Saturday, August 18, 2018

Classic Album Review: Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation (1988)


I was a relative latecomer to the delights of Daydream Nation. It’s the album where cult heroes Sonic Youth completed their gradual transformation from experimental noiseniks to hugely influential guitar-based alt-rockers. 

Whether this was a conscious and deliberate path, or otherwise, this album sounds a little bit like the missing link between Eighties post-punk and the (then) fledgling grunge scene, and it probably stills stands as the band’s most structured and commercially-flavoured work. 

Whatever else it was, Daydream Nation has subsequently become a highly feted album, lauded by critics and fans alike, and the esteemed music webzine Pitchfork went so far as to rank it as its No.1 album of the Eighties. Sales figures don’t tend to support this lofty position, but there is no denying its wider influence, and that of the band itself.

Partners in crime, and onetime partners in life, guitarist Thurston Moore and bassist Kim Gordon share the majority of songwriting and vocal duties, but fellow axeman Lee Ranaldo also features prominently on both counts. Distinctive guitar - angular, jerky, unusual tunings, but lots of riffage as well - and thundering rhythms dominate as tracks form almost seamlessly from one to the next, the album eventually becoming a procession of controlled noise, with only occasional forays into the realm of experimentation, something this band has always been heavily associated with.

I wasn’t a big fan of Sonic Youth prior to hearing this, though I loved (side-project) Ciccone Youth’s version of (Madonna’s) ‘Into The Groove(y)’, and ‘Superstar’, the band’s contribution to an early Nineties Carpenters covers compilation, but if it did nothing else, finally getting to grips with Daydream Nation meant I could fully appreciate what many others had known for a very long time.

The opener, ‘Teen Age Riot’, which was released as a single, is a definite highlight, as is the (closing) ambitious ‘Trilogy’, but there are no obvious weak tracks on Daydream Nation. A genuine “must-have” album for fans of post-punk or indie, as you’re bound to hear shades of your latest favourite band on here. There was an updated 2007 Deluxe release, which is probably the version to go for.

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