Daydream Nation
Daydream Nation | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | October 18, 1988 | |||
Recorded | July–August 1988 | |||
Studio | Greene St. Recording (SoHo, Manhattan) | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 70:47 | |||
Label | Enigma | |||
Producer |
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Sonic Youth chronology | ||||
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Singles from Daydream Nation | ||||
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Daydream Nation is the fifth studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth, released on October 18, 1988. The band recorded the album between July and August 1988 at Greene St. Recording in New York City, and it was released by Enigma Records as a double album.
After Daydream Nation was released, it received widespread acclaim from critics and earned Sonic Youth a major label deal. The album was ranked high in critics' year-end lists of 1988's best records, being voted second in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop poll. Daydream Nation has since been widely considered to be Sonic Youth's greatest work, as well as one of the greatest albums of all time,[1][2] specifically having a profound influence on the alternative and indie rock genres. It was chosen by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Recording Registry in 2005.[3]
Writing and recording
Sonic Youth's standard songwriting method involved Thurston Moore bringing in melody ideas and chord changes that the band would spend several months fashioning into full-length songs. Instead of paring the songs down as the group did with previous records, the months-long writing process for Daydream Nation resulted in long jams, some lasting over half an hour. Several friends of the band, including Henry Rollins, had praised the band's long live improvisations and told the group that its records never captured them. With Moore on a writing spree, the album ultimately had to be expanded to a double album.[4]
Sonic Youth recorded Daydream Nation at New York's
Due to the amount of preparation the band put into composing its music, the recording process was efficient.[7] The session became rushed near the end, when Paul Smith, the head of the band's British label Blast First, had set a mastering date of August 18. As a result of the time pressure, Kim Gordon was not happy with some of her vocal takes. The band spent a whole night creating a final mix for the three-song "Trilogy" so it could be mastered the following morning. The record ultimately cost $30,000, which led Moore to refer to the album as "our first non-econo record".[8]
Music and lyrics
Daydream Nation is generally considered an
album, with the record being notable for its unorthodox guitar tuning and song structure, with many songs concluding with lengthy instrumental sections. The album is especially notable for being a significant influence for later alternative and indie rock efforts and genres, including well-known grunge band Nirvana. Lyrics include topics of burnout, the music industry, and the crack epidemic of the late 1980s."The Sprawl" was inspired by the works of
"Hey Joni" is titled as a tribute to rock standard "Hey Joe" and to Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell.[11] It is sung by 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". This song also alludes to the works of William Gibson's Neuromancer with the line "In this broken town, can you still jack in/And know what to do?" These feature similarly on Ranaldo's two other songs on the album, the rarely played "Rain King"—an homage to Pere Ubu and perhaps Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King—and the aforementioned "Eric's Trip".
"
The title of "The Wonder" comes from crime fiction writer
Title and packaging
Daydream Nation's title came from a lyric in the song "Hyperstation".
Release and promotion
Daydream Nation was released on October 18, 1988,
Reception and legacy
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Blender | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Chicago Tribune | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The Guardian | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Pitchfork | 10/10[32] |
Rolling Stone | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Spin | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Spin Alternative Record Guide | 10/10[36] |
Uncut | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Daydream Nation received overwhelming acclaim from contemporary critics.[38] Billboard called it "the supreme fulfillment" of Sonic Youth's "fullbore technique".[39] Giving the album an "A" grade in The Village Voice, Robert Christgau believed that while the band were embracing a "happy-go-lucky careerism and four-on-the-floor maturity", their relentlessly discordant music was "a philosophical triumph".[40] Rolling Stone's Robert Palmer rated it three-and-a-half stars out of five and said it demonstrated "the broad harmonic palette, sharply honed songwriting skills and sheer exhilarating drive" of the "influential quartet", while presenting "the definitive American guitar band of the Eighties at the height of its powers and prescience".[41]
The British music press also embraced Daydream Nation: Q magazine said the record made an "enthralling noise";[39] the NME called it the "most radical and political album of the year" and awarded it a maximum score of ten;[42] and Record Mirror gave it a five-out-of-five rating, enthusing that Sonic Youth were "the best band in the universe".[43]
At the end of 1988, Daydream Nation appeared in several lists of the year's best albums, being ranked at No. 2 by Rolling Stone, No. 1 by CMJ,[44] and No. 9 by NME.[45] It was also voted the year's second best record in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop poll,[46] which made the band realize that the album had made an impact.[27] Christgau, the poll's creator and supervisor, named it the fourth best album of 1988 in his own list.[47]
