NYC Ghosts & Flowers

NYC Ghosts & Flowers is the eleventh studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth. It was released on May 16, 2000, through record label DGC.
The album was a slight departure, mainly as a creative reaction to the theft of their instruments while on tour in July 1999. Irreplaceable guitars and effects pedals with numerous modifications were stolen. As a result of this theft, the members of Sonic Youth relied upon "old guitars in their studio, unearthing instruments they hadn't used in years" which "along with equipment purchased to fulfill the remaining [...] dates [of the tour], would serve as the foundation for six new songs written over the next month", in addition to "Free City Rhymes" and "Renegade Princess", which were written prior to the tour. The band members later acknowledged that "the gear theft was somewhat of a blessing, if not a rather unwelcome and unpleasant one, in that it truly forced them to 'start over' and approach creating music with brand new boundaries".
It is also the first Sonic Youth album to extensively use prepared guitars since 1985's Bad Moon Rising, most notably on "Small Flowers Crack Concrete" (a file inserted over the neck pickup) and "Lightnin'" (a bike horn wedged under the strings).
On this album the influence of beat poetry on the band is strongly evident: the lyrics to most songs resemble the beat style; Lenny Bruce and D. A. Levy are name-checked; and the cover art is based on a painting by William S. Burroughs.
A music video was released for the track "Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)". According to the band's official website, it was a proposed single that "never actually found its way into stores."