A Thousand Leaves
Template:Use mdy dates Template:Good article Template:Infobox album
A Thousand Leaves is the tenth studio album by American rock band Sonic Youth, released on CD and cassette on May 12, 1998, by DGC Records. A double-LP vinyl issue had been released three weeks earlier, on April 21, 1998, by My So Called Records. It was the band's first album recorded at their own studio in Lower Manhattan, which was built with the money they had made at the 1995 Lollapalooza festival. Since the band had an unlimited amount of time to work in their studio, the album features numerous lengthy and improvisational tracks that were developed unevenly. The highly experimental extended plays Anagrama, Slaapkamers met slagroom, and Invito al ĉielo were recorded simultaneously with the album.
A Thousand Leaves reached number 85 on the US Billboard 200 and number 38 on the UK Albums Chart. It received generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised the lengthy, quiet guitar interplay between band members Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo. However, some criticized the forced vocal delivery of member Kim Gordon and found several tracks to be unnecessarily long and poorly constructed. The song "Sunday" was released as a single with a music video directed by Harmony Korine and starring American actor Macaulay Culkin.
Background and recording
A Thousand Leaves is the follow-up to Sonic Youth's 1995 album Washing Machine, which was released shortly after the band concluded their stint headlining the 1995 Lollapalooza music festival.<ref name="Goodbye 20th Century"/> With the money they had made at the festival, the band decided to build a recording studio, called Echo Canyon, on Murray Street in Lower Manhattan.<ref name="Goodbye 20th Century"/><ref name="Echo Canyon"/> The span of nearly three years between Washing Machine and A Thousand Leaves also represented the longest gap between studio albums in Sonic Youth's career at the time. Singer and guitarist Thurston Moore explained that the band needed a break, noting that they had been touring non-stop for 16 years. He said, "We're having children, we're getting older, let's just cool out a little bit and build this workshop, and go that way, work that route."<ref name="Billboard article"/> In their new studio, the band began writing new songs from extended improvisations in rehearsal.<ref name="Billboard article"/> Several instrumental jams were released as extended plays through the band's own record label, Sonic Youth Recordings, and distributed by Smells Like Records, an independent record label previously formed by drummer Steve Shelley.<ref name="Billboard article"/> These include Anagrama, Slaapkamers met slagroom and Invito al ĉielo.<ref name="Billboard article"/>
Since A Thousand Leaves was the first Sonic Youth album that was recorded in their own studio, the band had more time and freedom to work on it.<ref name="Billboard article"/> As a result, the songs evolved unevenly and were recorded from an early stage of development.<ref name="CD liner notes"/> According to guitarist Lee Ranaldo, the album is "a reflection of where we were at the time. We weren't into making anything concise. We were just playing what we felt like playing. We really didn't feel like what we needed to be doing was producing another record like Goo."<ref name="Goodbye 20th Century"/> The 11-minute song "Hits of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)" was initially intended to be released on one of the EPs as an instrumental track, but it was ultimately included on the album with vocals.<ref name="Billboard article"/> The album was co-produced by the band and Confusion Is Sex producer Wharton Tiers and mastered by Greg Calbi at Masterdisk in New York City.<ref name="CD booklet"/>
Music and lyrics
Musically, A Thousand Leaves was considered more expansive and relaxed than previous Sonic Youth albums, with less feedback and more guitar playing and improvisation.<ref name="Billboard article"/><ref name="AllMusic review"/> According to David Browne, the record explored post-rock sounds that were "subtler" and "quirkier" than most mainstream rock at the time.<ref name="Goodbye 20th Century"/> The title of the album was inspired by Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.<ref name="Spike interview"/> According to Moore, "The same way he improvises with images and words, we improvise with sounds and notes".<ref name="Spike interview"/> He also attributed the style of the album to the fact that the band was getting older, commenting, "You also become much involved with your thoughts about life experience in general. Having children is incredible in that way."<ref name="Billboard article"/> The song "Snare, Girl" explored these topics.<ref name="Goodbye 20th Century"/> The longest song on the album, "Hits of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)", referenced American poet Allen Ginsberg and contains an instrumental interlude that was described as "a subtle, drawn-out passage of Morse code guitar lines and lazy afternoon with wah-wah pedal licks—bliss in slow motion."<ref name="Goodbye 20th Century"/>
Like previous Sonic Youth albums, A Thousand Leaves also contains songs that deal with gender roles and stereotypes.<ref name="Spin review"/> The song "Female Mechanic Now on Duty", sung by band member Kim Gordon, was a reaction to how journalists categorize female musicians.<ref name="Cinderellas Big Score"/> It was inspired by Meredith Brooks's hit "Bitch".<ref name="Goodbye 20th Century"/> Similarly, in "The Ineffable Me", Gordon expressed her opposition to such limitations.<ref name="Cinderellas Big Score"/> The song "Karen Koltrane", sung by Ranaldo, is about a lover from his college days who had "a far less extraordinary adulthood" than he had first thought,<ref name="Goodbye 20th Century"/> while "Hoarfrost", which was originally titled "Woodland Ode", was inspired when Ranaldo and his wife Leah Singer went for a walk in the snow during a visit they made to Singer's parents in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.<ref name="Goodbye 20th Century"/> The track "Sunday" is generally considered the album's most accessible song.<ref name="EW review"/><ref name="LAT review"/> It was originally recorded for Richard Linklater's 1997 film SubUrbia, but was later re-recorded for A Thousand Leaves.<ref name="Goodbye 20th Century"/>
