What is your view of Sonic Youth's Sister?

This is an analysis I wrote:

Sister seems to be a concept album having to do with Gnosticism, the ancient philosophy referenced in Philip K. Dick's novel VALIS. Gnosticism was a pessimistic, anti-carnal worldview that held that the obtaining of secret wisdom could set us free from this earthly plane, which is the work of a bungling demiurge who has entrapped humanity in fear and ignorance. The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas is a key gnostic text.

PKD was a gnostic. These links featuring scholars Elaine Pagels and Harold Bloom might be helpful if you're new to the concept of Gnosticism:



https://medium.com/interfaith-now/the-g ... 7f214a6c3d

Harold Bloom might have called Gnosticism a strong misreading of the Old Testament. This album uses association-type logic in its lyrics, leaving it wide open to interpretations. I find the music here to be among the band's best, too.

The opening track, "Schizophrenia", seems to reference the Gospel of Thomas when it says, "Jesus had a twin who knew nothing about sin." Gnosticism focuses on overcoming ignorance instead of sin. Almost every track on Sister mentions the mind or the head, often in the context of a Freudian "return of the repressed," or the coming to light of powerful childhood memories. Schizophrenia is "taking (this girl) home." Kim sings "I had a dream / And it split the scene/ But I gotta hunch it's coming back to me." Schizophrenia literally means "split mind." Memories and dreams are frequently mentioned in these songs.

The next track, "Catholic Block," is about growing up Catholic and having lingering feelings of guilt and repression from childhood. At the end of the track, Thurston asks "Do you like to fuck?" So here we have a side effect of repression - the block, or mental block, preventing sin is the result of shame and guilt, so the repressed person enjoys overcoming it and indulging in sin from time to time. Gnosticism held that traditional Christian churches focused more on instilling shame and guilt than on truly liberating the spirit from carnality.

"Beauty Lies in the Eye" is about how traditional media representations of beauty "lie" to women by setting up false idols to emulate. Again we have the narrator reverting back to childhood and feeling slightly insane. The words baby, sugar, sweetheart and fox infantilize women. Women are more than pretty faces or bodies.

"Stereo Sanctity" is the next song. This is one of the most fascinating, lyrically complex songs on the album. "Two speakers dream the same and skies turn red," and the presence of satellites and mass death mark this song as having to do with Reagan-era Christianity and the end times. Stereo literally means two speakers, or a two track reel to reel. The narrator decries kneeling down to a perfect image, perhaps a reference to the Gnostic belief that traditional Christians viewed themselves as utterly sinful, in contrast to a perfect image of the demiurge. Gnosticism held that it was wrong to focus wholly on the afterlife, after our body dies. We can achieve enlightenment and liberation in this life, too. The hypostatic union of the Trinity could be seen as the perfect image that Christian Americans in Reaganland bowed down to. Sonic Youth were seekers, not content with received dogmas about American or Christian values (or guitar tunings).

The next track, "Pipeline/ Kill Time" is about killing time. Time and space are the elements of what Dick called the Black Iron Prison, the demiurge's matrix that imprisons our minds and spirits in this earthly reality. Our minds transcend time, so I believe Lee is encouraging us to cultivate our minds. The toiling of idle hands dripping with guilt again highlights SY's critique of guilt-obsessed faith. Idle hands are the devil's playthings. One thinks of Rousseau refusing to wear a watch.

"Tuff Gnarl" and the opening to "Pacific Coast Highway" demonstrate the schizophrenic nature of Sister, which is split between dark, violent tracks and spiritually uplifting, beautiful tracks. "PCH" alternates between these two moods. It is one of Kim's most effective feminist songs, in my view.

The cover of Crime's "Hotwire my Heart" analyzes how we are treated by media and therapeutic figures as automata driven by our bodily/chemical urges. The oblique references in this and the next track to electroshock treatment for schizophrenics highlight how society often mistreats its odder members or outcasts. The obsession with "mating rhythms" is part of what Gnosticism would like to free us from. One remembers Beefheart's decrying of the simple 4/4 heartbeat rhythm.

My favorite track on the album, "Cotton Crown," is next. The references to angels are central here, and may tie in to Valentinus's hierarchy of heavens and angels. Elaine Pagels writes about this in her book "The Gnostic Gospels". This is a beautiful song about love and togetherness.

This beatific mood is torn apart by "White Cross," which could be about the methamphetamine tablets used by truckers or the burning crosses displayed by KKK "Christians" in the South. Truckers are often frequenters of prostitutes, digging into "hot, white" flesh. Saints preserve us from hot young stuff. Not being smart enough to overcome bodily urges or racial hatred ties in again to the Gnostic themes of the album. Gnosticism held that spiritual enlightenment - the obtaining of knowledge - could save us from sin. While the Church viewed Gnosticism as heretical, I think it provides useful and interesting critiques of some of the corruptions that traditional faith practices can sometimes give rise to. Doesn't mean it's true, but we must strive to see the nuggets of truth in the work of our opponents.

