Goodbye 20th Century

A “rollicking, epic” biography of the alternative rock band formed in the 1980s, their music, and their cultural legacy (Salon).

“An expressway to the soul of the influential band.” —Vanity Fair

“The most comprehensive book yet on slackerdom’s greatest musical legacy.” —New York

Sonic Youth rose from the drug-infested streets of ‘80s downtown New York City to change the face of alternative music and rock history, influencing pop culture to this day. Goodbye 20th Century tells the whole story behind Sonic Youth: how they nurtured and inspired a new generation of musicians (Nirvana, Hole, Cat Power), film directors (Spike Jonze, Sofia Coppola, Todd Haynes), actors (Chloe Sevigny), and visual artists (Raymond Pettibon, Richard Prince). More than perhaps any band of their time, Sonic Youth brought previously considered “fringe” art into the mainstream—and, along the way, irrevocably altered the cultural zeitgeist.

Goodbye 20th Century, the definitive biography of one of rock’s most uncompromising bands, is also many other stories: the story of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon—how they fell in love, married, formed a band with Lee Renaldo and Steve Shelley and helped alter the sound of rock. And it is a chronicle of what might have been New York City’s last gasp as a cultural mecca, without which the artistic explosion of the 1980s and early 1990s would never have taken place.

Exhaustively researched, Goodbye 20th Century includes exclusive interviews with both the band and those who have worked with them plus unprecedented access to unreleased recordings and documents. Hailed as a “much-deserved biography” by Rolling Stone, this is a richly detailed, atmospheric biography about a band, their music, and the culture they created.

“As much a chronicle of the combustion of music and popular culture Sonic Youth helped ignite as it is an earnest portrait of the band and an examination of their work. . . . Browne’s book will suck you in.” —Los Angeles Times