I've been telling friends for a couple of weeks that I almost wish Sonic Youth's Rather Ripped isn't as good as I think it is. Fucking bastards -- releasing two great albums in as many years. With Jim O'Rourke they recorded Sonic Nurse, an unexpected recapitulation of their strengths, recalibrating gnarly guitar as concise pop noise (not to mention as vague but never obscure political pop noise) much better than Goo or Dirty managed. It was my favorite album of 2004.

I don't know what O'Rourke did for them. Maybe he was Brian Eno. Maybe he was Lol Tolhurst. Clearly his departure was necessary insofar as he accomplished his goal: get SY to write/jam intelligibly again. If they've long since exchanged the danger of "Death Valley '69" or "Catholic Block" for the cool-by-the-pool distance their celebrity affords them (think "Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream"), maybe they weren't too intimate with the danger either, and thus closer to rock's greatest chameleons than we thought (the Chameleon's Dictum: simulate, don't create). On Rather Ripped Thurston and Kim are my kind of John and Yoko; their version of domesticity allows Thurston occasional jerk-off time in the bathroom ("Sleepin' Around"), and permits Kim to flirt with an indifferent hot young thing, to whom she growls "What a waste/you're so chaste" with no loss of savoir faire on either side. The aptly named "Incinerate" might be a hit if alternative radio stations still existed. "Pink Stream" glistens as brightly as A Thousand Leaves' "Hits of Sunshine" (and it's mercifully shorter). Contrary to what John says, "Do You Believe in Rapture" fucks with the opening salvo in all the right ways and is heartstopping in its own right.

Like their sometime idol Neil Young, Sonic Youth are taken for granted until the moment we realize that not only are they more prolific than they ever were, but that mass production has liberated them from the perils of creating product which tries to live up to some image of Sonic Youth-ness.