Overall I think this is one of the band's most accomplished and interesting albums. An emphatic Not Crap.

Interesting analysis… I mean I know about the PKD reference, but the rest of yr angle is new to me. The alternative view could be just that it’s just a hands down fucking great record - def SYs crowning achievement. All the elements are there and it’s brutal, beautiful and pretty much perfect - right down to the packaging and artwork. While many reckon this was the gateway to Daydream Nation I’ve always found that album an overindulgence - and it sounds thin and a bit too light. Sister is powerful and thumping and ugly. Also - no dis, but I never credit SY with being particularly great lyricists - never to the point of all those veiled references! But hell - time to relisten now and I might find a new meaning. Appreciate yr scholarly forensics

Used to be my fave from their 80's output.

Nowadays I'd go with Daydream probably but sister is very Not Crap even if there's a couple of tracks I skip.

Iancee wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 5:24 am Interesting analysis… I mean I know about the PKD reference, but the rest of yr angle is new to me. The alternative view could be just that it’s just a hands down fucking great record - def SYs crowning achievement. All the elements are there and it’s brutal, beautiful and pretty much perfect - right down to the packaging and artwork. While many reckon this was the gateway to Daydream Nation I’ve always found that album an overindulgence - and it sounds thin and a bit too light. Sister is powerful and thumping and ugly. Also - no dis, but I never credit SY with being particularly great lyricists - never to the point of all those veiled references! But hell - time to relisten now and I might find a new meaning. Appreciate yr scholarly forensics

Hey thanks man. I took as my starting point the reference to VALIS being the band's inspiration. I think I read that in a bio of SY. Maybe the thematic consistency is accidental but I think it works wonderfully even in that case. SY are some of my favorite lyricists actually.

Are we touring through PRF's The Greatest 500 Albums of All Time or something?

Anyway, decided to put it on this morning since you mentioned it. Thank you for the inspiration.

Yeah, it's NC, though I haven't put nearly that much thought into it as you have. Big fan of the first couple of tracks. Also track four. I get excited for "Tuff Gnarl" but it's kind of a letdown to be honest.

I think I like EVOL (best Kim Gordon tracks) and Daydream Nation (I'm a sucker for 2xLPs) a little better than this one.

BTW, this thread contains some of PRF v2's thoughts on this era of Sonic Youth: http://premierrockforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=69873

jfv wrote: Wed May 17, 2023 7:42 am Are we touring through PRF's The Greatest 500 Albums of All Time or something?

Anyway, decided to put it on this morning since you mentioned it. Thank you for the inspiration.

Yeah, it's NC, though I haven't put nearly that much thought into it as you have. Big fan of the first couple of tracks. Also track four. I get excited for "Tuff Gnarl" but it's kind of a letdown to be honest.

I think I like EVOL (best Kim Gordon tracks) and Daydream Nation (I'm a sucker for 2xLPs) a little better than this one.

BTW, this thread contains some of PRF v2's thoughts on this era of Sonic Youth: http://premierrockforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=69873

Thanks. I love EVOL and Daydream, too. Seems like those albums have a bigger sonic range, too, and better production. The muddy, weird recording of Sister somehow fits for me though. I've never heard an album sound like that. Very raw and gnarly.

Sister is great. It's the most "punk" and direct SY LP of the '80s, and it's where the abstraction really starts to burn off a little (i.e. you won't find anything like "Secret Girl" on there, much less "Lee Is Free").

That said, Confusion Is Sex and EVOL are my two favorite SY albums, and it depends on which day you ask me. Daydream Nation just after that.

While by no means unforgivable, the sort of thumpy , slightly muffled recording quality of Sister drags it down just a little. Those same songs sound even better on a bunch of vinyl bootlegs from the same time period. Plus, the CD version adds "Master-Dik," which inappropriately ends the album w/a big joke. (Vinyl flows nicely, though.)

I don't think SY wrote amazing lyrics, although there are some great phrases here and there. I always assumed Sister just boasted some random PKD and sci-fi references among the usual Sonic stuff, but nothing quite as cohesive as what's suggested above. I'm amused by someone searching for meaning in a cover of a Crime song in this context, though! (Which, as far as I can tell, is just a black-leather sneer and Thurston wanting to associate himself w/a really cool punk-rock song. Perhaps no deeper than that.)

Way better than Daydream Nation. Would make my SY top 3-4 list

Was my favorite Yoot LP for a long time, though nowadays I'd probably go boring and say Daydream or even more boring and go with Goo.

Don't have time to read anything up top from the OP, but I did discover PKD because of this record so I'll give them that!

Man, that run of Bad Moon - EVOL - Sister. Love the way those records sound: desolate, spare, scary, noisy, crazy wild haired people making this chaos.....

Hard to pick one of the 3, depends on the day. I am one of the weirdos that likes Bert and Shelley's drumming equally for different reasons.