
Sonic Life
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Thurston Moore
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By:
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Thurston Moore
About this listen
From the founding member of Sonic Youth, a passionate memoir tracing the author's life and art—from his teen years as a music obsessive in small-town Connecticut, to the formation of his legendary rock group, to thirty years of creation, experimentation, and wonder
"Downtown scientists rejoice! For Thurston Moore has unearthed the missing links, the sacred texts, the forgotten stories, and the secret maps of the lost golden age. This is history—scuffed, slightly bent, plenty noisy, and indispensable."—Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and Harlem Shuffle
Thurston Moore moved to Manhattan’s East Village in 1978 with a yearning for music. He wanted to be immersed in downtown New York’s sights and sounds—the feral energy of its nightclubs, the angular roar of its bands, the magnetic personalities within its orbit. But more than anything, he wanted to make music—to create indelible sounds that would move, provoke, and inspire.
His dream came to life in 1981 with the formation of Sonic Youth, a band Moore cofounded with Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo. Sonic Youth became a fixture in New York’s burgeoning No Wave scene—an avant-garde collision of art and sound, poetry and punk. The band would evolve from critical darlings to commercial heavyweights, headlining festivals around the globe while helping introduce listeners to such artists as Nirvana, Hole, and Pavement, and playing alongside such icons as Neil Young and Iggy Pop. Through it all, Moore maintained an unwavering love of music: the new, the unheralded, the challenging, the irresistible.
In the spirit of Just Kids, Sonic Life offers a window into the trajectory of a celebrated artist and a tribute to an era of explosive creativity. It presents a firsthand account of New York in a defining cultural moment, a history of alternative rock as it was birthed and came to dominate airwaves, and a love letter to music, whatever the form. This is a story for anyone who has ever felt touched by sound—who knows the way the right song at the right moment can change the course of a life.
©2023 Thurston Moore (P)2023 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Fall by Vogue, The Chicago Tribune, and The Guardian
"Downtown scientists rejoice! For Thurston Moore has unearthed the missing links, the sacred texts, the forgotten stories, and the secret maps of the lost golden age. This is history—scuffed, slightly bent, plenty noisy, and indispensable." —Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Underground Railroad and Harlem Shuffle
"I thoroughly enjoyed Thurston Moore's trip down the gauntlet of memory lane, dodging beer bottles and pools of blood as he balances the demands of art and survival. Plus I'm a sucker for anyone who name-checks Saccharine Trust. A raw, rollicking document." —Nell Zink, author of Avalon and Doxology
“Thurston Moore’s all-embracing memoir Sonic Life works the way Sonic Youth did, with raging appetite for experience, with velocity and nerve, with a total devotion to making art from the resolute stance of starry-eyed fan and unabashed permanent novice. His recall is as amazing as his generosity.” —Jonathan Lethem, National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author of Motherless Brooklyn
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Story
Linkin Park is one of the 21st Century’s biggest, and most important, rock bands. All it takes is one quick glance at the numbers—11 Top 40 hits on the Hot 100 and six No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, over a dozen massive tours, 27 major award wins, 100+ million records sold worldwide, over 30 million monthly Spotify listeners—to realize that when it comes to the metrics of music consumption and fandom, there’s no bigger group in recent memory. And yet, despite their enduring legacy within rock, there’s never been a full, comprehensive biography of Linkin Park—until now.
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Enjoyed hearing Linkin Parks Story
- By Daniel Pappalardo on 10-03-24
By: Jason Lipshutz
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Overtime
- Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football
- By: John U. Bacon
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past year, John U. Bacon has received unprecedented access to Jim Harbaugh’s University of Michigan football team: coaches, players, and staffers, in closed-door meetings, locker rooms, meals, and classes. Overtime captures this storied program at the crossroads, as the sport’s winningest team battles to reclaim its former glory. But what if the price of success today comes at the cost of your soul? Do you pay it, or compete without compromising?
