''Bad Moon Rising'' is the second

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by American

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

band

Sonic Youth Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of the b ...

, released on March 29, 1985, by

Blast First Blast First is a sub label of one-time independent record label Mute Records, founded in approximately 1985. It was named after a phrase taken from the first number of the radical Vorticist journal ''Blast'', published by Wyndham Lewis in 1914 ...

and

Homestead Records Homestead Records was a Long Island, New York-based sublabel of music distributor Dutch East India Trading that operated from 1983 to 1996. The label was known for not paying its artists and not spending any money on promotion. History The l ...

. The album is loosely themed around the dark side of America, including references to obsession, insanity,

Charles Manson Charles Milles Manson (; November 12, 1934November 19, 2017) was an American criminal and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California, in the late 1960s. Some of the members committed a series of nine murders at four loca ...

, heavy metal,

Satanism Satanism is a group of ideological and philosophical beliefs based on Satan. Contemporary religious practice of Satanism began with the founding of the atheistic Church of Satan by Anton LaVey in the United States in 1966, although a few hi ...

, and early European settlers' encounters with Native Americans. Released to strong reviews from the underground music press, ''Bad Moon Rising'' was the band's first album to combine

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

material with transitional pieces and segues. The album was preceded by the single "

Death Valley '69 "Death Valley '69" is a song by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth and featuring Lydia Lunch. The song was written and sung by Thurston Moore and fellow New York musician Lunch, and recorded by Martin Bisi in 1984. A demo version of th ...

", which did not chart in either the US or UK (the track was re-recorded for the album and released again as a single in June 1985). The album was named after the 1969 song "

Bad Moon Rising "Bad Moon Rising" is a song written by John Fogerty and performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival. It was the lead single from their album '' Green River'' and was released in April 16, 1969 four months before the album. The song peaked at No. ...

" by

Creedence Clearwater Revival Creedence Clearwater Revival, also referred to as Creedence and CCR, was an American rock band formed in El Cerrito, California. The band initially consisted of lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty; his brother, ...

History

Sonic Youth was formed in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1981 by guitarists

Thurston Moore Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958) is an American musician best known as a member of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Moo ...

and

Lee Ranaldo Lee Mark Ranaldo (born February 3, 1956) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, guitarist, writer, visual artist and record producer, best known as a co-founder of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth (guitar and vocals). In 2004, ''Rolling ...

and bass guitarist

Kim Gordon Kim Althea Gordon (born April 28, 1953) is an American musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the bassist, guitarist, and vocalist of alternative rock band Sonic Youth. Born in Rochester, New York, she was raised in Los Angeles, Califor ...

. The band signed to

Glenn Branca Glenn may refer to: Name or surname * Glenn (name) * John Glenn, U.S. astronaut Cultivars * Glenn (mango) * a 6-row barley variety Places In the United States: * Glenn, California * Glenn County, California * Glenn, Georgia, a settlement ...

Neutral Records Neutral Records is an independent record label. Glenn Branca ran the label during the No Wave and post-punk scene in the Lower East Side, New York City, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Among their releases were early records by Swans and th ...

, releasing the ''

'' EP in March 1982. As Sonic Youth released a number of albums and EPs to increasing critical acclaim, including '' Confusion Is Sex'' and '' Kill Yr. Idols'' in 1983, several drummers joined and left the band.

Bob Bert Robert Bertelli, better known as Bob Bert, is an American rock drummer. Biography Based in Hoboken, New Jersey, Bert initially came to prominence as drummer for the experimental rock band Sonic Youth during the early to mid-1980s. Bert pla ...

rejoined Sonic Youth after the ''Confusion Is Sex'' tour in mid-1983. The New York press largely ignored Sonic Youth (as well as the noise rock scene in the city), until after a disastrous

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

debut in October 1983 that actually received rave reviews in British papers ''

Sounds In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

'' and ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

''. When they returned to New York, the queue at

CBGB CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in Manhattan's East Village. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for '' Country'', '' BlueGrass'', and '' Blues'', Kri ...

for the band's concerts went around the block. By mid-1984, Sonic Youth were playing almost weekly in the city, but its members started to realize that there was little future in their musical approach; Moore later said, "it was getting to the point of overkill". They retreated to the rehearsal room, retuned their guitars and changed their equipment so that they were unable to play their old songs, and began writing new material.

Background

After a period of intense songwriting, the band entered producer

Martin Bisi Martin Bisi (born 1961) is an American producer and songwriter. He is known for recording important records by Sonic Youth, Swans, John Zorn, Material, Bill Laswell, Helmet, Unsane, The Dresden Dolls, Cop Shoot Cop, White Zombie, Boredoms, Ang ...

's BC Studio – implicitly, "Before Christ Studio", which is how the band credited it on the album – in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York in September 1984. Bisi had recorded early rappers and local

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

musicians such as

John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jaz ...

Elliott Sharp Elliott Sharp (born March 1, 1951) is an American contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, and performer. A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released ...

and

Bill Laswell William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, w ...

