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Originally Posted by Lipslikewindows
I really hate saying it, I've been fighting it off for some time, but I feel must say that if Sonic Youth are going to progress on their current trajectory, they should break up. They are by all means my favorite band still around today, but out of their last four albums, including RR, the only one that's had me excited at all when I listened to it for the first time (or on subsequent listens) is "Sonic Nurse". On that album there were again interesting textures, STRONG, not-phoned-in jams, dark-and-felt melodies ("I Love You Golden Blue", which I ADORE), and some actually rockin' tunes. NYCGF had it's free-jazz moments which were nice, reminded me of good Coltrane or Ra; Murray Street had the epic and beautiful "Sympathy...", and Rather Ripped has a few three-star jams...but in general, these three albums are pretty ridiculous coming from Sonic Youth. Am I saying they have to constantly be noisy? No, not at all. Am I saying they can't change? Nope. Three of my favorite SY albums are DDN, Washing Machine, and Bad Moon Rising, which all sound absolutely nothing alike. What I'm getting at is that they're getting too, um, safe. I can understand the desire to write good pop tunes, but the thing is, they already did that! "Unwind", "Teenage Riot", "100%", "Sunday", etc...all great pop songs. But they're so incredibly ADVENTUROUS at the same time. And I guess that's what I'm missing. Yes, I own the SYRs, and I listen to them and enjoy them. But they didn't used to have to syphon all their interesting and experimental stuff into side-releases. The only thing that, for me personally, is interesting on "Ripped" is "Or", but it's completely marred by Thurston's ridiculous in-the-tour-bus scribblings. I'm sure this is offensive, and it hurts me more to say it than it could possibly hurt anyone to read it. I guess, for me, it's just that I didn't get into SY because they wrote good songs. I got into them because they scared the hell out of me with their ideas of what songs could be, what "pretty" could be, what "rockin'" could be, what "sad" could sound like. I don't need a standard indie rock album from them. And even Sonic Nurse is dangerously close to that for me (with the exception of "Golden..."). The only reason I have Ripped is because I got it for free with my ticket to their CB's show at the beginning of the tour (which was a complete let down, by the way. I didn't want to hear the "hits" of yesteryear (Schiz, or Teenage Riot, etc.), but I did want to be given something more than a set that consisted entirely of their new album (which I don't like) in order). In the end, I just worry that they've gotten complacent. At least NYCGF wasn't very good because it was an experiment that didn't quite work out. I'd take that over an album of safe, MOR rock songs any day.
T
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