Daydream Nation

Kinda cool rock album, but some songs are borderline annoying

The thing about most pre-00s sonic youth is that the songs are not individually distinct and don't go anywhere. That same post punk rut that so many bands got stuck in. This album is no exception. Except for the very end none of the songs really stand out nor come alive. Totally meh and unexciting background music. 2.5/5 -> 3/5

Would've been a 2, I wasn't really enjoying it but there were some riffs I could get behind, but then the songs in the second half just sounded exactly the same as one another. They weren't very good songs either.

This is the second Sonic Youth album I have listened to as part of the 1001 Albums Challenge. I have to admit that I have ignored the band for far too long, probably because I have always steered clear of anything associated with labels such as 'indie' and 'alternative rock'. What's being celebrated here is some very artful noise. On "Daydream Nation", Sonic Youth are closer to the music and vision of the Velvet Underground than to punk rock bands like the Sex Pistols. While I wouldn't want to listen to something like this every day, the raw energy and irrepressible creativity are truly fascinating.

5
Honestly Sister was better than I was expecting but not anything special for me and so when I saw this (and that it was 70 mins long) i wasn't super enthused. But this is genuinely sick, so much better than what I've heard from them before

Hypnotic and droney. Good stuff. Is it sacrilege to say some of the songs are a tad too long?

Shit band, shit people.

Justice for Nardwuar.

e ovo je dvostruki album koji mi se dopao! ne znam zašto mi se ovo sviđa, kao i prošli njihov album koji sam slušao (»goo«), po svoj logici ne bi mi trebalo biti nešto, al baš mi se dopada

There is not enough time in just one day- to truly understand all of the nuances of this album. Noise rock is hard for me - i appreciate the endless amount of musicality and it sure does rock, the more noise tracks I won’t go back to but the layers and layers. Just redefining what guitar rock can be.

Loved this when I was 17 (and eligible for a Teenage Riot). But the older I get, the less time I have for bad singing voices. Sorry Thurston and Kim.

Can't deny it's a masterpiece. Punished it a bit much in my 20s.

Review review: "deeply unpleasant" *submits a Jack Johnson album*. What a jackass!

Depressing

Oh Kim Gordon we're really in it again

Forgot that this album is from 1988, and not about 5 years later. When I was introduced to Sonic Youth I was told that they were super weird and unlistenable, but to me it sounded like fairly accessible indie rock and I semi-wrote them off in an obnoxious way. Of course, I was wrong to do so and grew to love over the years. Is this the best Sonic Youth album? Maybe not as good as Sister or EVOL. Could it do with more Kim singing and less Thurston? Yes. Is it a few songs too long? Yes. Madly influential? Of course. Probably a 4.5/5, but downgrading to 4 for no particular reason.

Very hard to rate

I can hear why this is an important album and how it is a precursor to a lot of 90s stuff to come.

But I’m not enjoying it at all…

2

Pre Listen:
Another band I swear I've heard the name of somewhere before, but I just can't put my finger on when, where, or for what. No expectations.

Notable Tracks:
Silver Rocket - I really, really hope this album isn't full of scratchy unfocused wild noise segments, like the one that plays here shortly past the halfway point. The first song was pretty decent, this one isn't.
'Cross The Breeze - Favorite contender. Really nice instrumental work here, but the vocals/lyrics are entirely unecessary
Total Trash - Skipped this song halfway through. Least favorite track on here. At least the title is accurate!

Post Listen:
Sounds like a blend of emo and punk rock when someone is singing. Also sounds a lot more modern than 1988, I would've guessed something like late 90's or 2000's.

A lot of the instrumental work was actually pretty well done. Interesting melodies, each instrument is given time to shine, with solid playing overall and a good variety of sounds. The vocals were a little more mixed, sounds decent sometimes and very, very annoying at other points. The lyrics however were consistently bad or bland, just complaining about nonsense the entire time. The album was also quite lengthy, I think it's the 2nd longest one I've gotten on here so far. If not, it felt that way.

Feeling a 3 to 2 range. I'll round up to a 3 cause sometimes that guitar was really rockin. 3/5

Heartfelt

Alright, third Sonic Youth record on my album journey, and it's a big one. Daydream Nation is often considered the band's magnum opus, and I can see why.

This is, by and large, Sonic Youth's most accessible record in their catalog. It's not like the band had abandoned experimenting with noise; rather, they embraced poppier melodies alongside the noise. This album has such a defiantly bright sound, characterized by the unorthodox guitar tunings, Kim Gordon's hard-hitting basslines, Steve Shelley's hardcore-inspired drumming, and crisp production from the band and Nick Sansano. All the while, Gordon, Thurston Moore, and Lee Ronaldo traded lyrics of disillusionment and rebellion, from the rally call for the underground movement on "Teen Age Riot", heroin addiction on "Silver Rocket", the seething disdain for commercialization on "The Sprawl", the crack epidemic that plagued New York City on "Total Trash", and the exploitation of women in the music industry on "Kissability". They even incorporated cultural references in their drug-riddled narratives, like how "Eric's Trip" takes inspiration from Eric Emerson's LSD-fueled monologue in the Andy Warhol film Chelsea Girls. Even more surprisingly gripping was "Providence", with Moore's piano solo accompanied by the sound of an amp overheating and overdubbed voicemail messages from Minutemen's Mike Watt, resulting in this hauntingly dense atmospheric piece that cuts deep.

That said, the obvious big hurdle with this record is its length. Compared to the trimmed-down songs on their earlier records, Daydream Nation saw the band allow their tracks to sprawl (pun half-intended) into long, improvised jams, mirroring their live performances. They even get a bit cheeky with the notion of longer jams by ending on a "Trilogy", putting different song ideas together into one multi-part suite. On paper, I get it; you don't want to feel like you're being short-changed with your artistic vision, and the band was encouraged by friends to go this route. But in execution, there are moments I feel like songs could have been trimmed down a smidge, especially where the band's vocal deliveries and guitar tones aren't as biting as elsewhere in their catalog. The style they went for here isn't bad by any means, but I don't find myself as attentive for the whole runtime.

I'm still glad to have listened to Daydream Nation, and recognize why people herald it as Sonic Youth's best work. Perhaps this album will grow on me over time, but for now, it's still worth a listen through.

There is one thing I can be certain I have in common with Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo; we absolutely love messing around on the guitar with non-standard tunings, extended guitar techniques, pedals, and feedback to make weird noises. However, while I'm just annoying my wife and kid with weird noises in my basement, Moore and Ranaldo were out there using them to write some of the absolutely best and most essential alt rock possible.