Sonic Youth
Bad Moon Rising

THE REVIEW

1985: a year full of many new developments for Sonic Youth. Among all the novelties, the most important is undoubtedly the entry of the new drummer Steve Shelley, who from that moment on will always remain the band's permanent drummer.
The group now finds itself in the challenging situation of following up on the great debut that had revolutionized rock and, more generally, all music. But the fact that Sonic Youth is among the few sensational entities in a decade to forget is already quite an achievement.
Now let's get back to talking about Bad Moon Rising: it was released in the winter of 1985, and the title is taken from a song by Creedence Clearwater Revival (I admit my ignorance about this latter group), one of the bands most celebrated by guitarist Lee Ranaldo. Musically, there is a novelty compared to "Confusion Is Sex": the terrifying fury that tore through the dirtiest songs of the debut is absent, and the sound transitions to more balanced, sometimes serene tones. It starts with "Intro," a short guitar introduction that heralds the first real song of the album "Brave Men Run (In My Family)." To be honest, the "songs" in this album are few; indeed, more than songs, there are real experiments characterized by fierce and hallucinatory distortions. But the best is yet to come. We are at the end of the seventh track (Justic Is Might) when four drumsticks are heard, and suddenly Thurston Moore's primordial scream bursts in, an enchanting, terrifying, and macabre scream. This is how "Death Valley '69" begins, the album's real masterpiece, resulting from an unprecedented collaboration with Lydia Lunch, an underground poet of the time. And this is how you get carried away on a sonic journey characterized by a splendid dialogue between the two guitars, a driving bass, and an engaging drum, exactly one minute and sixteen seconds into the song the melody suddenly changes, transforming into a dark and scary crescendo recited by Thurston and Lunch. The screams thrown into the central part (Hit it, Hit it) embellish a great masterpiece. Anyone could interpret this song differently: some as a youth protest, some as the story of a psychopath, some as simply the story of Death Valley. I interpret it simply as one of the great masterpieces in the entire history of Sonic Youth.
In 1995, Geffen reissued the album adding four interesting songs (Satan Is Boring, Flower, Halloween, Echo Canyon), often just simple distortions but nonetheless overshadowed by the masterpiece that will herald the birth of noise rock.
Overall, the album is not a milestone, but it is certainly very good. What really matters is that "Bad Moon Rising" will be the first step toward the definition of noise rock, which is perhaps the most successful artistic trend of the '80s and the years to come.