Artist: Sonic Youth
Album: The Destroyed Room: B-Sides and Rarities
Label: Geffen Records
Tracks: 11
Length: 76:51

Sonic Youth have achieved that awkward position in the music world of being a household name in the rock scene without actually having a lot of people actually listen to them. Their popularity peaked with the trio of albums, Daydream Nation, Goo, and Dirty. It was the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s and grunge was just starting to grip the underground scene. Sonic Youth (who was heavily responsible for getting Nirvana signed) never released a real grunge album, however those three albums are often cited as being influential landmark albums for the genre. Thus it is no surprise that with the popularity of grunge and it's rise into pop culture and the mainstream that those three albums have been enshrined as the classic era of Sonic Youth, a bygone day that rock fans pine for. Sonic Youth has never limited themselves to just one sound or mindset for creating music. So when they released the ambitious album Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star, fans quickly jumped ship, only checking in with new releases to see if Sonic Youth would ever "return to form" and make "another Daydream Nation." Instead Sonic Youth kept doing what they wanted, making music they (and a small segment of underground fans) found compelling. What most of the pop world didn't know is that for as experimental as Sonic Youth's full length major label releases were (to varying degrees) the band also released a lot of noise albums on homegrown labels. The SYR series is most well known, and even got major distribution, but nary a mention of them can be found in major music publications.

Then 2006 came. Rather Ripped was their well known release. It is the only album Sonic Youth has made since that unintentional trilogy that those fans could identify with. It is a shockingly rock album that tears through the set of songs like it's 1990 all over again. People who swore off the band are suddenly saying things like "It's no Daydream Nation, but it's pretty good."

Not quite a half a year later we get The Destroyed Room. It is a b-sides and rarities compilation that will take those who re-discovered Sonic Youth with Rather Ripped and isolate them even farther than they could have with Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star. Those who are into the rest of the band's 90s output, including the various noise projects, will, on the other hand, find this release quite exciting.

The Destroyed Room is Sonic Youth's most experimental and off-the-beaten-path major label release. Most of the tracks are instrumental. They meander around crafting sonic soundscapes that were probably created without the intention of being released. For many bands that would be a kiss of death, however, with Sonic Youth that doesn't mean that they didn't do interesting or talented things with the songs.

Some of the tracks appear to be sketches that they later fleshed out into actual songs. Others seem like the jams they do live to delay the ending of songs. Sonically the tones would fit best on albums like Murray Street and Washing Machine, although other tracks like Campfire would be more at home on a SYR release.

The album opens with Fire Engine Dream, a ten minute instrumental track. As the liner notes explain the track is placed first to "see who's here and who's not." If you can't make it through the first track, there won't be much the rest of the way out to appeal. The album then ends with a 25+ minute version of The Diamond Sea, a song that originally appeared on Washing Machine (in a much shorter 19+ minute version.)

The Destroyed Room is probably mostly for the hardcore fans. Not because the quality is lacking, but because the material will be too challenging for most fans. For anyone who only has Sonic Youth's major studio releases and likes The Destroyed Room, I highly recommend they start digging into their SYR releases and the other independently released noise recordings.