. The album's cover is a photograph by artist

James Welling James Welling (born 1951 in Hartford, Connecticut) is an American artist, photographer and educator living in New York City. He attended Carnegie-Mellon University where he studied drawing with Gandy Brodie and at the University of Pittsburgh where ...

of a

scarecrow A scarecrow is a decoy or mannequin, often in the shape of a human. Humanoid scarecrows are usually dressed in old clothes and placed in open fields to discourage birds from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.Lesley ...

with a flaming

jack-o'-lantern A jack-o'-lantern (or jack o'lantern) is a carved lantern, most commonly made from a pumpkin or a root vegetable such as a rutabaga or turnip. Jack-o'-lanterns are associated with the Halloween holiday. Its name comes from the reported phenomen ...

as its head.

Music

''Bad Moon Rising''s style has been described as

noise rock Noise rock (sometimes called noise punk) is a noise music, noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimal music, minimalism, industrial music, and New York hardcore, a ...

, no wave and

experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...

. The album begins with "Intro", a short instrumental featuring several guitars, described by

Michael Azerrad Michael Azerrad is an American author, music journalist, editor, and musician. A graduate of Columbia University, he has written for publications such as '' Spin'', ''Rolling Stone'', and ''The New York Times''. Azerrad's 1993 biography '' Come ...

as "a melancholic, meowing slide line playing off a delicate stack of crystalline arpeggios." "Intro" segues into the next song, "Brave Men Run (In My Family)". The song begins with a single riff repeating for a minute, before Gordon murmurs, "Brave man run in my family/Brave men run away from me." The riff fades into the album's third song, "Society Is a Hole", "a one-chord hymn to big-city anomie". Sonic Youth's use of transitional pieces in the album was inspired by their live shows, which featured either Moore or Ranaldo tuning guitars for up to five minutes while the other played slow transitory guitar riffs or prerecorded sound collages. "I Love Her All the Time" features extensive

prepared guitar A prepared guitar is a guitar that has had its timbre altered by placing various objects on or between the instrument's strings, including other extended techniques. This practice is sometimes called tabletop guitar, because many prepared guitar ...

by Ranaldo and the use of one chord, with a noise section in the middle; like many of the album's songs, it focuses on texture and rhythm rather than melody. The second side of ''Bad Moon Rising'', which comprises the experimental "Ghost Bitch" (which features Ranaldo on acoustic guitar and references Native Americans' first encounter with European settlers), "I'm Insane" and "Justice is Might", expands on the soundscape concept; the songs feature repeating guitar riffs that segue from one song to the next, while Moore and Gordon mumble cryptic lyrics. "Death Valley '69", the album's closer, was the result of a collaboration between Moore and New York singer and poet

Lydia Lunch Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Anne Koch; June 2, 1959)Martin Charles Strong. ''The Great Indie Discography''. 2003, page 85 is an American singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker. Her career began during the 1970s New York City no ...

. Describing the album's style, ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

'' called it "not so much a collection of songs as it is an extended, unending uproar, seamless in sound and theme."

Critical reception

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

noted the album's dark nature, writing: "An album quite unlike any other in the colorful Sonic Youth canon, ''Bad Moon Rising'' captures the New York band in 1985 during its most morose phase, one that is quite forbidding yet fascinating all the same." ''

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to ...

'' wrote that it " xudesall the horrible beauty of a

mushroom cloud A mushroom cloud is a distinctive mushroom-shaped flammagenitus cloud of debris, smoke and usually condensed water vapor resulting from a large explosion. The effect is most commonly associated with a nuclear explosion, but any sufficiently ener ...

on the horizon." ''Pitchfork'' described the album's aesthetic as "compelling."

Accolades

''Bad Moon Rising'' ranked at No. 42 in ''

Alternative Press Alternative press may refer to: Individual publications * ''Alternative Press'' (magazine), an American music magazine Alternative journalism * Alternative media ** Alternative media (U.S. political left) ** Alternative media (U.S. political ri ...

'''s list of the greatest albums of 1985–1995, surpassing ''Daydream Nation''.

Track listing

All music and lyrics written by Sonic Youth (

, and

), except where noted. * Tracks 10 and 11 are reversed on some CD pressings * Track 12 is not included on the 1989 first CD pressing by

https://www.discogs.com/release/3950587-Sonic-Youth-Bad-Moon-Rising

Personnel

Sonic Youth *

– guitars, prepared guitar, lead vocals,

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

– bass guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals ("Death Valley '69"), production *

– guitars, percussion ("Ghost Bitch"), backing vocals ("Death Valley '69"), production *

– drums, production Additional personnel *

– lead vocals and production on "Death Valley '69" Production *

– engineer, producer (all tracks except 10–11) * Ethan James – engineer (tracks 10–11) * John Erskine – producer (all tracks except 10–11)

Release history

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1985 albums Sonic Youth albums Homestead Records albums Albums produced by Martin Bisi DGC Records albums Blast First albums Rough Trade Records albums No wave albums Noise rock albums by American artists