Sonic Youth Gossip - View Single Post - Mark Prindle

atari 2600 · 05.15.2006, 08:36 PM

Thanks for the link, TheDom.

to the T can't write a melody remark
Did he really listen to it? From what I can hear in the stream, this album has more intentional melodies than just about any Sonic Youth album I can think of really. That's refined lyric writing.

I also feel (as is the case with most albums) that some songs are markedly better than others. With a Sonic Youth record though one usually grows to love the songs that they originally felt to be weaker. With Rather Ripped, the weaker ones are slightly weaker than usual & I can't forsee them growing on me too much in the future, but time will tell as it always does, I suppose.

Nixing "the Neutral" or "Lights Out" & inserting "Helen Lundeberg" instead would have made it finer.

"Lights Out" could have passed for a closer as well, but "Or" indeed is better.

Maybe even "Lights Out" & "Or" could have been pieced together & made into just one song.

To his credit he gives the album an 8. He gave Murray Street & the great Sonic Nurse both a 7 though.
I can certainly empathize with his tendency to wallow in free association & self-absorption. Sometimes that approach leads the author to writing that has universal resonance; that's not the case here, however. His observations about the individual songs are pretty good though & that's always the meat of any early album review like this for me.

05.15.2006, 08:36 PM	#7
atari 2600 invito al cielo Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 8,213	Thanks for the link, TheDom. to the T can't write a melody remark Did he really listen to it? From what I can hear in the stream, this album has more intentional melodies than just about any Sonic Youth album I can think of really. That's refined lyric writing. I also feel (as is the case with most albums) that some songs are markedly better than others. With a Sonic Youth record though one usually grows to love the songs that they originally felt to be weaker. With Rather Ripped, the weaker ones are slightly weaker than usual & I can't forsee them growing on me too much in the future, but time will tell as it always does, I suppose. Nixing "the Neutral" or "Lights Out" & inserting "Helen Lundeberg" instead would have made it finer. "Lights Out" could have passed for a closer as well, but "Or" indeed is better. Maybe even "Lights Out" & "Or" could have been pieced together & made into just one song. To his credit he gives the album an 8. He gave Murray Street & the great Sonic Nurse both a 7 though. I can certainly empathize with his tendency to wallow in free association & self-absorption. Sometimes that approach leads the author to writing that has universal resonance; that's not the case here, however. His observations about the individual songs are pretty good though & that's always the meat of any early album review like this for me.
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