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Good story.... but
- By Amazon Customer on 10-07-19
By: John U. Bacon
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Twilight Man
- Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire
- By: Liz Brown
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot, Liz Brown
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The unbelievable true story of Harrison Post - the enigmatic lover of one of the richest men in 1920s Hollywood - and the battle for a family fortune.
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Butte amateur historian
- By Josh M. Peck on 09-30-21
By: Liz Brown
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Into the Soul of the World
- My Journey to Healing
- By: Brad Wetzler
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Suffering from PTSD and severe depression from past trauma, battling an addiction to overprescribed psychiatric medication, and at the rock bottom of his career, journalist Brad Wetzler had nowhere to go. So he set out on a journey to wander and hopefully find himself—and the world—again. Into the Soul of the World is Wetzler’s thrilling, impactful, and heartrending memoir of healing—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. An adventure journalist at heart, Wetzler mixes travelogue with empowering insights about his inner journey to better care for his own mental health.
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Wonderful story well told (and read)
- By Pamela Olson on 05-25-23
By: Brad Wetzler
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Lee Miller
- A Life
- By: Carolyn Burke
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 18 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Carolyn Burke reveals Miller as a multifaceted woman: both model and photographer, muse and reporter, sexual adventurer and mother, and, in later years, gourmet cook - the last of the many dramatic transformations she underwent during her lifetime. A sleek blond bombshell, Miller was part of a glamorous circle in New York and Paris in the 1920s and 1930s as a leading Vogue model, close to Edward Steichen, Charlie Chaplin, Jean Cocteau, and Pablo Picasso. Then, during World War II, she became a war correspondent - one of the first women to do so.
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A Unique and Beautiful Person
- By Cindy A. Ossias on 03-21-24
By: Carolyn Burke
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Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother
- Memoirs of a Neurotic Filmmaker
- By: Barry Sonnenfeld
- Narrated by: Barry Sonnenfeld
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Film and television director Barry Sonnenfeld's outrageous and hilarious memoir traces his idiosyncratic upbringing in New York City, his breaking into film as a cinematographer with the Coen brothers, and his unexpected career as the director behind such huge film franchises as The Addams Family and Men in Black, and beloved work like Get Shorty, Pushing Daises, and A Series of Unfortunate Events.
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The Kosher Cowboy Rides Again
- By Jay on 05-05-20
By: Barry Sonnenfeld
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Major Labels
- A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres
- By: Kelefa Sanneh
- Narrated by: Kelefa Sanneh
- Length: 18 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Kelefa Sanneh, one of the essential voices of our time on music and culture, has made a deep study of how popular music unites and divides us, charting the way genres become communities. In Major Labels, Sanneh distills a career’s worth of knowledge about music and musicians into a brilliant and omnivorous reckoning with popular music - as an art form (actually, a bunch of art forms), as a cultural and economic force, and as a tool that we use to build our identities.
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Humbling
- By Greg Adamson on 11-20-21
By: Kelefa Sanneh
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Hollywood Ending
- Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence
- By: Ken Auletta
- Narrated by: Jonathan Coleman
- Length: 19 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty years ago, Ken Auletta wrote an iconic New Yorker profile of the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who was then at the height of his powers. The profile made waves for exposing how volatile, even violent, Weinstein was to his employees and collaborators. But there was a much darker story that was just out of reach: rumors had long swirled that Weinstein was a sexual predator. Auletta confronted Weinstein, who denied the claims. Since no one was willing to go on the record, Auletta and the magazine concluded they couldn’t close the case.
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Compelling but too long, with some strange errors
- By bugsmeany on 11-16-22
By: Ken Auletta
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The Happy Bottom Riding Club
- The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes
- By: Lauren Kessler
- Narrated by: Hollis McCarthy
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Pancho Barnes was a force of nature, a woman who lived a big, messy, colorful, unconventional life. She ran through three fortunes, four husbands, and countless lovers. She outflew Amelia Earhart, outsmarted Howard Hughes, outdrank the Mexican Army, and outmaneuvered the US government. In The Happy Bottom Riding Club, award-winning author Lauren Kessler tells the story of a high-spirited, headstrong woman who was proud of her successes, unabashed by her failures, and the architect of her own legend.
