Lee Ranaldo discusses his 13 favorite albums

lee-ranaldo

Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo is the latest artist interviewed for The Quietus‘ Baker’s Dozen series where artists talk about their 13 favorite albums of all time. Lee discusses each one in detail and you can read all of his commentary HERE. The list is as diverse and awesome as you’d expect, with such choices as Glenn Branca‘s The Ascension, Sibylle Baier‘s Colour Green, Joni Mitchell‘s Ladies of the Canyon, Leonard Cohen‘s Songs of Love and Hate, the Grateful Dead‘s Anthem of the Sun, The BeatlesMeet The Beatles!, Ornette Coleman‘s Dancing In Your Head, Pavement‘s Slanted and Enchanted and more.

Here’s a particularly great quote about the Sibylle Baier album:

I have chosen Songs of Love & Hate by Leonard Cohen and Ladies of the Canyon by Joni Mitchell but this record is right in that same period of beautiful singer/songwriter records. They’re not band records, they’re personal records, they’re kind of like somebody’s journal or notebook. Those records always felt like a window opening into somebody’s life where you kind of spent an hour or forty five minutes of someone telling you about their life and the different things they see and the different ways they look at the world and if it resonated with you it became this…

I just thought that Sibylle Baier was in the same canon as all those albums from that period that made an impression on me. Like early Dylan or a Nick Drake record or something. Colour Green is just as powerful for me.

Read more here and see Lee’s full list below.

Lee is on tour now in support of his great new solo album Electric Trim, and he played Brooklyn’s Bell House last night (11/9) with Pigeons opening. Lee played as a trio, with him on acoustic guitar joined by a an electric guitarist/keyboard player and a drummer. Mark Ibold (who played with Lee in Sonic Youth and was also in Pavement, who made Lee’s 13 albums list) was spotted in the audience.

There’s also a new documentary on the recording of Lee’s new album, Hello Hello Hello : Lee Ranaldo : Electric Trim, which gets its NYC premiere at DOC NYC fest on Sunday (11/12) at the SVA Theatre (tickets).

As Lee discussed in his commentary on the Grateful Dead album he picked, he covered “Mountains of the Moon” with Lisa Hannigan for last year’s Grateful Dead tribute album on 4AD. Listen to that cover below.

Get Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising on vinyl in our store.

Lee Ranaldo’s 13 Favorite Albums
John Fahey – Blind Joe Death
Glenn Branca – The Ascension
Einstürzende Neubauten – Kollaps
Sibylle Baier – Colour Green
Joni Mitchell – Ladies Of The Canyon
Leonard Cohen – Songs Of Love And Hate
Ornette Coleman – Dancing In Your Head
The Grateful Dead – Anthem Of The Sun
The Beatles – Meet The Beatles!
Talking Heads – Talking Heads: 77
Elvis Costello – This Year’s Model
Pavement – Slanted And Enchanted
John Cage – The 25-Year Retrospective Concert of the Music of John Cage