Goodbye 20th Century

Sonic Youth's distinctive, uncompromising sounds have provided a map for innumerable musicians who followed, from '90s groundbreakers like Nirvana and Pavement to current faves like the Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. More than perhaps any other act, Sonic Youth has brought “fringe" art to the mainstream, helping spawn an alternative arts scene that prospers to this day: a world of punk rock, underground films and comics, experimental music, conceptual art, contemporary classical compositions, and even fashion. In Goodbye 20th Century, David Browne tells the full glorious story of “the Velvet Underground of their generation," an account based on extensive research, fresh interviews with the band and those who have worked with them (from Glenn Branca and Lydia Lunch to Sofia Coppola and Spike Jonze), and unprecedented access to unreleased recordings and documents. This is a richly detailed portrait of an iconic band and the times they helped create. David Browne is a senior writer at Rolling Stone and the author of Dream Brother, widely seen as the definitive biography of Jeff Buckley. He is also the author of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock's Greatest Supergroup; Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY, and the Lost Story of 1970; and biographies of Sonic Youth and the Grateful Dead. His 1993 New York Times article, "The Unmade Star," was one of the first major stories published on Jeff Buckley. He lives in Manhattan.