Daydream Nation

Untitled

The highly seminal Daydream Nation is one of the most highly regarded albums by alternative rock band Sonic Youth. It was voted the best album of the 1980s by Pitchfork Media, [1] and has been regarded as a milestone of 80s alternative music. A number of prominent music periodicals, including Rolling Stone and Spin Magazine, hailed Daydream Nation as one of the best albums of the 1980s. Spex magazine voted it the 16th greatest record of the 20th century. It marks the group's final shift from their noise-rock roots to a more subtle combination of guitar experimentation and traditional rock.

Sales were poor, however, partly because Blast First records went out of business not long after the record's release. After a period of being out of print, Daydream Nation was reissued by DGC, which had signed the band largely on the strength of the crossover critical acclaim reaped by the album. One single, "Teen Age Riot", subsequently charted on the Billboard Music Charts in the US, and it peaked at #20 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.

On Daydream Nation, Sonic Youth perfected their style, becoming virtuosic sculptors of the interweaving guitar noise that could unfold with nearly symphonic grandeur. Their message of disaffected and jaded youth raised by a sole materialistic parent was welcomed by a large subculture of people who felt they had suffered during the Reagan years and had never accepted the programmed Top 40 format of FM radio of the time.

Daydream Nation quickly became an indie standard; it included some of the band's best-known songs, such as "Teen Age Riot" and "Candle". "The Sprawl" is inspired by the works of science fiction writer William Gibson, who used the term to refer to a future mega-city stretching from Boston to Atlanta. "Eric's Trip" is inspired by Eric Emerson's LSD-fueled monologue in the Andy Warhol movie Chelsea Girls.

Distancing itself from most of the album's rock sensibilities is the highly unusual "Providence", which displays some of the band's more experimental tendencies. The song consists of a piano solo by Thurston Moore recorded at his mother's house using a Walkman, the sound of an amp overheating and a pair of telephone messages left by Mike Watt, calling for Moore from Providence, Rhode Island dubbed over one another.

The cover art is Kerze ("Candle") by Gerhard Richter and was painted in 1983. The back cover art (back of the booklet on the CD version) is of the same title but was painted in 1982.

In 2005, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

Track listing

All songs written by Sonic Youth.

1. "Teen Age Riot" – 6:57
2. "Silver Rocket" – 3:47
3. "The Sprawl" – 7:42
4. "'Cross the Breeze" – 7:00
5. "Eric's Trip" – 3:48
6. "Total Trash" – 7:33
7. "Hey Joni" – 4:23
8. "Providence" – 2:41
9. "Candle" – 4:58
10. "Rain King" – 4:39
11. "Kissability" – 3:08
12. "Trilogy:" – 14:02
    • a) "The Wonder" – 4:15
    • b) "Hyperstation" – 7:13
    • z) "Eliminator Jr." – 2:37

Personnel

• Lee Ranaldo – guitar
• Kim Gordon – bass guitar
• Thurston Moore – guitar
• Steve Shelley – drums
• Sonic Youth – producer
• Nick Sansano – producer, engineer
• Howie Weinberg – mastering
• Dave Swanson – assistant engineer
• Jutta Koether – liner notes
• Michael Lavine – photography
• Matt Tritto – assistant engineer

Chart positions

1988

"Teen Age Riot"

Modern Rock Tracks

20