How cool. i still have not seen them live. i live in remoteness and i am always broke or too far away. yr very lucky.

age is meaningless and arbitrary.

what matters is self-improvement

i feel your pain.
every time concert listings come out i scan nervously for st. louis and rarely is it ever there. chicago and kansas city, but most bands hop right over us.

My first one was rather ripped! I'm not that young, but I just didn't get into them until I was about 19, and that was a few years after it came out. I really don't think of Sonic Youth as "old people music" I mean, it's still very unique and innovative even today. I like their early stuff more than their later stuff (I actually don't really like RR much at all) but I admire and enjoy their music greatly.

nailed it

That's awesome. The Lips put on an amazing show. I don't know how I'd handle that coupled with the intensity of an SY show.

awwww....remember that it's never to late to start going to shows.

i understand about being broke though...i cut into my food budget and savings in order to get tickets for this upcoming show w/ dinosaur jr in nyc. fortunately, i doubt i'll have to worry about transportation costs since i'm originally from new york city and pretty positive that my parents will help pay for my trip up if i mask that weekend as being a visit home for much needed family time.

this dino/SY show is going to be unbelievable.
can't wait to hear about it from those who go!

I second that

My husband and I have been goin to shows now more than ever. Saw Duff McKagan for my Bday and we went to Hank III in July. Enjoy having yr family's support. My parents didn't pay for shit. I learned alot along the way though.

Are you serious? Leaky Lifeboat is one of the best songs on there.


I've never seen them live either.

I just say "Old people Music" cause that's what i would call my parents music before i appreciated it, which was not really until my mid-twenties.

Rather Ripped is my least liked. I give it respect. I just never really got into it as much as any of thier other albums.

It's just my mood early sy when i am energetic and youthful and rebellious feeling...later sy when i am more calm ..phillisophical...pondering..chillin

True. Wise one.

I agree much with your review here. This album does NOT sound like a recent sonic youth album, BUT I must give them credit, their evolution of sound continues in the same steadying direction, and that is progress, and afterall they have been doing this LONGER THAN I HAVE been alive, and I have male pattern baldness for christ's sake!

This album was initially a let down (in a way that RR was surprisingly not, from the first track I loved RR despite its being different) but after a few days of listening I really like it. I like it in a different way than I usually like Sonic Youth albums.. but I must admit it does have its moments.

Sacred Trickster
the end of of Anti Orgasm is a Daydream Nation/Sonic Nurse moment..

No Way and Message the History are fabulously sonicesque tunes..

my two cents, since Jim left they have been rambling around rather aimlessly and stumbled upon a more conventional approach to making music. With sonic nurse era tunes they wanted to perfectly converge the elements of structured, traditional rocknroll music with the spontaneity and no-wave improvs of the patented sonic youth sound, and it worked, and sonic nurse is an absolute gem in music history! But it represents a kind of PEAK!

now they have went to opposite direction, instead of riding the no-wave mixed with convention, they are slipping deeper and deeper into conventional music. I blame those assholes who stole all their guitars in 2000. Since they got jacked, they write tunes on acoustic guitars, and all you guitar players out there know how straight forward and conventional an acoustic requires your playing to be. BUT I also like this evolution as documented in NYC, Murray Street and Sonic Nurse. It brought out the more, I dare say musical side of sonic youth...

all in all I like the Eternal. Its a good album, its definitely better than the Dirty-Goo-EJSTNS era thats for sure..

fuyck yeah.

I love this record. It's quickly become one of my favorites by them. I can listen to Anti-Orgasm and What We Know over and over and never get bored. Even Calming the Snake is growing on me.

With age, SY have become better live. What they've made up for in precision has allowed them to take greater advantage of their unyielding improvisational skills. For me, The Eternal is a lot like all of their albums since Murray Street: built for the live experience. So, when I go to listen to a SY album, I typically put on something earlier, like EVOL, Daydream Nation or Washing Machine (also my autumn favorite, The Destroyed Room). That said, "Anti-Orgasm" and "Malibu Gas Station" are total gems in their studio incarnations. Songs like "No Way" or "Poison Arrow" really only come across live, though, in my opinion.

So, I think age matters, but not in the way we tend to imagine, in our youth, that it matters.

"No Way" makes for a fantastic opener at their live shows.

I really, really, really wish I could've seen them on the Nurse tour... any particular bootlegs/recordings from that era worth listening to?

With threads like this, I can't help but wonder exactly what those who've said they were disappointed with The Eternal were expecting. Sonic Nurse Part II? A main SY release that sounds like an SYR? One long track? Maybe SY pretending to be Hair Police?

To me, any of those would be disappointing at best and completely ill-conceived at worst.

the eternal is good.

if you want a more specific review... then go fuck yourself