same nonchalance as john lennon (beatles/a day in the life)

In my opinion the only non-beatles song that is a beatles'song in mind is "les thugs": "you'd better grow" that appears only on the deluxe edition of "tout doit disparaitre". I don't know if it's accessible for all of you but it's a real great song

Dinosaur Jr.?

heh...

Right.

But who are the Beach Boys ?

super furry animals

or mercury rev?

I dont know who the beach boys would be, but i would vote Stephen Malkmus would be Brian Wilson. As far as song structure is concerned.

Moore would definitely be Harrison. His solo albums are as experimental as any of sonic youth (not saying that makes moore solo better than sy by any means), and george was definitely the most creative and experimental of the the 4. He pushed boundries. Lennon and McCartney wrote amazing songs together, but solo they wrote good songs...nothing more. McCartney's post beatles work was horrible for the most part.

Well, except his time with Michael Jackson.

I think Dinosaur Jr. would be more along the lines of The Who.

My opinion of the Rolling stones is not very good. So I would say Stone Temple Pilots for the stones. Both bands filled with drug problems. Both had a mainstream audience. Both had plenty of ego and minimal musical efforts.

dinosayr and the who?

get the FUICK outta here!

the who were mods with stupid fucking lyrics and a penchant for presentational bombast

dinosaur were stoner weirdos with no friends with deeply personal and cryptic lyrics and a penchant for sonic skronkocity

no relation!

mods die~!

I think dinosaur jr. is awesome. They have a great live show, and that was supposed to be the best part of the who as well. I'm not particularly fond of the who, but i think there are more similarities between the who and dinosaur jr than the rolling stones, which someone compared earlier.

Well, back when SY kept claiming they would be recording a cover of the White Album from beginning to end, Pussy Galore beat them to the punch by recording all of Exile On Main Street. So in the world of the "pig-fuckers", there was your Beatles and Stones.

However, if you go beyond the noise-rock world and look for a reasonable analogue, then SY are certainly NOT The Beatles. They would be the Velvet Underground of our time. Never making the charts, yet hugely influential, making at times very pretty pop music and straight ahead rock out of noisy drones and weird tunings. Obviously, I'm not the first to make the comparison (the first I heard it was from Bruce Pavitt when Sub Pop was a column in Seattle's Rocket magazine in the mid '80s, and Thurston has essentially said as much himself) but it completely fits.

As a drummer, Steve is much more the equivalent of Moe Tucker than Ringo Starr too. Ringo was mediocre enough that McCartney played a lot of the drums on Abbey Road himself because he couldn't get Ringo to do them right. Moe plays what is seemingly very basic, but provides the rock solid back bone that anchors the Velvets songs from escaping entirely into noise-drones, much the way Steve does in SY.

Since the Beatles there has never been a group to do what they did coming out of the straight ahead pop/rock world and taking on all sorts of avant garde and experimental techniques and influences at the peak of their popularity. The closest I could think of would be Radiohead, but they haven't maintained anywhere near the type of momentum that the Beatles did.

Dead-Air has the best posts on this board.

I can see that