If you want to get into some Sonic Youth but are afraid to test their albums ( and I can fully empathize having being one of them myself ) this compilation will serve as a godsend to you. However I must warn you that you might feel a little tricked ( not in a bad way though ) with this compilation for on the most part this album is really mellow only with the later tracks piling on the noisier tracks but it does serve as a useful starter for anybody interested as it whets the appetite for more Sonic Youth records.

Buy this album and you might become a SY junkie.....join the club we all know how you feel

If you are already well into owning a substantial Sonic Youth collection, then you can pass on this album. If, however, you are a new initiate, then this is the perfect starting point. Spanning from their earliest years to the critically acclaimed Daydream Nation, this cd offers a good sampling of Sonic Youth's early catalog. If you like what you hear, the good news is that this is not a "best of" package. For every song on this cd, there are ten others just as good or even better. Again, the strength of this cd is the variety it represents, not that it's the best Sonic Youth has to offer. But don't worry, every song on this disc is a gem.

well how do you pick a greatest hit album from a band like sonic youth who knows who cares .i own this as part of my collection as just something to bring with me when i dont want to take any 3 or 4 cds with me on the road someplace .this compelation would probably be a good introdution but it does not have enough songs on it.what they should of done was at least made it a double disc or something.so to put it this is not a good intro to the band but for your friend who never heard the youth .let him or her borrow this because im sure all of you already have all there albums any ways!...

This is, oddly enough, a Sonic Youth hits album. It works much better than one might expect, but there are some curious selections here that preclude a higher rating. The Daydream Nation era has Eric's Trip in place of Silver Rocket and Kissability. That's inexcusable. Then, the Sister era excludes Schizophrenia and Catholic Block. Mere grievances, perhaps, but had these changes been made, Screaming Fields would have been a much better portrait of Sonic Youth pre-Goo discography. Hardcore SY fans will already own all this material, so they can make a proper mix themselves, while newcomers to SY are advised to buy Sister and Daydream Nation instead.

Collection of Sonic Youth singles between 1983 and 1988 sounds great but the songs don't stand as well alone as they do in the midst of their original albums. In fact, they leave one hungry for the wholeness of a Sonic Youth album and that seems to be the marketing strategy for "Screaming Fields of Sonic Love". 8 page CD booklet offers nostalgic pictures of vintage advertising posters for early "Sonic Youth" shows.