Sonic Youth began their career by abandoning any pretense of traditional rock & roll conventions. Borrowing heavily from the free-form noise experimentalism of the Velvet Underground and the Stooges, and melding it with a performance art aesthetic borrowed from the New York post-punk avant-garde, Sonic Youth redefined what noise meant within rock & roll.
Sonic Youth rarely rocked, though they were inspired directly by hardcore punk, post-punk, and no wave. Instead, their dissonance, feedback, and alternate tunings created a new sonic landscape, one that redefined what rock guitar could do.
During the '90s, most American indie bands, and many British underground bands, displayed a heavy debt to Sonic Youth, and the group itself had become a popular cult band, with each of its albums charting in the Top 100. Such success was unthinkable when guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo formed Sonic Youth with bassist Kim Gordon in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore (vocals, guitar, piano), Kim Gordon (vocals, bass, guitar), Lee Ranaldo (vocals and guitar), Steve Shelley (drums), Mark Ibold (bass, guitar)
"Teen Age Riot" was the first single from Sonic Youth's 1988 album, Daydream Nation. It is the band's first largely successful release, receiving heavy airplay in modern rock stations, and considerably expanding their audience (along with the album itself).
It is one of Sonic Youth's most definitive songs, yet it is something of an oddity amongst their repertoire, consisting of a traditional verse/chorus structure and omitting the distorted feedback that usually characterizes their songs.The song is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
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