Daydream Nation has continued to earn acclaim and accolades. According to Matthew Stearns, writer of the
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine deemed it "a masterpiece of post-punk art rock" that demonstrated the degree of which "noise and self-conscious avant art can be incorporated into rock, and the results are nothing short of stunning".[2] Jon Matsumoto of the Los Angeles Times called it the band's masterpiece and said they had developed first-rate songwriting skills to complement their penchant for dissonant instrumentation.[49]
Greg Kot, writing in the Chicago Tribune, called it one of the most recognizable albums of the 1980s with its combination of "hypnotic guitar jams and some of the band's best, straight-ahead tunes".[30] Reviewing the 2007 deluxe edition, Christgau credited Daydream Nation for making alternative rock "a life force" and remarked that, along with the "vital" bonus disc, the album remained an honest and thrilling listen because of its musical tunings and anthemic songs about post-irony and "confusion-as-sex".[33] In Spin, Will Hermes said it was perhaps "the greatest art-punk statement ever",[35] while John Mulvey from Uncut called it a still radical "avant-rock masterpiece".[37]
In 2002, Pitchfork ranked Daydream Nation No. 1 on its list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s[1] (the album dropped to No. 7 in the 2018 list[50]). It also placed at No.13 on Spin magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums from 1985 to 2010,[51] No. 30 on Slant Magazine's "Best Albums of the 1980s"[52] and No. 45 on the Rolling Stone list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s.[53] The Spin Alternative Record Guide (1995) named it the ninth best alternative album,[54] and it was ranked 11th on Guitarist's 2000 list of the 101 essential guitar records.[citation needed] In 2003, the album was placed at No. 328 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums ever,[55] and again in 2012, with the album being ranked number 171 in the 2020 edition.[56]
Daydream Nation was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry in 2006.[3] PopMatters included it in their list of the "12 Essential 1980s Alternative Rock Albums", saying it was "an ambitious double album that saw Sonic Youth's various influences coalescing into a striking, searing whole".[57] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[58]
"Daydream Nation," remarked David Bowie, "is an extraordinary album."[59]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Sonic Youth (Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley)
No. | Title | Lyrics | Vocals | Length |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. | "Teen Age Riot" | Moore | Gordon, Moore | 6:57 |
2. | "Silver Rocket" | Moore | Moore | 3:47 |
3. | "The Sprawl" | Gordon | Gordon | 7:42 |
Total length: | 18:26 |
No. | Title | Lyrics | Vocals | Length |
---|---|---|---|---|
4. | "'Cross the Breeze" | Gordon | Gordon | 7:00 |
5. | "Eric's Trip" | Ranaldo | Ranaldo | 3:48 |
6. | "Total Trash" | Moore | Moore | 7:33 |
Total length: | 18:21 |
No. | Title | Lyrics | Vocals | Length |
---|---|---|---|---|
7. | "Hey Joni" | Ranaldo | Ranaldo | 4:23 |
8. | "Providence" | Mike Watt | Watt | 2:41 |
9. | "Candle" | Moore | Moore | 4:58 |
10. | "Rain King" | Ranaldo | Ranaldo | 4:39 |
Total length: | 16:41 |
No. | Title | Lyrics | Vocals | Length |
---|---|---|---|---|
11. | "Kissability" | Gordon | Gordon | 3:08 |
12. | "Trilogy"
| Moore/Gordon
| Moore, Gordon
| 14:07
|
Total length: | 17:15 |
- On some editions of the album, including all digital releases, all parts of “Trilogy” are separated as their own tracks.
Deluxe Edition
A deluxe edition of Daydream Nation was released in 2007, containing live versions of every track on the album, plus studio recordings of some cover songs. A 4-LP vinyl version was released on July 17, 2007.[60]
The four-LP vinyl release of the deluxe edition has a slightly different track listing than the CD release. The first two LPs have the same track listing as the original double-LP release. However, the home demo of "Eric's Trip" is at the end of the fourth LP, rather than falling immediately after the original album.
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
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: The Wonder" | 4:15 |
13. | "Trilogy: Hyperstation" | 7:13 |
14. | "Trilogy: Eliminator Jr." | 2:37 |
15. | "Eric's Trip (Home Demo)" | 2:27 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "The Sprawl" (Noise Now Festival, Sub Pop Singles Club, December 1988) | Mudhoney | 2:33 |
18. | "Computer Age" (Neil Young cover, The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young compilation, 1989) | Young | 5:12 |
19. | "Electricity" (Captain Beefheart cover, Fast 'n' Bulbous – A Tribute to Captain Beefheart compilation, 1988) | Van Vliet, Herb Bermann | 2:46 |
Personnel
Sonic Youth
- Thurston Moore – guitar, vocals, piano, production
- Kim Gordon – bass guitar, guitar, vocals, production
- Lee Ranaldo – guitar, vocals, production
- Steve Shelley – drums, production
Production
- Nick Sansano – production, engineering
- Howie Weinberg – mastering
- Dave Swanson – engineering assistance
- Michael Lavine – photography
- Matt Tritto – engineering assistance
Charts
Chart (1988) | Peak position |
---|---|
British Albums Chart[61] | 99 |
Chart (2007) | Peak position |
Belgian Albums Chart (Vl)[62] | 91 |
References
- ^ a b Mitchum, Rob (November 20, 2002). "Staff Lists: Top 100 Albums of the 1980s". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on May 23, 2010. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- ^ a b Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Daydream Nation – Sonic Youth". AllMusic. Archived from the original on January 13, 2014. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- ^ a b "The National Recording Registry 2005 : National Recording Preservation Board (Library of Congress)". Library of Congress. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- ^ Browne 2008, p. 264.
