nyc ghosts & flowers
by Sonic Youth
Metascore
66

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 18
  3. Negative: 2 out of 18
  1. Alternative Press (Record Of The Week)
    80
    A dark, nervous-sounding album, a demanding and disruptive listen that only grows thornier over its 45-minute duration.
  2. Billboard
    70
    The collection either encapsulates Sonic Youth's most endearing or annoying qualities, depending on how one feels about the band and the spoken-word poetics from Kim Gordon.
  3. CDNow
    80
    While a little too dense in spots, NYC Ghosts & Flowers is 42 minutes of the most neatly executed pop noir you'll hear.
  5. Checkout.com
    80
    NYC Ghosts & Flowers yields no easy accessibility, as it becomes darker and more abstract by the minute.
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  6. Ink Blot Magazine
    80
    Closer than any previous mass-market Sonic Youth album to the avant-garde sound that's always popped up in their extracurricular work.
  7. Magnet
    80
    Doesn't quite reach greatness, but it grows and changes with every listen... [#46, p.92]
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  8. MTV.com
    80
    Ghosts & Flowers, like Sonic Youth's landmark Daydream Nation album, forces the listener to listen very carefully for subtle moments of beauty amidst the near silence and the absolute chaos.
  9. New Musical Express (NME)
    80
    While it captures the contrary, questing essence of Sonic Youth surer than any SY release since 'Washing Machine', it also never betrays the sluggish, arrogant lack of self-editing that made '98's 'A Thousand Leaves' so bilious and unlovable, and the band's self-released 'SYR' EPs so hit and miss.
  10. Salon
    70
    The unruly, bad-dream aftertaste of this material echoes the quartet's early records from the 1980s... Even while there isn't a single song here that holds together from beginning to end, even as the music makes only itself felt in halting jigsaw fashion... the album has a gloomy, unaccommodating tenacity that's hard to shake.
  11. Sonicnet
    70
    Certain moments find the quartet keying in on the same fugal intertwining of beauty and dissonance that Television explored back in the late 1970s.
  12. Village Voice (Consumer Guide)
    100
    Its avant parts are more listenable--nay, beautiful--than anything on Washing Machine if not A Thousand Leaves.
  13. Wall of Sound
    71
    The band members unleash meditative, self-consciously poetic jams, solidifying their status as the hipster's Phish.

Awards & Rankings

60
#60 Most Discussed Album of 2000
80
#80 Most Shared Album of 2000

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
6.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 22 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 22
  3. Negative: 5 out of 22
  1. Joe
    May 24, 2009
    8
    A good album. Not perfect but definitely interesting, a great record for Sonic Youth.
  2. SR.
    Sep 23, 2007
    7
    Its sonic youth, take it or leave it. that pitchfork 'review' shouldn't be counted. there are very very few albums ever that Its sonic youth, take it or leave it. that pitchfork 'review' shouldn't be counted. there are very very few albums ever that deserve a 0 and this certainly isn't one of them. scumbags.… Full Review »
  3. JonL
    Jul 23, 2007
    5
    Some cool, interesting tracks where the beat approach actually works (usually Ranaldo's stuff), but most of it is dull or just Some cool, interesting tracks where the beat approach actually works (usually Ranaldo's stuff), but most of it is dull or just embarrassing. Unless Ranaldo's writing it all, it's better for them to just hint at this approach rather than attack it outright.… Full Review »
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