"It’s hard to imagine where we would be without Sonic Youth. It’s unlikely another smart post-punk band founded around the same time — Big Black, the Meat Puppets — could have delivered us from hardcore’s fury quite the same way. What would indie rock sound like if Sonic Youth’s sublime din hadn’t enchanted and derailed all the college rock bands of the mid-’80s? We would have only been left with a bunch of sanguine Feelies rip offs, never having the chance to divulge a crush via careful mixtape placement of “Shadow of A Doubt.”"