NYC Ghosts & Flowers

As a result of the theft, the members of Sonic Youth relied upon "old guitars in their studio, unearthing instruments they hadn't used in years" which "along with equipment purchased to fulfill the remaining [...] dates [of the tour], would serve as the foundation for six new songs written over the next month", in addition to "Free City Rhymes" and "Renegade Princess", which were written prior to the tour. The band members later acknowledged that "the gear theft was somewhat of a blessing, if [also] a rather unwelcome and unpleasant one, in that it truly forced them to 'start over' and approach creating music with brand new boundaries". == Release ==

NYC Ghosts & Flowers was released on May 16, 2000, by record label DGC. A music video was released for the track "Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)". According to the band's official website, it was a proposed single that "never actually found its way into stores." == Critical reception ==

NYC Ghosts & Flowers received an approval rating of 66 out of 100 on review aggregator website Metacritic, signifying "generally favorable reviews". Salon.com also gave the album a positive review and stated, "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." Mojo stated that "in the end, it's surprisingly worth it for the few great, strange tracks." Select wrote that "the songs suffer from a lazy approach and the relentless repetition of unengaging chord patterns." Brent DiCrescenzo's review for Pitchfork was far more critical and assigned the album a score of 0.0 out of 10, with the critic panning it as "an unfathomable album which will be heard in the squash courts and open mic nights of deepest Hell." Commenting on the album's avant-garde roots, he said, "These are not new ideas. These are ideas that were arrogant and unlistenable upon birth thirty years ago." == Track listing ==

Note: For the vinyl version, "Renegade Princess" was moved to track 6, and "Side2Side" & "StreamXSonik Subway" were swapped in order. == Personnel ==

Sonic Youth • Thurston Moore – vocals, guitar, production • Kim Gordon – vocals, bass guitar, guitar, trumpet, sleeve illustration (Girl Drawing, 2000), production • Lee Ranaldo – vocals, guitars, synthesizer, production, sleeve photography (1998) • Steve Shelley – drums, percussion, production Additional personnel • Jim O'Rourke – bass guitar, electronics ("Side2Side"), production, additional recording, additional mixing • William Winant – percussion ("Side2Side") • Rafael Toral – Spacestatic guitar ("Renegade Princess") Technical • Wharton Tiers – recording • Greg Calbi – mastering • Frank Olinsky – sleeve art direction • Dan Graham – sleeve artwork (video still from Rock My Religion, 1980) • D. A. Levy – sleeve spiral drawing (1967) • Joe Brainard – sleeve painting (Flower Painting IV, 1967) • Robert Mooney – sleeve painting (untitled, 1992) • William S. Burroughs – sleeve painting (X-Ray Man, 1992) == Charts ==