Sister is the fourth studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth, released on SST Records on June 1.

The album continued the band's move away from the no wave movement towards alternative rock song structures, while maintaining an experimental approach.

[1][2] Sister is a loose concept album (like its follow-up Daydream Nation), inspired in part by the life and works of American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.

[4] According to Sputnikmusic's Adam Downer, Sister deviated from the frenetic sound of Sonic Youth's previous music in favor of a refined style of noise pop that would typify the band's subsequent work.

[9] "Tuff Gnarl"'s working titles were "Sea-Sik" and "Smart and Fast"; collaborator Mike Watt covered the song on his album Ball-Hog or Tugboat?

After its release, the band began their European tour, during which a part of the Master-Dik EP was recorded at a radio session in Geneva.

They toured the United States in September and October, replacing their usual encores of "Hot Wire My Heart" and "I Wanna Be Your Dog" with four Ramones covers.

In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, music critic Robert Christgau, who had previously feuded with the band, called Sister an album that was finally worthy of their aesthetic.

Christgau said that while Sonic Youth had learned to temper their penchant for "insanity", their guitar sound was still "almost unique in its capacity to evoke rock and roll without implicating them in a history few youngish bands can bear up under these days".

[24] In a negative review, Spin magazine said that the band failed to successfully mix their previous "nonsense" with "real rock tunage", as the more tempered musical approach lacked riffs and strong ideas.

[28] In a retrospective review, AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Sister "a masterpiece" and "one of the singular art rock records of the 1980s, surpassed only by Sonic Youth's next album, Daydream Nation".