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Sonic Youth - NYC Ghosts & Flowers

NME.COM feature on Sonic Youth - NYC Ghosts & Flowers album including album review, artwork, tracks, listen now, tour dates, discography and more.

Album Review

Release date: 16 May 2000

Sonic Youth - NYC Ghosts & Flowers

NYC Ghosts & Flowers

Returning from the wilderness, then, with a new-found hunger.

The events of July 1999 marked a definite Year Zero for New York's masters of art-punk skronk. Stolen from their tour van, all of their instruments; the expertly detuned guitars, the skewed equipment that enabled them to pioneer their much-copied noise. Wherever their muse took them from here, there was no doubt they'd be starting the journey from scratch. Which perhaps...

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  • May 23, 2000

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Sonic Youth News

Kim Gordon reveals reasons behind her split from husband Thurston Moore

Kim Gordon reveals reasons behind her split from husband Thurston Moore

Iconic punk figure also reveals breast cancer diagnosis

Sonic Youth get stolen guitars back after 13 years

Sonic Youth get stolen guitars back after 13 years

Two guitars stolen from the band's show in South California in 1999 have been recovered by fans

Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore plays first gig with new band Chelsea Light Moving

Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore plays first gig with new band Chelsea Light Moving

Guitarist's new group played new tracks in Brooklyn, US

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Sonic Youth - NYC Ghosts & Flowers: Wikipedia Album Entry

NYC Ghosts & Flowers is a 2000 album by Sonic Youth. The album was a slight departure, mainly as a creative reaction to the theft of their instruments in July 1999. Irreplaceable guitars and effects pedals with numerous modifications were stolen. It is also the first Sonic Youth album to extensively use prepared guitar since 1985's Bad Moon Rising, most notably on "Small Flowers Crack Concrete" (a file inserted over the neck pickup) and "Lightnin'" (a bike horn wedged under the strings).

It is also considered to be the album on which the influence of beat poetry on the band is most evident. The lyrics to most songs resemble the beat style, Lenny Bruce and D. A. Levy are name-checked and the cover art is based on a painting by William S. Burroughs.

The album received mixed reviews. Brent DiCrescenzo, formerly of Pitchfork Media, gave it the rarely used lowest rating of 0.0, while Inkblot Magazine praised its avant-garde direction and Robert Christgau said that at times the album is more beautiful than the more widely acclaimed Washing Machine or A Thousand Leaves. The album is generally well regarded among fans.

User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.

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Sonic Youth - NYC Ghosts & Flowers Lyrics

Sonic Youth - Free City Rhymes Lyrics

In a free lane
Ghosts passing time
Heat rises
Lights through the town

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Sonic Youth - Nyc Ghosts Flowers Lyrics

When the phone rang 3 in the morning, dead middle of night
There was nothin' on the line
I set back the silent receiver, tiny flames lit in my head
Hey did any of you freaks here ever remember Lenny?

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Sonic Youth - Renegade Princess Lyrics

Jet black hair
Tangled stare
Blood inside
Silent stare

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Sonic Youth - Side2side Lyrics

Meet me on the corner Thursday
Wear your special underwear

Sway side 2 side

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Sonic Youth - Small Flowers Crack Concrete Lyrics

Small flowers crack concrete
Narcotic squads sweep through poet dens
Spilling coffee grabbing 15 yr old runaway girls
By frazzled pony tailed hair

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Sonic Youth - Streamxsonik Subway Lyrics

Flipped on my perceptik cogs
Checked in with the future Gods
For melodies of bees and hogs
Start my day the perfect way

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