Sonic Youth is the Rolling Stones of noise music, a band imitated as often as Aerosmith and a source of strength to alienated college students all over the globe. A lot of smart people think it's the best band in the world. But as the avatar of '80s indie underground rock, finally making its major-label debut, Sonic Youth faces a conundrum: How does an aggressively confrontational band make (a) a commercial record without (b) selling out?
The answer, of course, is to make the record an elaborate joke on the idea of making a commercial record, a hermetic, album-length parody that's the equivalent of putting those waggling-finger quotation marks around the whole thing.
