^^^ Hilarious.

i think it's the mark of a dullard to describe new SY records as a combination of a couple previous releases

Yes.

When you have that attitude about music, it's hard to enjoy ANYTHING.

Johnny American!!! How I understand you!

I've just registered here, finally. Let me read this thread attentively first and then I'll join you!!!

Guys, what's yr problem? As you can guess we love(d) this band much as well. So it's especially sad to write such things. However, we have to face the truth about The Eternal. And let us do it at this thread! There are lots of threads lickin' Eternal's ass already, so you can go there.

It's funny when people sign up here just to complain...

When I noticed the guy who wrote exactly the same as I felt myself after listening to The Eternal, I decided to do it finally.

sonic youth sucks, i love sonic youth

When has Sonic Youth ever been a band that completely reinvents themselves every album?

The Eternal- they took what they've been doing for the last 10 years, added in some new influences, and then made it rock. What's so bad about that?

sonic life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fuck yeah!

every new sonic album since I signed up on this board (back in 1998-99) gets the same bullshit.
people complain that it sucks.
who cares?
people say it is the best
who cares?

be thankful they are still making records and enjoy it for what it is. tunes to get you through th summer.

Oh yes, guy from Germany, I agree with you as well!! My ex-girlfriend also was way surprised
when I told her my opinion!

Okay, and now some statements from me:

1. Songs have a very weak structure. Their parts glued even worse than it was
with parts of preview montage. It looked more logical there.

2. Some tricks repeat. "No Way" has almost the same break as
"Reena". And similar it's in "What We Know" even.
"What We Know" also contains the fragment from "Kim Gordon and
bla bla". It's seen good in live version presented at another thread. On
the album it's a bit masked though. “No Way” has a very similar rhythmical
fragment as in “Leaky Lifeboat”.

3. Music seems to be power-, life- and soulless. Like the band is exhausted and
they are not interested in creating music.

4. Rather Ripped wasn't a strong album to me, but it's a masterpiece if
compared with The Eternal.

5. Jim O'Rourke has a good taste really. It helped the band to release 3
interesting albums recently. But even Rather Ripped would be the nice end of
the story.

P.S. I found Preview Montage and Sacred Trickster interesting.

end of thread

I can't wait for the next album where everyone says that The Eternal was great and the new album is shit.

I'm not going to be thankful for an album that has no songs that are worth listening to all the way through for the first time in a band's career. These tunes aren't gonna "get me through the summer" because I'm not going to listen to 'em. Because they are thoughtlessly written, performed, executed and produced. End of thread, unless you have more to say along those lines, and keep the thoughtless, "Wow, this is their best album ever! Rather Ripped was the worst album ever released by anybody because it didn't have noise breakdowns on it, thank god for these noise breakdowns!" stuff to the other seven threads about how great the new album is.

And I'm sorry, but: I do not post here with every album saying how great it is or how terrible it is. I do not care if other people do that, because they don't post a long consideration of how or why they love or dislike it, and it's a fan board anyway. I even posted a long defense of Rather Ripped when it came out, not because I loved it, but because it had some value. This album has no value. See far above long post that got negative reps for no reason for very clear explanation from a total-non-hipster non-dullard, myself.

totally agree with you alex_could. I really miss the creativity of o´Rourke. He had such a good influence on the music of sonic youth. It´s so strange to recognize that there are only about 3 or 4 people in here with a similar impress of the eternal. by the way i´m a "newbie", too and i totally don´t have a clue why this fact matters to anything.

I can certainly understand the criticism on this album. This is the first time i can actually hear such blatant references to past songs. I'm sure it's deliberately a retrospective of where they have been and not just 'getting lazy' but i trust the band to not 'be lazy' and don't really mind the band 'taking a break' as it were.

As for 'sloppiness' i like the sloppiness, I've missed it on recent albums and live shows have become been too 'clean' (esp in the RR tour which was a pretty dull show)

I had decided to not see them on this tour because i was 'soniced out'... this album and the promise of the new material being really good live have brought me back and looking forward to the show.