I vaugely like ''Pink Stream'' on it, and ''Reena'' is by far the best song on this record. I suppose it also suffers from the misfortune of having to be compared with all the good ones that came before it. It is Sonic Youth at their lowest. It's ok, though, they made enough good ones to leave their mark in music history, so who cares?

[demonrail666]

For me it's still a case of, had it not been made by SY, I doubt I'd have got past the first two songs. I had it on my iPod for a few days last week, seeing if it might grow on me a little more but it didn't, and now I have the Lunachicks first album on there (I only have a single album on my iPod at any one time). Life's too short for bad Sonic Youth. I tried, it died.

[noisereductions]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I only have a single album on my iPod at any one time

How come?

[demonrail666]

Just an eccentricity of mine. it could store hundreds of songs but I prefer to just download a single album then listen to it on a loop whenever I'm on the tube, out for a walk, etc. It's a good way of getting to know a single album quite well, without the distraction of skipping to something else. I tend to keep a single album on there for a week - uploaded from the original CD. I'll often go back to albums I dismissed when first hearing them (as was the case with Rather Ripped) to see if there's something I missed. RR lasted about two days before I just gave up on it, deleted it from the iPod and just consigned the CD to the racks.

I like having this self-consciously limited access to music. It gives what i listen to an added intensity simply because I hear it so much. I often find strange little fragments of brilliance in albums that I'd previously brushed aside after only a few listens. Joan as Police Woman's Real Life being a good example of an album I once thought of as OK but which has become something of a favourite of mine after listening to it on my iPod for an entire week.

[viewtiful_alan]

Originally Posted by Danny Himself

Sleepin' Around is still my favourite, after Rats..

Rats is also amazing, most noise guitar on the whole album.
As usual Lee delivers

[Rob Instigator]

I think rather ripped is better than murray "snoozer" street

[viewtiful_alan]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I think rather ripped is better than murray "snoozer" street

I agree. I enjoyed listening to Rather Ripped alot more. But Murray Street was still great.

[Rob Instigator]

I enjoy the shit out of it, except it puts me in a sleepy mood, hence the "snoozer"

[viewtiful_alan]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I enjoy the shit out of it, except it puts me in a sleepy mood, hence the "snoozer"

Ah, I took snoozer as boring. Rather ripped has a lot of sentimental value for me (first exposure to sonic) but Yeah Murray Street is probably the better album.

[themawt71]

goo and rather ripped make great bookends for their dgc run. both somewhat their interpretation of a commercial rock record with lots of great cds in between.

its still my least favorite tho.

[atsonicpark]

rather ripped is just lazy.

[noisereductions]

i liked it from the get go. sounds like sonic pop which is in itself interesting.

[xxlouiisxx]

Rather Ripped is the most commercial album of Sonic Youth. Every song on it (well almost) would be played on the radio and I'd see a difference with the other radio songs. I mean, songs like Confusion Is Next or Panty Lies are not commercial at all. Though I like very much Rather Ripped !

[noisereductions]

GOO was more commercial me thinks.

[xxlouiisxx]

You're right Goo is very commercial

[pbradley]

Rather Ripped is the most accessible album Sonic Youth ever wrote. As such it is really just a kind of walk in and walk out experience. There wasn't one song on the album that I was at all confused by.

[dionysusundone]

I like it for what it is, SY pandering to the pop crowd. I say thank god there's no "My Friend Goo" on there, put it on once every few months, maybe more often in the summer, then get on with my life.
And "Pink Steam" is fucking amazing, as is "Jams Run Free", any album with those two songs on them can't be all bad.

[Dead-Air]

I don't really hate any of the songs, but the only one I think is truly great is "Or" and then "Pink Steam" is very good. The rest is so so to good.

But it sums up what is difficult with being "accessible" in that everybody on here who says "I only like such and such song" and "I really don't like such and such song", they're totally different songs from person to person! This always tends to happen with pop music, if you do a list of everybody's five favorite and most hated songs by every artist in existence you'll find that some people's favorites are other people's most hated. And I mean that within a pool of people with relatively similar tastes like here - it happens every time.

[SonicBebs]

i used to think Turquoise Boy had a banjo on it.

[koolthing78]

Originally Posted by SonicBebs

i used to think Turquoise Boy had a banjo on it.

Ahah! I forgot all about Turquoise Boy! I'm surprised no one has mentioned that song as one of their favorites from that album, with that middle section noise climax, and the resolution to the pretty, almost "banjo" sound (I know what you're talking about, and I love that rich texture), and how there's that echoey "ping" sound as the feedback fades out, that makes me think of sonar. Also, I always wondered if this song was like a sequel to "I Love You Golden Blue." Maybe that's already been discussed, since in retrospect it seems like a pretty obvious thing to wonder about (turquoise? blue?).

Anyway, I can't argue with the people that say this is a lazy-sounding album. But for me lately, *intent* is just as important as *content*. I'm sure I've said this before, but when I listen to Sonic Nurse (especially stoned), all I can think of is how incredibly prententious they sound. And while the songs are really well-written, they're not as earth-shattering to me as they could have been if they weren't trying so hard and over-thinking everything to make it flawless and perfect. I like the way RR doesn't seem to try at all, and still manages to give us music that's (for me) enjoyable to listen to at the least, and sometimes even simply amazing (like the entirety of "Jams Run Free"--that has to be one of the most perfect songs ever recorded, not a thing I would change about it).

Lastly, I don't know how many different threads I'm going to try to fit this in to, but for anyone saying this album sounds like the beginning of the end, and wonders if the folks have anything interesting left to say or do, you've got to hear the new Free Kitten. And by "hear," I mean do more than put it in and go "eww, this song uses the same chord pattern for the first 4 minutes, next" and proceed to skip through the rest of the tracks, listening to the first 30 seconds of each. I know, I know, it's only Kim (plus other non-SY people), but I defy you to say that *this* sounds commercial.