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Daydream Nation

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Untitled

Daydream Nation is an album by alternative rock band Sonic Youth, released in 1988. It was a success, and a number of publications, including Rolling Stone, Spin Magazine, and Pitchfork Media[1] have hailed it as one of the best albums of the 1980s. As a result, it is regarded as a milestone of 1980s alternative music.

The album marks Sonic Youth's first attempts at shifting from their unsettling noise-rock roots to a more subtle combination of guitar experimentation and traditional rock. The album cover itself invokes this transition, with the abstract 1983 Gerhard Richter painting Kerze ("Candle"). The back cover art is a similar Richter painting, painted in 1982.

Nevertheless, initial sales were poor, partly because Blast First Records, Sonic Youth's American record label, 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 in 1993, 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 July 13th, 2007, Sonic Youth will play Daydream Nation in its entirety at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago.

Album style

On Daydream Nation, Sonic Youth perfected their style, becoming sculptors of interweaving guitar lines that could unfold with nearly symphonic grandeur. The album quickly became an indie rock standard, containing some of the band's best-known songs, such as "Teen Age Riot", "Hey Joni", and "Candle."

"The Sprawl" was 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. "'Cross the Breeze" features some of Kim's most intense singing, with such lyrics as, "Let's go walking on the water/ Now you think I'm Satan's daughter/ I wanna know, should I stay or go?/ I took a look into your hate/ It made me feel very up to date." "Eric's Trip" has lyrics pertaining to Eric Emerson's LSD-fueled monologue in the Andy Warhol movie Chelsea Girls.

"Hey Joni" is titled as a tribute to Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe" and to Joni Mitchell. It is sung by Lee Ranaldo, and has surrealist lyrics such as, "Shots ring out from the center of an empty field/ Joni's in the tall grass/ She's a beautiful mental jukebox, a sailboat explosion/ A snap of electric whipcrack."

The album's title comes from a lyric in "Hyperstation". Provocatively-sleazy closing track "Eliminator Jr." was titled thusly because the band felt it sounded like a cross between Dinosaur Jr and Eliminator-era ZZ Top. It was given part "z" in the "Trilogy" both as a reference to ZZ Top and to the fact that is was the closing piece on the disc.

The album was nearly titled Tonight's the Day, from a lyric in "Candle." This was also meant as a reference to Neil Young's LP Tonight's the Night.

Distancing itself from most of the album's rock sensibilities is the musique concrete piece "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 a Providence, Rhode Island payphone, dubbed over one another. Oddly, it was released as a single, and a single-shot music video was even filmed for it.

Videos were also shot for "Teen Age Riot", "Silver Rocket" and "Candle".

Acclaim

Daydream Nation was ranked 14 in Spin's "100 Greatest Albums, 1985-2005". In 1989, it was ranked #45 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. Template:RS500 In 2005, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. In 2006, the album ranked as the highest rated alternative albums of 1988 on Sputnikmusic.[2]

Track listing

All songs written by Sonic Youth.

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


Vinyl etchings (Enigma release)

  • Side 1: "Rock and Roll for president"
  • Side 2: "Star strangled Bangles"
  • Side 3: "Destroy all record labels, part 2 - high, end"
  • Side 4: "No sleep till Rhino"

Liner notes in the 1993 reissue were penned by Jutta Koether. The album was slated for a 2-disc deluxe reissue in 2003, but this was pushed back to 2007.

Clips

Template:Multi-listen start Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen end

Personnel

Album charts

Year Album Chart Position
1988 Daydream Nation Official UK Albums Chart No. 99

Charting singles

Year Song Chart Position
1988 Teen Age Riot Modern Rock Tracks (US) No. 20

References

  1. ^ Pitchfork review [1]
  2. ^ "Highest Rated Albums: 1988" (HTML). Sputnikmusic. Retrieved November 11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
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