Sonic Nurse

封面来自美国画家Richard Prince作品《护士》(Nurse)

在今年（2004）摇滚老将的唱片中，Sonic Youth这新专辑是最优秀的，比如Morrissey、pj Havery、Alanis Morissette、Patti Smith、Courtney Love、Cure，当他们或多或少还有困惑和徘徊不前时，Sonic Youth再次表现了他们的坚定，这是音速青年近几年来最好的一张专辑，在音乐风格上他们并没有改变太多，但你很容易感到有一种结实有力且从容不迫的力量，这比之Metallica推土机式的强捍节奏更具时代性。

他们的豁达和坚守原则的底线并无冲突，而噪音和好听的旋律在他们手里也更是收放自如，听着Sonic Youth写给金斯堡的单曲《阳光的一击》，你会明白他们的心态，他们不想通过音乐去得到什么，音乐是他们愤怒之后的思考结果，也是热爱生活的另一种抒情，他们常常沉迷于大段段的噪音乐段中，却也有一些如小夜曲般的寂静之歌。

就如同他们上张专辑Murray Street一样，Sonic Youth放低了早期曾经尖锐拖长的嗓音将重点放在如何制造更为旋律化的音乐上，可即便如此，嚎叫的吉他依旧在应该出现的地方出现，当长达9分多钟的“Peace Attack”过后，我只能说这张新专辑犹如史诗般刚毅。许多迷恋过去Sonic Youth的极端乐迷不喜欢旋律化的他们，那些乐迷更为习惯那些失真和混乱肮脏的“地下状态”。但是这张新专辑蕴含更多的思考和低语，就像最好的爵士乐手一样，Sonic Youth现在已经把他们对实验摇滚的热爱转化成了一种习惯，而不是手段，正是这样的热情让他们超越了现在大多数的摇滚乐队。

由乐队主脑之一Kim Gordon的主唱“Pattern Recognition”给了专辑一个强硬的开始，也给了我们足够多的兴奋，而毫无疑问这也将是她最好的摇滚歌曲之一。而她相对安静的曲目也给人同样的撞击， "Dude Ranch Nurse"有着可以自豪的奇怪的永恒的吉他和歌词（"Let me ride you till you fall/Let's pretend that there's nothing at all"（让我乘着你直到你坠落/让我们假装那什么都没有），充满着迷人的虚无主义。

在重新收拾起Murray Street遗留下的略显疲惫的实验主义精神，Sonic Youth略微笨拙地把这张专辑定名为Sonic Nurse，显示出这支乐队获得了新生，并或许比以往的他们更富有创造性，更富于多样性。这次最让人兴奋的是Kim Gordon的回归。她非常有节制地出现在NYC Ghosts & Flowers和Murray Street中，这次她却真正地融入了这张专辑，放歌四首曲目，虽然我不认同有些评论认为她的曲目在专辑中属于最强的一部分，但这的确是异常迷人的性感，她不像Courtney Love那样目空一切，在“乱弹一气”中迅速获得人心，Kim Gordon懂得用节制来释放自已，这同时也是Sonic Youth的魅力所在。

当中国的音乐青年还为摇滚和地下而碟碟不休的争吵，为明天和梦想苦恼时，在网络上谩骂别人的理想，为摆脱主流价值观、时尚、传统、个性文化和信仰而左右为难时，光荣只属于那些埋头做事的人，Sonic Youth十数年来在美国并不混迹于某个圈子，即使是在美国也难以在各大音乐杂志和媒体中看到Sonic Youth的有关报道，可他们历年来的15张专辑无不拿稳了那些坚硬的心，在音乐道路和理念上他们有着足够清醒的认识，他们目睹了一个个的摇滚风潮浪打风吹去，而他们一直屹立在最尖端。

在那些主流音乐看来，Sonic Youth是那样的疯颠，他们每次都“不顾一切”的用狂风暴雨的噪音销熔着摇滚乐也有的的明星等级，他们一度拒绝戴上任何一顶王冠，他们甚至赢得了比The Velvet Underground和Nirvana还要狂热的崇拜，因此被称为“八十年代美国地下摇滚成功的最大奇迹”。20多年来，不卑不亢的Sonic Youth最终还是被好莱坞摇滚名人大道正式接受，对此他们只不过淡然一笑而已。

Picking up where Murray Street's languid experimentalism left off, Sonic Youth's somewhat awkwardly named Sonic Nurse shows that the band still sounds revitalized, and may have even tapped into a more fruitful creative streak than they did on their previous album. Anyone who has stuck with Sonic Youth this long knows more or less what to expect from them, but the group still has the potential to surprise; one of Sonic Nurse's biggest surprises is the return of Kim Gordon. She had a relatively limited presence on NYC Ghosts & Flowers and Murray Street, but she's back in a big way on this album, contributing four tracks; not coincidentally, Gordon's songs are among the strongest on the album. "Pattern Recognition" gets Sonic Nurse off to a strong start and ranks among her best rock songs, falling somewhere between "Kool Thing" and "Bull in the Heather" in its icy-hot appeal. Her quieter songs have just as much impact: "Dude Ranch Nurse" boasts an oddly timeless guitar lick and lyrics ("Let me ride you till you fall/Let's pretend that there's nothing at all") that blur the line between alluring and nihilistic. "I Love You Golden Blue" is another standout, a beautiful but bleak ballad with ghostly vocals that recall Nico at her most fragile. Of course, the rest of the band finds moments to shine: Thurston Moore's "Dripping Dream" begins as absurdist, angular rock (although he still has the ability to make phrases like "We've been searching for the cream dream wax" sound like the coolest thing ever) and stretches out into a beautiful epic, with the interplay of feedback and guitar lines giving it a comet-tail majesty. "Paper Cup Exit," the requisite Lee Ranaldo track, has a sharper-edged mix of noise and melody than most of Sonic Nurse. Another of the album's surprises is how much of its inspiration seems to come from the band's late-'80s/early-'90s material. It's not just that the band slams George W. Bush on the mellow protest song "Peace Attack," just as Dirty's "Youth Against Fascism" railed against the first President Bush, or that they peer into the void of pop culture on "Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream" as they did on Goo's Karen Carpenter tribute, "Tunic." On songs like "New Hampshire" -- which could pass for a lost track from Daydream Nation -- Sonic Youth actually sound younger and more enthusiastic than they have in a few albums. All told, this album is probably the band's best balance of pop melodies and avant-leaning structures since Washing Machine; even if it doesn't rank among their most ambitious work, Sonic Nurse sounds like the kind of album Sonic Youth should be making at this point in their career.