What are your thoughts on this one?
Pitchfork was pretty high on it.

I know there are a lot of you out there who worship these guys. For me, they have been hit or miss. Some songs on a disc I love, and other songs, I'm like wtf. My favorite disc of theirs that I have is Goo. Would I like this one as much?

I highly doubt it. I didn't give it a good listen, but it seemed flat.

Murray Street was good but they'll never match what they did with Daydream Nation, Sister. Goo, and Dirty.

They have some songs on MySpace from the new one:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=31545506

I'm with you on them in general, I really like some of their songs but haven't found them to be a band I can listen to a lot of. It sounds like this new one is less noise and more traditional pop (if you can call anything Sonic Youth does "pop').

I actually like it.

It's weird seeing big bands with Myspace pages, but I guess every little bit of marketing and exposure helps.

Well, I really liked all 4 songs on the myspace page.
Consider this bought.

Same here.

this album has set down really well with me; i'm always a fan of bands making concise, catchy records.

i really liked murray street and sonic nurse. i like rather ripped even more.

As I've said before: favorite band. I didn't listen to any bits of this album until last night when I bought it, and I'm down with it.

I see some repetition from previous outings but at least they are building on it. I think lyrically this is one of their best albums in awhile. Thurston's songs are on par with his best material.

Much better than Sonic Nurse IMO. It's more immediate, and they've gotten away from the indie-jamband thing they've been doing for the past 5 years.
If you were to take "Sonic Youth" off the record and put Rather Ripped up against any other noise-pop group out right now, I would think it would stand up as one of the better releases. The band is talented.

For those of you who like the streamlined version of the band back in the late 80s/early 90s, I think you should give it a listen.

Goo and Dirty are far and away the worst things they've done. I'll take Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star before either of those.

As for the new one, I picked it up yesterday. It sounded a lot better on my car stereo than it does at home for some reason. They're just going through the motions now though. Every new release by them now is virtually the same, except each one reduces both the energy and noise by a considerable degree. I'm not saying it's a BAD album, but I wish they would at least TRY to release something to get excited about anymore.

You and Radcliffe need to have a curmudgeon-off

Because I don't like an album?

it's good but not great. i agree with v.i., would like to hear more excitement. ALTHOUGH, "lights out" is a weirdly, super sexy song.

Well I mean I see nothing in my post to spur that.

I heard this album yesterday and was unimpressed. It was better than Sonic Nurse though, which I found really boring. Sonic Youth work best when their drenched in feedback and sludge, like with Goo.

Needs more Sonic Oomph.

Sleepin' around, sleepin' around . . . What she did was wrong

Black, meet white. I haven't heard Rather Ripped, but Goo and Dirty are the only Sonic Youth albums that do anything for me.

The Kim songs are pretty good.

i have never been much of a sonic youth fan - i dont get all the hoopla about them. anyway, this new album is ok - nothing amazing.

I'm going to balk at that statement, which seems to be getting some milage as of late. Goo is by no means drenched in feedback and sludge. Do people even listen to their earlier recordings?

I think you have to go all the way back to EVOL to hear their really dissonant stuff.