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Never a dull moment
- By Matthew G A Vogelpohl on 06-19-24
By: Lauren Kessler
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Walk Through Walls
- A Memoir
- By: Marina Abramovic
- Narrated by: Marina Abramovic
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2010 more than 750,000 people stood in line at Marina Abramović's MoMA retrospective for the chance to sit across from her and communicate with her nonverbally in an unprecedented durational performance that lasted more than 700 hours. This celebration of nearly 50 years of groundbreaking performance art demonstrated once again that Marina Abramović is truly a force of nature.
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Fascinating read
- By V. Ledovsky on 11-20-16
By: Marina Abramovic
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Mike Nichols
- A Life
- By: Mark Harris
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 20 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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By the acclaimed author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back comes a magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges - some of the worst largely unknown until now. Mark Harris explores, with brilliantly vivid detail and insight, the life, work, struggle, and passion of an artist and man in constant motion.
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Loved the book, but driven nuts my mispronounced names.
- By Amazon Customer on 02-14-21
By: Mark Harris
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I Just Keep Talking
- A Life in Essays
- By: Nell Irvin Painter
- Narrated by: Nell Irvin Painter
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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From the New York Times bestselling author of The History of White People and Old in Art School, a finalist for the NBCC Award, comes a comprehensive new collection of essays spanning art, politics, and the legacy of racism that shapes American history as we know it. These essays resist easy answers in favor of complexity, the inescapable sense of our country’s potential thwarted by its failures. This collection will surely solidify Painter’s place among the finest critics and writers of the last half century.
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Author reader
- By K D S on 07-11-24
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Personality and Power
- Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe
- By: Ian Kershaw
- Narrated by: Matt Bates
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of the leading historians of twentieth-century Europe and the author of the definitive biography of Hitler, Personality and Power is a masterful reckoning with how character conspired with opportunity to create the modern age’s uniquely devastating despots—and how and why other countries found better paths. The modern era saw the emergence of individuals who had command over a terrifying array of instruments of control, persuasion and death. Whole societies were reshaped and wars were fought, often with a merciless contempt for the most basic norms.
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Great book, but needs work on human groups
- By Thomas F. Winterbottom on 12-07-22
By: Ian Kershaw
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Art Is Life
- Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night
- By: Jerry Saltz
- Narrated by: Jerry Saltz, Mark Bramhall
- Length: 16 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: Witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary listeners to fine art as few critics have.
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WRONG for audio program
- By Karen Lehrer on 11-07-22
By: Jerry Saltz
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My Broken Language
- A Memoir
- By: Quiara Alegría Hudes
- Narrated by: Quiara Alegría Hudes
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Quiara Alegría Hudes was the sharp-eyed girl on the stairs while her family danced their defiance in a tight North Philly kitchen. She was awed by her mother and aunts and cousins, but haunted by the unspoken, untold stories of the barrio — even as she tried to find her own voice in the sea of language around her, written and spoken, English and Spanish, bodies and books, Western art and sacred altars.
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A voice that needed to be heard
- By Juan C. Velandia on 04-08-21
Very Informative and Interesting
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I feel like I just lost my new best friend
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Sonic life forever!
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Fantastic in every way!
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Overwhelmed with gratitude for this person
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Better than this band is your life, not quite as good as please kill me this purely in regards to its status as a condensed punk history which are two great books that’s high praise. This is all from personal anecdotes not interviews or second hand accounts.
Which that I could see how the reverence can read annoying, but rules imo I’m a geek and love sonic youth. Reassuring to know one of my musical heroes is as obsessive and passionate as his fans still.
Thurston’s specificity is charming not annoying to me as a music geek and his monotone pretentious delivery I wouldn’t have it any other way. Just finished the whole book audiobook in like 2 days was a delight. Hari Krishna
Treasure trove memoir of lore from Punk’s Waldo
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important 70’s/80's NYC scene history
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Completely blown away again
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Just wonderful
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Sonic Book
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