Confusion Is Next: The Sonic Youth Story

"Alternative" rock has now gone mainstream, yeah, yeah, Lollapalooza is captivating a generation, and Nirvana sells millions of albums, but before all of this in-yr-face stuff there was Sonic Youth.

Sonic Youth are the floorboards of the current fertile musical era in which underground culture has, like it or not, become the mainstream. Confusion Is Next boasts exclusive interviews with the band members and dozens of other scene-sters, including members of the Beastie Boys, Pavement, and fIREHOSE, and art iconoclasts like Mike Kelley, Lydia Lunch, and Glenn Branca.

Sonic Youth. They hold equal weight in the champagne SoHo galleries, the sleazy fashion world, and the legendary punk club hovels across the planet. Here is Sonic Youth's convoluted, twisted, and bashed journey, from the band's early days in the post-punk East Village to their current reign as templates of the indie scene, to their studio time recording their latest album, Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star. Confusion Is Next sets both the record and the CD straight.

A literate and thorough biography of Sonic Youth, one of the most innovative and significant bands of the '80s and '90s. Foege is several cuts above the typical scribblers in rock journalism, and his insights about the possible obsolescence of critics in a pop culture are particularly interesting.