| The Whitey Album | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | April 5, 1988 | |||
| Recorded | 1986–1988 | |||
| Genre | Experimental [1] | |||
| Length | 53:56 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Producer | Sonic Youth | |||
| Sonic Youth chronology | ||||
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| Singles from The Whitey Album | ||||
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The Whitey Album is an album by Ciccone Youth, a side project of Sonic Youth members Steve Shelley, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, featuring contributions from Minutemen/Firehose member Mike Watt and J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr.
Following the death of best friend and bandmate D. Boon, Mike Watt was suffering from depression. After driving to the East Coast with girlfriend Kira Roessler who was starting an internship at Yale, Watt went to New York City and stayed with Gordon and Moore. He also spent time with Sonic Youth during the EVOL sessions. Watt played bass on two songs recorded in those sessions, "In the Kingdom #19" and the band's cover of "Bubblegum". As part of an effort to encourage Watt to begin playing music again, the Ciccone Youth project was conceived. [2] [3]
In 1986, a 7-inch single was released in the U.S. on New Alliance Records under the name of Ciccone Youth with Mike Watt performing Madonna's "Burning Up" on Side A with an altered title of "Burnin' Up". The song was recorded in California without Sonic Youth's participation. Mike Watt played all of the instruments except for the lead guitar part which was overdubbed by Greg Ginn after the initial track was recorded. Side AA consisted of two Sonic Youth songs recorded during the EVOL sessions, "Tough Titty Rap" and a cover of Madonna's "Into the Groove" which was titled "Into the Groove(y)". All three songs were credited to Ciccone Youth. Blast First would release the record the same year in Europe as a 12-inch single with the two Sonic Youth songs on Side A and Mike Watt's "Burnin' Up" as the B-side. "Into the Groove(y)" sold 8,000 copies in the U.K. due to play in dance clubs. [4]
Seeking a break from their own style of music at the conclusion of the Sister Tour, Sonic Youth returned to Wharton Tiers' studio and began recording songs for The Whitey Album. With the aid of a sampling device, the band created the songs in the studio. [5] Unlike Sonic Youth's other albums, drum machines and samplers are the foundation of the recording. However, Sonic Youth's trademark dissonance and experimental methods still permeate throughout. [6]
Although it is suggested through only a few songs, the album is somewhat a tongue-in-cheek tribute to Madonna and 1980s pop in general. Ahead of Madonna's 60th birthday in 2018, frontman Thurston Moore told The Guardian :
Madonna was actually in a couple of no-wave bands that nobody ever talks about. She was in a band [Spinal Root Gang] with these two twins, Dan and Josh Braun, who were the first members of Swans, Michael Gira's band. Nobody really knows about that part of her history; she was in a pre-Swans no wave band! There's all that interconnected history in New York with Madonna and the no wave scene. [...]
Eventually she started making really amazing dance records. "Into the Groove" was brilliant to the point where I thought it would be a great song to cover through the prism of Sonic Youth. Instantly fabulous. We took her record and put it on one of the channels in the studio and we would fade it into [our version of] the song once in a while, not thinking about the legalities of such a move. We made a single with Mike Watt from Minutemen on a label called New Alliance, a sub-label of Black Flag's SST Records ["Into the Groove(y)"]. We wanted to break down any kind of barrier that was being set up between the underground and the people who had graduated from it to the mainstream.
We actually embraced Madonna's joie de vivre , her celebrity. We did that record and everybody felt we were crazy, and some people lambasted us for giving her some kind of credibility in the underground. But she already had credibility, as far as I was concerned; she was already a part of the downtown scene. I don't think she capitalised on it. [7]
"Tough Titty Rap" and "Into the Groove(y)" are the same versions as the ones that appeared on the single released two years earlier. However, Mike Watt's version of "Burnin' Up" is his four-track demo of the song, recorded prior to the version that appeared on the 1986 single. Recorded in his home, Watt sings and plays all instruments and it is his only contribution to the album.
The album includes a hip-hop version of "Making the Nature Scene" which is different from the original version which appeared on Confusion Is Sex . The second track, "(Silence)", is a titular one minute gap of silence intended as a tribute to John Cage. The cover of Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" was recorded by Gordon in a Karaoke booth; Gordon made the song's video at a make-your-own-video booth at Macy's. [4]
Sonic Youth originally wanted to release the album simultaneously with Daydream Nation but were convinced to release the latter several months later by associates of the band. [4]
Beside the single and The Whitey Album, Sonic Youth would also use the Ciccone name in the lyrics of the title song on the 1987 Master-Dik EP. Moore announces frequently throughout the song, "We're Ciccone." The track and the EP, however, were attributed to Sonic Youth.
According to the liner notes of the deluxe edition of Daydream Nation: "The album cover [of Ciccone Youth], a b&w xerox enlargement of Madonna's face, was a brilliant and contemporary design. Sonic Youth had employed found images on album covers before, but this was testing the limit. We sent copies of the vinyl album to Warners to be passed on to Madonna via her sister who worked in the art department there. Word came back that she had no problem with it acknowledging she remembered the band from her NYC Danceteria days". [8]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| Chicago Tribune | [9] |
| Entertainment Weekly | C+ [10] |
| Los Angeles Times |  [11] |
| Mojo | [12] |
| NME | 8/10 [13] |
| Pitchfork | 7.8/10 [14] |
| Rolling Stone | [15] |
| Select | 4/5 [16] |
| The Village Voice | C [17] |
Trouser Press wrote "the joke doesn't translate, and the disc comes across as a self-indulgent mess". [18]
All songs by Ciccone Youth, except where noted.
