Made in USA

Made in USA is an album by Sonic Youth, and is the soundtrack to the 1987 film of the same title. The band recorded this material in 1986, shortly after the completion of their album EVOL, but the soundtrack was not released until 1995. A soundtrack to an obscure 1986 movie, Made in USA captures Sonic Youth trying to fit their expansive ideas into the brief space allotted to incidental film music. Keeping the atmospherics but scaling back the noise, the band manages to evoke textures different from its albums, textures that are drier and less overtly avant-garde. Nevertheless, Made in USA doesn't rank among their finest work, not because it's on a smaller scale, but because it all sounds tossed-off; there isn't much thought to any of this music. Even so, the disc is still quite listenable, which shows how good the band was in 1985 and 1986.