British journalist Stevie Chick must've groaned when he got word that American journalist David Browne was publishing a biography of Sonic Youth. Not only would Browne's book be coming out shortly after Chick's own SY bio, Browne, based in New York, had the complete cooperation of the band members, all of whom sat for fresh interviews. Stuck across the pond, Chick had to make do with a handful of prior SY interviews he'd conducted, chats with band associates and secondhand sources (including Alec Foege's '94 Sonic Youth book Confusion Is Next - add Foege to the list of people who also groaned, since he's now effectively been preempted from doing an updated edition).

Goodbye 20^th Century

By David Browne

(Da Capo) www.dacapopress.com

Psychic Confusion

By Stevie Chick

(Omnibus) www.omnibuspress.com

The respective yields from Browne's Goodbye 20^th Century (individual rating: 8) and Chick's Psychic Confusion (individual rating: 5) are, unsurprisingly, just as one might predict. Browne, the author of the Jeff/Tim Buckley bio Dream Brother, weaves an engaging narrative that rarely, if ever, gets bogged down by egg-head analysis or superfluous material. Whether outlining in painstaking detail the who/where/when of the group's emergence from the primordial art-punk soup that was the lower Manhattan No Wave scene of the late ‘70s, providing a you-are-there look at SY on Lollapalooza '95, or highlighting how Jim O'Rourke's temporary stint as a Youth invigorated the band at a crucial point, Browne's touch is at once colorful and even-handed.

By contrast Chick, a contributor to MOJO, Kerrang! and others, pieces together an extended/exhaustive critical profile of (or worse: university thesis on) the band and its milieu, right down to some preachy, needlessly long tangents in which he throws in analyses of practically every band Sonic Youth ever toured with or touted. Chapter 10 alone serves up tutorials on Bikini Kill, Huggy Bear, the Riot Grrrl movement, the Beastie Boys and Sebadoh. Providing context is one thing, but dwelling at length simply makes the reader's eyes glaze over; each of these segments should have been relegated to a notes or appendix section.

Of necessity a lot of similar ground is covered, and to be fair, both books do a thorough job of telling the essential SY story. (Both also compress, unfortunately, that story from 2001 onwards, Chick bringing things up to the present in a mere 20 pages, Browne in 40.) Browne's is simply the more fun, livelier read - a portrait, if you will, compared to Chick's collection of sketches - and you get a stronger sense of the dynamics of the band and the personalities that comprise it. Yes kids: they would be the coolest parents, like, ever. FRED MILLS