Sonic Youth is awesome. Since they've been around so long, they've amassed quite a catalogue of music. They are always evolving and changing their sound.
They used to be on indie labels until they signed to Geffen in I think the early 90s. That means anything before that is rougher sounding, not so polished, more experimental, while anything after "Goo" (their Geffen debut) is more, uh, radio friendly.
All of their albums are great, but I think their best album before they signed to Geffen is "Daydream Nation." Especially the song "Silver Rocket." I love blasting that song.
As far as they newer stuff, I've read only very good things about "Murray Street" but haven't heard it. Murray street refers to the name of the street their studio is on, which happens to be the street where on of the 9/11 plane engines landed.
In my opinion, here is my ranking of newer Sonic Youth albums:
1)Dirty
2)Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star
3)Washing Machine
4)a thousand leaves
5)Goo
Also, they have an album called "Screaming Fields of Sonic Love" which is sort of a best-of album of their pre-Geffen days, that would probably not be a bad idea to check out.
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