Release
A Thousand Leaves was released on vinyl, CD, and cassette formats on May 12, 1998, by DGC Records.<ref name="SY.com A Thousand Leaves"/> The album cover features an artwork by artist Marnie Weber, which depicts a hamster and Weber herself at age 12 sporting animal horns.<ref name="Juxtapoz interview"/> According to Moore, the image is a reference to the Unlimited Edition compilation album by German experimental rock band Can.<ref name="CD liner notes"/> Originally, the album was titled Mille Feuille (French for A Thousand Leaves) and was intended to feature an image of Moore holding a pastry as the cover art.<ref name="Goodbye 20th Century"/> To promote the album, a radio edit version of "Sunday" was released as a single to modern rock, college, and public radio in April 1998.<ref name="Billboard article"/> The band also supported the album with a tour across the US and Canada from May to June 1998.<ref name="MTV tour"/>
Upon release, A Thousand Leaves reached No. 85 on the US Billboard 200 and No. 38 on the UK Albums Chart.<ref name="Billboard charts"/><ref name="UK charts"/> The album also charted in other countries, including France, Belgium, Sweden and Norway.<ref name="FR charts"/><ref name="BE charts"/><ref name="SW charts"/><ref name="NW charts"/> The single "Sunday" reached No. 72 in the UK Singles Chart and was eventually released on vinyl and CD on July 14, 1998, containing a Nirvana cover, "Moist Vagina", as one of its B-sides.<ref name="UK charts"/><ref name="SY.com Sunday"/> A music video directed by Harmony Korine and starring Macaulay Culkin was made for the single.<ref name="MTV video"/> The band chose Korine due to his work on the films Kids (1995) and Gummo (1997), the first of which featured several young actors who previously appeared in the music video for the band's 1993 single "Sugar Kane", including American actress Chloë Sevigny.<ref name="MTV video"/> As of July 1999, the album had sold 54,000 copies in the United States according to Nielsen SoundScan.<ref name="Album sales 1999"/> And as of 2005, the album had sold 66,000 copies.<ref name="Album sales 2005"/>
Critical reception
A Thousand Leaves was well received by critics, some of whom regarded it as one of Sonic Youth's best albums yet.<ref name="Buckley"/> Writing for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the album as "the band's most challenging and satisfying record in years" and praised its quiet guitars and unpredictable twists, which kept the lengthy songs captivating.<ref name="AllMusic review"/> Pitchfork editor Brent DiCrescenzo cited "Hits of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)" as the album's centerpiece and highlighted the album's jamming, improvising, and guitar interplay between Moore and Ranaldo.<ref name="Pitchfork original review"/> David Stubbs of Spin criticized Gordon's weak singing and forced guitar playing on "Contre le sexisme", "Female Mechanic Now on Duty", and "The Ineffable Me", but nevertheless judged the "continually inventive fretboard effects" of Moore and Ranaldo, which "[sparkle] gold-plating adornments that cut open and irritate [the album] at every turn."<ref name="Spin review"/>
Other reviews were less enthusiastic. Sara Scribner from the Los Angeles Times said that A Thousand Leaves was a monotonous "experimental, psychedelic record" that felt "like a passionless, less thoughtful shadow of [the band's] former self".<ref name="LAT review"/> J.D. Considine of Entertainment Weekly stated similar cons, calling the record "the sort of thing that gives art rock a bad name."<ref name="EW review"/> Ben Ratliff of Rolling Stone found the songs to be unnecessarily long and sluggish, commenting that the album "really does sound like a demo — eleven songs waiting for better organization and cliché removal".<ref name="RS review"/> Similarly, Stephen Thompson of The A.V. Club felt that the album rarely contained fully formed songs and that the band should start "completing its ideas before recording them for posterity."<ref name="AV review"/> Orlando Weekly criticized Gordon's "contrived and annoying" vocal delivery, saying that many songs are "merely lengthy feedback collages with pasted-on vocals and gobs of art-school pretension", but also admitted that the album contains some "hidden gems" like "Sunday" and "Wildflower Soul".<ref name="OW review"/>
In a very positive review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau called A Thousand Leaves a mature and beautiful record, commenting: "It's the music of a daydream nation old enough to treasure whatever time it finds on its hands. Where a decade ago [Sonic Youth] plunged and plodded, drunk on the forward notion of the van they were stuck in, here they wander at will, dazzled by sunshine, greenery, hoarfrost and machines that go squish in the night."<ref name="Voice review"/> Although the album was not ranked in the Top 40 of The Village VoiceTemplate:'s Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 1998, Christgau, the poll's creator, placed it at No. 3 in his own "Dean's List".<ref name="Pazz & Jop"/><ref name="Dean's List"/> He would later name it one of the 10 best records of the 1990s.<ref name="90s albums"/> Similarly, the editors of NME placed the album at No. 40 in their year-end top 50 list.<ref name="NME Albums of the Year"/> The Wire named the album its record of the year in its year-end critics' poll.<ref name="The Wire"/>
Track listing
Personnel
Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.<ref name="CD booklet"/>
Sonic Youth
- Thurston Moore – guitar, vocals, production
- Kim Gordon – guitar (all tracks except 1, 2 and 7), bass (2, 7), vocals, production
- Lee Ranaldo – guitar, vocals, production
- Steve Shelley – drums, production
Technical
- Wharton Tiers – production
- Don Fleming – additional production
- Greg Calbi – mastering
- Frank Olinsky – sleeve art direction
- Mark Borthwick – sleeve photography and typography
- Marnie Weber – cover artwork
Charts
| Chart (1998) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums (ARIA)<ref>Template:Cite Ryan</ref> | 66 |
| US Billboard 200<ref name="Billboard charts"/> | 85 |