Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth was never a singles band -- they may have released many 7" singles, but they rarely paid attention to conventional song structure, which meant their ideas couldn't always be distilled in the form of one three-minute song. Consequently, the idea of a compilation of highlights from their peak years at SST Records is a little odd, since each of their recordings -- from masterworks like Sister and Daydream Nation to one-offs like Ciccone Youth's The Whitey Album and their EPs -- worked as a cohesive, individual entity. That said, the 17-track SST overview Screaming Fields of Sonic Love isn't nearly as bad as some die-hard fans might have suspected. It's true that it feels a little haphazard, but its ingenious sequencing -- running backward from 1988's Daydream Nation -- makes their noisier, atonal early recordings sound more accessible. And that means that the compilation is, in a weird way, a good choice for neophytes, since it does offer an easy introduction to the group's seminal '80s records. Longtime followers won't find anything unusual here, apart from edits of "Teen Age Riot" and "Candle," but it isn't designed for them -- it's for the curious, and it will likely whet their appetites. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide