Click here to talk about the next Sonic Youth album - The Eternal

would i like this if i really like rather ripped?

thurston's voice has really withered with time, hasn't it?

omar: probably not!

i like thurston's voice more than ever now; it has a convincing gravel where as it used to be a guy trying to sound punk, like a teenager. cf i'm not there, never light especially.

would i like this if i really like rather ripped?

― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Wednesday, April 29, 2009 3:50 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

omar: probably not!

― Beatrix Kiddo, Wednesday, April 29, 2009 3:51 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

oh that is a bummer :( i liked rather ripped

Leaky Lifeboat (For Gregory Corso)

The NYC beat poet Gregory Corso once referred life on Earth as a leaky lifeboat. This tune expounds on this rumination.

The last two SY albums are among their very best. I don't expect Great Steps Forward from them -- I expect them to keep showing new wrinkles.

"what we know," lee's first song i think, is pretty sweet

I don't hate this on first listen, but I'm not sure it holds up to the last two, which struck the right balance between sparkling pop and relaxed groove. This feels a little more indulgent, which isn't a bad thing by any means, since I like their sound, but not quite as essential.

Thurston has the relatively better songs on this every SY album ,i think

Fixed, sorry guys.

i am seeing both sides of the disappointed generic sonic youth lp thing. it's like mogwai who release albums of mogwai songs and sometimes you wonder i they couldn't have written some better mogwai songs, picked better riffs to jam out and get louder on. some of the things on this record just feel too straightforward, like autopilot with autogenerated SY lyrics etc.

BUT then part of me thinks that maybe it's like a textural record and you'll learn to love the feel of it with time, like the second song when there are these varying bluntnesses and directnesses to the guitars, like it's more about the mastery of tone and inflection than about the songs themselves. will see how it grows.

the last song feels like it should be the first song of a different record.

They're on Jools Holland in a few minutes on BBC2.

"what we know," lee's first song i think, is pretty sweet

Not just sweet, but one of his better SY songs ever methinks.

yeah i just watched the clip of the Jools Holland performance on YouTube -- which was "What We Know" -- and that was pretty damn nice. Great song (first song of the record I've heard, I don't do "leaks".)

- 'what we know'
- 'sacred trixter'
- 'antenna'
- 'teenage rito'

from the Jools Holland show

I wish I could be
Music on a tree
Noise nomads and me
Levitating on the ground

Bahahahahahahaha.

there's really no reason for this band to be making this music in 2009, but "antenna" is a nice song

there's really no reason for this band to be making this music in 2009

The fact that I want to hear it is a valid enough reason, but it's not even just me thank goodness.

We can agree NYC Ghosts is better than this, right?

That applies to me, yes. But I happen to like NYC Ghosts & Flowers a great deal.

I'd say it's similar to NYC Ghosts in terms of self-indulgence, though first song aside I couldn't take that album

That clip of "What We Know" up above sounded great!

if there's a winner here, it's gotta be LEE - i can't remember the last time he had so many incredible songs on an SY album

i havent heard this album, but lee rules pretty consistently

WTF. I kind of loved this on first listen.

stream of the whole album.

just listening to anti-orgasm, the song inspired by uschi obermaier. this is pretty good, rather varied stuff. they are not charting any new territory here, they are inspecting landscapes closer which they have already visited.

leaky lifeboat (for gregory corso) is rather soft (lalalala-lala) and pretty pop for a sonic youth track. only 3 and a half minutes.

antenna is a really slow and quite beautiful ballad which could work as a lullabye. the noisy bits are very tame.

what we know, where lee sings, is a little on the heavy, gloomy, dark side. a welcome change from the light ditties before. dominated by guitars and bass.

calming the snake, more of the same classic sy noisy guitar structure cru with kim in yoko ono yelping mode.

poison arrow rumbles along. thurston's voice a little raspy, kim joins in.

malibu gas station starts like a hopper painting, just hanging on the wall. then it accelerates, kim sings. they find their groove. excellent piece.

thunderclap for bobby pyn.
thurston starts this with his sprechgesang. it gets a little dissonant in the second half. seems longer than it is (2'39").

no way.
even on auto pilot sy are more exciting than 99% of the other bands around playing their best songs.

walkin blue.
lee on vocals. he sounds a little like john and paul. sy in grateful dead guitar meandering mode.

massage the history.
an acoustic guitar. that must be a premiere. this doesn't sound like sy at all in the beginning. they prove that they can still reinvent themselves, that they are still no old farts. even kim sings in a sexy, soft way, she whispers and moans the words at the same time. the longest track, ten minutes. excellent.

heard it in tower recs in shibuya which seemed rather apt somehow (for personal reasons: found no new york there YEARS ago). was bopping along and even told my dad i was a fan of the band playing the music in the background. he of course didn"t even acknowledge what i said. hah

it's their most boring album since nyc ghost and flowers (which was even worse)

nyc ghost and flowers will always be redeemed because it has the best song they did since their glory years for the opening track.

Yeah, actually, I think "Free City Rhymes" is one of their best songs period. Everything they're good at - intricate guitar polyphony, epic builds to dissonant climaxes, pop vs noise, etc - actually comes together there.

I kind of tired of The Eternal after streaming about four times, ha.

it is the kind of record that gets pretty tired pretty fast. but the new songs still sounded really good live and I'm sure I will come back to this record in a while (like when it's out) and appreciate it more.

On first listen, it's definitely not as immediate and hooky as Rather Ripped; the songwriting is pretty standard Sonic Youth. But they've made some sonic adjustments that make some of the songs more interesting, such as increased emphasis on multiple vocals, which is really nice. "Walkin Blues" is definitely the highlight of the album for me, the only song that sounds like SY doing something a little different. Also like "Sacred Trickster" (except for the lame lyrics) and "Anti-Orgasm" a lot.

On first listen, it's definitely not as immediate and hooky as Rather Ripped; the songwriting is pretty standard Sonic Youth.

this is what i was thinking, too. i loved how hooky RR was, and was a little let down by this

So the new soundscan has the album debuting at #18. Their first Top 20 album! Though I'm sure they've sold just under 20,000 copies in a week before.

*feelin* the mediocrity of this album, hard. not that it's bad, it seems like they're solidifying their trajectory into goofy, riff-based tuneage. feels more alive than rather ripped. it almost feels like a weak malkmus album to me, but with very signature sy sounds. affecting songs: no way, calming the snake, sacred trixter, antenna

saw them live last night, super heavy on the new album and all those songs kind of killed live. although it was kind of a relief when they did white cross and tom violence.

er, not white cross. also, I left before the final encore where they did sprawl, so, my fault

AKM, are you an Oaklander? I agree that they made the new songs sound great.

yeah this album really kicks ass live, even the songs i had reservations about on record

yeah I was at the oakland show. kind of wish we'd seen the daydream nation songs in the encore but I saw that DN show last year so not a huge loss, and we had to get home. but the show made me appreciate these songs more; I still think they sound kind of weak on the album though.

I saw the 2nd show in D.C. on this tour and I wish there was more DN stuff (only 1 out of the 5 old songs, "Hey Joni"), since they never came anywhere near here with the tour where they played the whole album.

i'm even more psyched for tonight's show after reading your guys' posts about the fox show. but i think the new album is a great SY disc, though it did take about 6 good listens for it to begin to really grow on me

Here's the setlist from last night's show. Pretty typical of this tour as far as catalogue tracks.

Tom Violence
No Way
Sacred Trickster
Calming the Snake
Hey Joni
Anti-Orgasm
Walkin Blue
Poison Arrow
Malibu Gas Station
Antenna
Leaky Lifeboat
Massage the History
Stereo Sanctity

Encore:
What We Know
Shadow of a Doubt

Encore 2:
The Sprawl
'Cross the Breeze

woah have never seen "Stereo Sanctity" live, totally jealous

yeah that was excellent despite the fact I called it white cross a few hours ago. I suppose SY's catalogue is so deep, at this point, that it is impossible and unlikely that they are going to play even 1/4 of what I want to hear.

...until they do a "Live By Request" tour... to which I would not be opposed.

BTW highlights for me were "What We Know" and the seemingly endless (but hypnotic) Massage the History, which has been a household fave on the new one.

was massage the history the one with the thurston sitting down playing an acoustic? cuz that was awesome (I am awful with the names of SY songs)

Massage the memory.

Yeah, that was the one. I was in a trance. (xpost)

yeah "Massage The History" is good live -- at my show people actually starting CLAPPING to the rhythm at the very end when it was just Kim plucking out that slow guitar line, which was weird but kind of awesome