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 contributing editor at Rolling Stone, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Time, Spin, the New Republic, Men's Journal, the Huffington Post, and numerous other outlets. For many years he was the music critic at the New York Daily News and then Entertainment Weekly, where, among other tasks, he worked as a roadie for Kiss, shared a bagel with Leonard Cohen in Cohen's Montreal home, and spent time on the tour buses with Coldplay and the Black Crowes.
Browne is the author of four books: "Dream Brother" (2001), a dual biography of the late musicians Jeff and Tim Buckley; "Amped" (2004), a history of extreme sports; and "Goodbye 20th Century" (2008), a biography of the pioneering indie band Sonic Youth. "Dream Brother" has been translated into French and Italian and has been optioned as source material for a major feature film on the life of Jeff Buckley, for which Browne will be a consultant. "Goodbye 20th Century" was hailed as "an expressway to the soul of of the influential band" by Vanity Fair, "a rollicking, epic biography" by Salon, and "compulsively readable" by Publishers Weekly. It has also been published in the UK and Germany, with a Japanese edition forthcoming.
He is the recipient of a Music Journalism Award for criticism. Born and raised in New Jersey, not far from Bruce Springsteen territory, he lives and works in New York City. He has a jones for sci-fi and horror films, non-fiction books, and those chocolate/coconut Girl Scout cookies, in no particular order.
