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After hearing the lovely “new” disc by Sonic Youth (and especially reading the liner notes therein), I have come to the conclusion that Sonic Youth is far from being the out-of-touch, aging and culturally irrelevant band that so many “Rather Ripped” nay-sayers have prematurely dismissed them as. But before I get into that, allow me to make a short list of the reasons why—aside from, perhaps, the first two listens—I’ve never regarded “Rather Ripped” as anything less than a (deceptively) concise masterpiece that yields its hidden rewards steadily through repeated listens (and smoking some weed, if that happens to be your thing):
The almost embarrassing simplicity of “Sleepin’ Around” becoming a thrilling 80’s-style cop show car chase scene, complete with a random (but totally welcome) dance breakdown spliced right into the middle.
The passably interesting filler of “What a Waste”—with its deceptively simple melodies and progressions—becoming the strangest hodge-podge of bizarro weirdness, culminating in what I’ve come to refer to as “The Confusing Solo” (after hearing it one night at just the right moment, driving around lost in my neighborhood at 15 mph, and through my panicked hysterical laughter wondering whether it made having fun seem really confusing, or if it made being confused seem really fun).
Discovering—after nearly a month of constant listening—that the “noise/feedback” guitar in “Rats” was actually playing a melody (not to mention the countless other odd little things going on in that song).
And do I really need to go into the epiphanies that one can experience during “Turquoise Boy” and “Pink Steam” (not to mention “Jams Run Free”—the most absolutely brilliant recording ever, that has alternately taken me on a Disney-style log flume ride, a harrowing journey through a haunted forest to the top of Superstition Mountain, and a rocket ship straight into the stratosphere of bliss)?
That being said, the songs on “Rather Ripped” *are* undeniably more accessible than pretty much any of their previous catalogue—the weirdness is still there, but you have to look harder (or from a different point of view) to find it. Perhaps that was just what they felt like doing at the time, or perhaps that was part of a larger plan—a plan that is still in progress today. While phase one of said hypothetical plan—“Make new friends, but keep the old”—may not have been wildly successful (becoming something more like “garner some mild interest among a few new acquaintances, while alienating some of the older, more fickle ones”), the release of “The Destroyed Room” seems to be heading in the direction of more boundary-pushing, now that they’ve got some fresh faces in the door. The songs on this new album—while not brand new—are still relatively recent given the scope of SY’s catalogue (showing that they didn’t “forget” how to make unique, edgy music), and the tone of the commentary (particularly the optimistically promising notes on “The Diamond Sea”) feel as if they’re directed as much towards new fans—to sort of catch them up to speed—as they are towards older ones. But whatever the outcome is, whether there is or isn’t a “plan,” the bottom line is this: If Sonic Youth make another album like “Rather Ripped,” I’ll be ecstatic. If Sonic Youth make something that’s a little (or a lot) more out there, I’ll be ecstatic. And—god forbid—if they never do a single thing again, I’ll be…not ecstatic, but thankful for the 25 years of unparalleled brilliance they’ve bestowed upon the music scene, and satisfied to know that—in *my* book, at least—they went out with a “bang.”
(And PS: this is not Daycare Nation in disguise)
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