One Day Holiday - Eternal(ly) Sonic Youth
*One Day Holiday is an unscheduled, published-whenever-I-feel-like-it column for Hafeez, a resident blogger for this blog. This column are centered mostly around music and random stuff that ranges from the coherent to the absolutely absurd.
Last week, for the third time and still for no concrete reason, I deleted my blog because I found out that most of the time, I'm just pure rubbish. My writings, my thoughts, my ideas, my writings, and my writings are simply an insult to the intellect. But that however then brought my attention to this long forgotten blog. As I was busy deleting all the blogs that I have (three to be precise), I found this blog lying helplessly in my Blogger dashboard. It was so long forgotten, the last and only entry made was in 2006. I think. If this thing is like a furniture, it would have gathered so much dust enough to cover the entire African continent 3cm thick. So, with much pride and hope, I resuscitated this blog back to life with this piece of junk.
I remember very clearly still how this project first kicked off three years ago - we were ambitious. Well, that's what I imagine. Nazirah, the project leader whom I've never met in person, roped me in into this project upon the recommendation of Pa'an, my former school and classmate whom now looks more like Chewbacca - now the sidekick to Malaysia's unlikely version of Sarah McLachlan: Yuna. Tuneful, deep, serious, boring. I think there were a few more people who were roped in into this project and we were supposed to write on stuff like music (me and Pa'an), arts and literature. I think. Unfortunately, it didn't even get to the kick off whistle. I was busy thrashing my last remaining CGPA; Pa'an was busy thrashing around with his guitar and his frantic facial hair; Nazirah was... well, it never started. But this blog is still around, and I thought maybe now is the perfect time for me to get the ball rolling. It's interesting to see that Nazirah didn't kill this blog.
We were given the first assignment of producing an article that centres around the theme of 'Feminism' right after a team of writers and thinkers had been formed. I have to admit that although I don't resent to the concept, I found it a bit too Gen X'y. It's like going to a party hosted by Paris Hilton on a horse wearing armor suit. It feels out of time. I seriously don't see the thing about equal treatment between men and women as an issue anymore in today's world. Now if there are some men who were discriminatory against the next gender, just cast them aside from the society. They're what humanity call douchebag. We have achieved so much in terms of civilization that those things that our parents and grandparents used to fight for in their youth is now at best history. They are no longer an issue. Today we have more pressing things like the economic problem, and the Swine Flu, and idiotic politicians. We have so many of those in fact it is growing fast out of our own hands. Do we still need to revisit the 20th century?
It was exactly the same problem I had with Sonic Youth's latest album The Eternal. Many reviewers liken the album as a revisit to the rockier days of SY when their songs are more compact, precise, and less of being formulaic. Good for them. In fact, these New York avant rock granddaddies are due some recognition for their ability to still stay in the game after almost three decades. But like it or not, it's not a step forward. It's not a progression. Sonic Youth has stopped being the adventurous experimentalists that everyone respects during the late 90's, and the cycle has now shifted into the re-run mode. Old fans will find something that they can relate to with with this album. But for a much younger listener like me, this is too much of a step into the past. It's a problem for me because it is something that I cannot get in touch with. I'm not from the 80's; I was born in the 80's. I don't have that spirit of togetherness and oneness that was the cornerstone of the Generation X youth. I don't have that rebellious spirit. The Eternal is like the angry protester protesting on the street burning effigies and shouting expletives, throwing stones at the riot police, creating havoc with the establishment, and if you made a horribly stupid joke in front of him he will punch you in the face. Like the members of the parliament that we have nowadays. Ok, wait, my mistake. The Eternal is not a monkey.
The Eternal kicks anyone's asses like they deserve it. Which is all great fun, true. But I could not properly appreciate that because I am part of the Generation Y, and we're a bunch of highly civilized people.
*One Day Holiday is an unscheduled, published-whenever-I-feel-like-it column for Hafeez, a resident blogger for this blog. This column are centered mostly around music and random stuff that ranges from the coherent to the absolutely absurd.
Last week, for the third time and still for no concrete reason, I deleted my blog because I found out that most of the time, I'm just pure rubbish. My writings, my thoughts, my ideas, my writings, and my writings are simply an insult to the intellect. But that however then brought my attention to this long forgotten blog. As I was busy deleting all the blogs that I have (three to be precise), I found this blog lying helplessly in my Blogger dashboard. It was so long forgotten, the last and only entry made was in 2006. I think. If this thing is like a furniture, it would have gathered so much dust enough to cover the entire African continent 3cm thick. So, with much pride and hope, I resuscitated this blog back to life with this piece of junk.
I remember very clearly still how this project first kicked off three years ago - we were ambitious. Well, that's what I imagine. Nazirah, the project leader whom I've never met in person, roped me in into this project upon the recommendation of Pa'an, my former school and classmate whom now looks more like Chewbacca - now the sidekick to Malaysia's unlikely version of Sarah McLachlan: Yuna. Tuneful, deep, serious, boring. I think there were a few more people who were roped in into this project and we were supposed to write on stuff like music (me and Pa'an), arts and literature. I think. Unfortunately, it didn't even get to the kick off whistle. I was busy thrashing my last remaining CGPA; Pa'an was busy thrashing around with his guitar and his frantic facial hair; Nazirah was... well, it never started. But this blog is still around, and I thought maybe now is the perfect time for me to get the ball rolling. It's interesting to see that Nazirah didn't kill this blog.
We were given the first assignment of producing an article that centres around the theme of 'Feminism' right after a team of writers and thinkers had been formed. I have to admit that although I don't resent to the concept, I found it a bit too Gen X'y. It's like going to a party hosted by Paris Hilton on a horse wearing armor suit. It feels out of time. I seriously don't see the thing about equal treatment between men and women as an issue anymore in today's world. Now if there are some men who were discriminatory against the next gender, just cast them aside from the society. They're what humanity call douchebag. We have achieved so much in terms of civilization that those things that our parents and grandparents used to fight for in their youth is now at best history. They are no longer an issue. Today we have more pressing things like the economic problem, and the Swine Flu, and idiotic politicians. We have so many of those in fact it is growing fast out of our own hands. Do we still need to revisit the 20th century?
It was exactly the same problem I had with Sonic Youth's latest album The Eternal. Many reviewers liken the album as a revisit to the rockier days of SY when their songs are more compact, precise, and less of being formulaic. Good for them. In fact, these New York avant rock granddaddies are due some recognition for their ability to still stay in the game after almost three decades. But like it or not, it's not a step forward. It's not a progression. Sonic Youth has stopped being the adventurous experimentalists that everyone respects during the late 90's, and the cycle has now shifted into the re-run mode. Old fans will find something that they can relate to with with this album. But for a much younger listener like me, this is too much of a step into the past. It's a problem for me because it is something that I cannot get in touch with. I'm not from the 80's; I was born in the 80's. I don't have that spirit of togetherness and oneness that was the cornerstone of the Generation X youth. I don't have that rebellious spirit. The Eternal is like the angry protester protesting on the street burning effigies and shouting expletives, throwing stones at the riot police, creating havoc with the establishment, and if you made a horribly stupid joke in front of him he will punch you in the face. Like the members of the parliament that we have nowadays. Ok, wait, my mistake. The Eternal is not a monkey.
The Eternal kicks anyone's asses like they deserve it. Which is all great fun, true. But I could not properly appreciate that because I am part of the Generation Y, and we're a bunch of highly civilized people.
Labels: sonic youth
posted by Hafeez at 12:23 AM
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