[luxinterior]

I wouldn't really consider "just a dude on a piano singing" to be sparse. I don't think sparse has so much to do with the number of instruments/sounds involved. Rather, I think it concerns more when a person does or does not use said instruments. A guy pounding away on his piano throughout an entire song is probably not going to have a sparse sound to it.

I'll use the Bad Seeds as an example because they're my favorite group and an example of a full band that can still manage to sound sparse, as in they know when to tone it down to an extreme and when to build it up. Especially the earlier records, on songs like Wings Off Flies and Blind Lemon Jefferson. I still enjoy groups that have that non-stop rock aesthetic, but as a whole it's just become less and less satisfying to me over time. And now I'm seeing that many of my favorite songs from whatever artists aren't really songs that are full of sound. I mean like Tempo House which is one of my favorite Fall tracks, or something like that.

I don't have much experience with Sonic Youth fans off this board but I can't imagine that they'd be that much more open than other music fans. I don't really consider Sonic Youth to be that radical of a band. Maybe for a little bit there, but after that it just seems like rock, or pop, or whatever you call groups that are catchy and appealing. I mean you can hum along to their music and get verses and choruses stuck in your head after one listen which to me is pop songwriting, and they've had their jam band moments, but for the most part I don't think that there's some Great Big Thing that separates them from all other bands.

I think you just want to believe what you believe because you're such a fan of them, and not because it's reality.