[o'connor]

ya know how alot of people on here hated rather ripped... well i think i hate the eternal even more. i personally liked rather ripped, but the eternal just seems like a great disappointment to me. it just doesn't sound like sonic youth to me, which i usually welcome, but the eternal just sounds, for lack of a better word, goofy to me. there's the obvious stooges influence on it, but it just comes off wrong to me. i dunno, i only like the lee and kim songs on it (and not all of teh kim songs either), but the thurston songs just sound horrible to me. i don't like the new singing style he's using. i really felt let down by this cd, i'd been looking forward to a new SY cd for a long time, and then i get it and it wasn't up to par in my opinion. oh well, i'm sure the next album will be killer (keeping my fingers crossed on that one though). i even pre-ordered it, and that live LP sounded like shit, it was all muddy. the cover was cool though. anybody wanna buy my copy of the live LP?

[noisereductions]

I liked RR as well. I liked it a lot. But I love Eternal. I think it kicks much ass.

[SuperCreep]

How much are you willing to sell the live LP for?

[o'connor]

i'm thinking $20. and i'm keeping teh poster that came w/ it, that shit was bad ass.

[Satan]

Originally Posted by o'connor

it just doesn't sound like sonic youth

this is the most bogus statement i've ever read

[noisereductions]

Originally Posted by Satan

this is the most bogus statement i've ever read

Right?

This album literally sounded better to me with each listen.

[This Is Not Here]

It's good, but with an album that varied you're bound to please most people with at least one track. The Eternal is Sonic Youth playing it safe, including tracks to please every type of Sonic Youth fan. Whilst it may be better, The Eternal is less of an 'artistic risk' than Rather Ripped. And that element of it was dissapointing.

[atsonicpark]

It's 110% Sonic Youth. It's just old, "mature" Sonic Youth, with some flirtation with their youthful ways. Sonic Geezers. But I mean that lovingly -- that "mature" songwriting sounds like a stepback when looking at such masterworks as "A Thousand Leaves" and half of "Washing Machine", sure; hell, it's hard to believe sometimes that this is the same band who made "Daydream Nation" years ago. The thing is, though, while everyone is pining for them to write another "Cross the Breeze" or "Diamond Sea", they already made those songs. In fact, it seems like instead of looking back, they're constantly pushing to "refine" their sound with every album, which is extremely interesting and pleasing to my ears... maybe too pleasing, in general, as it's surely going to frustrate some fans. Sonic Youth is removing the "edges" from their music, for the most part, and those edges are what attract most people, afterall.

...There's still plenty of old-SY on this record: Thurston singing the exact same notes he's playing, noise breakdowns, sassy Thurston vocals, etc. Admittingly, these are the worst and most forced-sounding parts of the album. I think, however, instead of focusing on that, let's look at how flawlessly the songs flow. For a band with wild tunings and sometimes-bizarre song structures, it's a wonder that they make these songs work so well. They flow organically; most parts don't sound out of place (except for some aforementioned noise parts that don't fit, a shocking SY first! Listen to "Antennae" for one such example). SY makes this stuff look easy, because they basically invented this sound.

And, yes indeed, they're maturing it; the background vocals, Kim's best singing in years, some wonderful acoustic guitar! Again, they're "softening" their sound to some, but to me they're simply pushing to write more "mature" material, and I don't mind the change as long as the songs are still good. It seems like that's something they've been trying to do for years, and I think it's taken awhile to get to this point. This album is way better than Rather Ripped, to me. It's got some great songs, some throwaways of course but eh. It's actually pretty damn consistent.

...Sonic Youth constantly reveals a fascinated and fascinating tension -- an oscillation -- between attraction to the feminine version of "notre musique"… and a corresponding need to erect, sometimes brutally, a barrier to the femininity which is perceived as all-absorbing. Educate, inform, and entertain -- pop goes the easel.

It's not the be-all, end-all album people were expecting, but it's 10x better than Nurse and 100x better than Rather Ripped. Also, Fahey did the cover art (posthumously, of course). That alone raises it a few notches in my book.

[Rob Instigator]

the eteranl is the best fucking thing sonic youth have put out in 15 goddamn years man.

it is fucking AWESOME.

I cannot stop listening to it. it gives me the same rush that daydream nation gave me in 88 and that goo did after that and evol when I finally got it.

[noisereductions]

I think atsonicpark composed the end-of-thread. For real.

[noisereductions]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to atsonicpark again.

[atsonicpark]

Haha.

[noisereductions]

You definitely hit all the major points I was thinking but not putting into words.

[Rob Instigator]

fuck that shit. The eternal is BETTER than wwhat atsonicpark said.

it is fucking awesome.

[o'connor]

i love you rob, but it simply isn't that good of an album... in my opinion. it sounds like really long demo versions of a lost stooges album. thurston's songs at least. and washing machine and 1,000 leaves sounds way more "mature" to me than the eternal does.

[noisereductions]

OMG. I feel like you listened to it once. In the background while watching TV.

[o'connor]

nope, i got it in teh mail 2 days before it hit shelves and have been listening to it since. i tried it sober, drunk, stoned and every way in between. i simply think it sounds juvenile to me.

[Rob Instigator]

stooges? stooges? the stooges are turgid boring fucking one-riff wonders compared to sonic youth and The Eternal man.

fuck "mature" I want SY to ROCK and the eternal rocks fucking HARD. Best lee songs in years, thurston is writing inventive changes and rifffs again insteaad of his barely tolerable acoustic guitar noodling.
Kim is singing with purpose again, and not just trying to sound as bad as possible.

when I play sides 1 and 3 on my stacker turntable, side one ends and then side three begins right where side one finished! It makes me think the same song is starting but it is just a neat sequencing tirck! The same thing happens when you lay side 2 and side 4 on the stacker. side 2 ends and it fades back in at the beginning of side 4. genius!

I know I will get a lot of flack for this, but it is the best thing I have heard from SY since thousadn leaves., better that sonic nurse (which I love) and far far better than washing machine (which is deadly dull at times) and murray street, (which is tepid throughout and actually sounds more like what you describe in the first post)

[noisereductions]

it's pretty unbelievable to me that an SY fan could not appreciate this album. It sounds like the end to a decade-long journey for the band.

[Rob Instigator]

I agree. It makes me get up off my ass and dance around.