CD reissue bonus track
Per the liner notes:
Additional:
Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City and formed in 1981. Founding members Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo remained together for the entire history of the band, while Steve Shelley (drums) followed a series of short-term drummers in 1985, rounding out the core line-up. Jim O'Rourke was also a member of the band from 1999 to 2005, and Mark Ibold was a member from 2006 to 2011.
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter best known as a member of the rock band Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Moore was ranked 34th in Rolling Stone's 2004 edition of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Michael David Watt is an American bassist, vocalist and songwriter. He co-founded and played bass guitar for the rock bands Minutemen (1980–1985), Dos (1985–present), and Firehose (1986–1994). He began a solo career with the 1994 album Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, he has since released three additional solo albums, most recently in 2010 with Hyphenated-man. He is also the frontman for the supergroup Big Walnuts Yonder (2008–present), a member of the art rock group Banyan (1997–present) and is involved with several other musical projects. From 2003 until 2013, he was the bass guitarist for The Stooges.
Daydream Nation is the fifth studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth, released on October 18, 1988. The band recorded the album between July and August 1988 at Greene St. Recording in New York City, and it was released by Enigma Records as a double album.
Psychic Hearts is the debut solo studio album by former Sonic Youth member Thurston Moore released in 1995 through Geffen Records. The album was remastered and reissued in 2006. The two-record vinyl version of the reissue contains bonus tracks on the fourth album side where on the original vinyl release the fourth side had a drawing by cover artist Rita Ackermann etched directly into the vinyl.
Sister is the fourth studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth. It was released in June 1987 by SST Records. The album furthered the band's move away from the no wave genre towards more traditional song structures, while maintaining an aggressively experimental approach.
Washing Machine is the ninth studio album by the American experimental rock band Sonic Youth, released on September 26, 1995, by DGC Records. It was recorded at Easley Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, and produced by the band and John Siket, who also engineered the band's previous two albums. The album features more open-ended pieces than its predecessors and contains some of the band's longest songs, including the 20-minute ballad "The Diamond Sea", which is the lengthiest track to feature on any of Sonic Youth's studio albums.
Sonic Youth is the debut EP by American rock band Sonic Youth. It was recorded between December 1981 and January 1982 and released in March 1982 by Glenn Branca's Neutral label. It is the only recording featuring the early Sonic Youth lineup with Richard Edson on drums. Sonic Youth differs stylistically from the band's later work in its greater incorporation of clean guitars, standard tuning, crisp production and a post-punk style.
Confusion Is Sex is the debut studio album by American noise rock band Sonic Youth. It was released in 1983 by Neutral Records. It has been referred to as an important example of the no wave genre. AllMusic called it "lo-fi to the point of tonal drabness, as the instruments seem to ring out in only one tone, that of screechy noise".
EVOL is the third full-length studio album by the American alternative rock band Sonic Youth. Released in May 1986, EVOL was Sonic Youth’s first album on SST Records, and also the first album to feature then-new drummer Steve Shelley who had just replaced Bob Bert.
"Teen Age Riot" is a song by American rock band Sonic Youth, and the first single from their 1988 album, Daydream Nation. It received heavy airplay on modern rock stations and considerably expanded their audience.
Ball-Hog or Tugboat? is the 1995 debut solo album by American musician Mike Watt, previously known for his work as the bass guitarist and songwriter for the punk rock groups Minutemen and fIREHOSE.
Sonic Death is a live album by American rock band Sonic Youth. It was released in 1984 on cassette tape by the Ecstatic Peace! record label.
Screaming Fields of Sonic Love is a compilation album of songs culled from Sonic Youth's various releases from the 1980s. It was released in 1995 on DGC.
TV Shit is an EP by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth and Japanese vocalist Yamatsuka Eye. It was released in 1994 by Thurston Moore's record label Ecstatic Peace.
"Silver Rocket" is both the second track and second single from Sonic Youth's 1988 album Daydream Nation. Like all the tracks on the album, the Daydream Nation version of “Silver Rocket” was recorded in the studio, whereas all editions of the single featured a live version of the song with alternate lyrics and were pressed in small runs by independent fanzines. The studio album version also appeared on the B-side of the 12” edition of the band's previous single, “Teen Age Riot.” A video was also produced for “Silver Rocket,” featuring a recording of the song different from any of those appearing on any of the band's singles or albums.
"Starpower" is a song by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth. It was released in 1986 by record label SST as the first and only single from the band's third studio album, EVOL. It was re-released on colored vinyl in both 1990 and 1991.
Master-Dik is the third EP by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth. It was released on November 4, 1987, in the United States by record label SST, and on January 22, 1988, in the United Kingdom by label Blast First.
Minutemen were an American punk rock band formed in San Pedro, California, in 1980. Composed of guitarist/vocalist D. Boon, bassist/vocalist Mike Watt, and drummer George Hurley, Minutemen recorded four albums and eight EPs before Boon's death in an automobile accident in 1985; the band broke up shortly thereafter. They were noted in the California punk community for a philosophy of "jamming econo"—a sense of thriftiness reflected in their touring and short, tight songs, and for their eclectic style, drawing on hardcore punk, funk, jazz, and other sources.
Goo is the sixth full-length studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth, released on June 26, 1990, by DGC Records. For this album, the band sought to expand upon its trademark alternating guitar arrangements and the layered sound of their previous album Daydream Nation (1988) with songwriting that was more topical than past works, exploring themes of female empowerment and pop culture. Coming off the success of Daydream Nation, Nick Sansano returned to engineer Goo, but veteran producer Ron Saint Germain was chosen by Sonic Youth to finish mixing the album following Sansano's dismissal.
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| Extended plays | |
| Live albums | |
| Compilations | |
| Other albums | |
| SYR series | |
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| Related articles | |
