Hardcore R e‐visioned: Reading and Misreading in Sonic Youth, 1987–8

This article uses Harold Bloom's concept of revision, defined as a reading that is simultaneously a re‐interpretation, to examine how the alternative band Sonic Youth transformed the hardcore style. Sonic Youth embraced hardcore in the early 1980s as a means of expanding beyond their no‐wave origins, but because of a cultural gulf between them and other hardcore bands, their successful appropriation of hardcore necessarily involved fragmentation and ironic reversal of its stylistic elements, combined with formally unorthodox means of re‐integrating those elements. Examining lyrics, scalar subsets, gestural motions on the guitar, timbre, references to formal archetypes and cues for pitch centricity, this article shows revision in two Sonic Youth songs from the late 1980s. ‘Silver R ocket’ (1988) fragments riffs characteristic of hardcore and substitutes a large‐scale constructive principle for musical narrative in its verse and chorus. ‘ W hite Kross’ (1987) transforms hardcore's characteristic stance against authority, creating instead a sense of internal conflict both lyrically and musically. I present the analyses in order to provide a foundation for examining other post‐punk songs and explaining Sonic Youth's cultural significance in the alternative‐rock scene.