- ^ Browne 2008, pp. 254–262.
- ^ Browne 2008, p. 261.
- ^ Browne 2008, p. 265.
- ^ Browne 2008, p. 267.
- ^ Lawrence, Chris. "Sonic Youth Site Menu". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- ^ Lawrence, Chris. "Sonic Youth Site Menu". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- ^ Lawrence, Chris. "Sonic Youth Site Menu". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- ^ Lawrence, Chris. "Sonic Youth Site Menu". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
- ^ Kopf, Biba (January 1989). "Cities on Fire With Electric Guitars — I: Sonic Youth: Lost in the O-Tone". The Wire. No. 58/59. London. pp. 56–57 – via Exact Editions.
- ^ Lawrence, Chris. "Sonic Youth Site Menu". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
- ^ Lawrence, Chris. "Sonic Youth Site Menu". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- ^ Lawrence, Chris. "Sonic Youth Site Menu". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- ^ a b c d e Chris Lawrence. "sonicyouth.com Discography – Album: Daydream Nation". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- CDbooklet).
- ^ Balk, Alex (October 18, 2013). "'Daydream Nation' Is 25". The Awl. Retrieved December 13, 2015.
- ISBN 88-09-21522-2.
- ^ "The Official Charts Company - Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth Search". The Official Charts Company. 9 February 2019.
- ^ Lawrence, Chris. "Sonic Youth Site Menu". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
- ^ Lawrence, Chris. "Sonic Youth Site Menu". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
- ^ Lawrence, Chris. "Sonic Youth Site Menu". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved 2 October 2012.
- ^ Lawrence, Chris. "Sonic Youth Site Menu". sonicyouth.com. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
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- ^ a b Azerrad, Michael (September 2007). "The Spin Interview". Spin. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
- ^ Deming, Mark. "Daydream Nation – Sonic Youth". AllMusic. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
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- ^ a b Kot, Greg (September 27, 1992). "The Evolution Of Sonic Youth". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved June 20, 2013.
- ^ Hann, Michael (June 29, 2007). "Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation". The Guardian. London. Retrieved October 1, 2015.
- ^ Abebe, Nitsuh (June 13, 2007). "Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation: Deluxe Edition". Pitchfork. Retrieved May 12, 2021.
- ^ a b Christgau, Robert (June 28, 2007). "Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation". Rolling Stone. No. 1029. New York. p. 74. Archived from the original on June 11, 2008. Retrieved June 20, 2013.
- ISBN 0-7432-0169-8. Retrieved October 1, 2015.
- ^ a b Hermes, Will (July 2007). "Reissues". Spin. Vol. 23, no. 7. New York. p. 100. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
- ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
- ^ a b Mulvey, John (August 2007). "Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation". Uncut. No. 123. London. p. 94.
- ^ French, David (June 5, 2008). "They're keepers of the grunge". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
- ^ a b Browne 2008, p. 276.
- ^ Christgau, Robert (November 22, 1988). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. New York. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
- ^ Palmer, Robert (January 12, 1989). "Daydream Nation". Rolling Stone. No. 543. New York. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
- ^ Barron, Jack (October 22, 1988). "Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation". NME. London. p. 39.
- ^ Zeppelin, Geoff (November 5, 1988). "Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation". Record Mirror. London. p. 31.
- ^ a b Stearns 2007, p. 9.
- ^ "Albums and Tracks of the Year for 1988". NME. Archived from the original on July 7, 2013. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
- ^ "The 1988 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll". The Village Voice. New York. February 28, 1989. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
- ^ Christgau, Robert (February 28, 1989). "Pazz & Jop 1988: Dean's List". The Village Voice. New York. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
- ^ Stearns 2007, p. 15.
- ^ Matsumoto, Jon (March 17, 1994). "Sonic Youth 'Daydream Nation' (1988) DGC". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 20, 2013.
- ^ Phillips, Amy (September 10, 2018). "The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s". Pitchfork. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
- ^ Battaglia, Andy; Indrisek, Scott (November 30, 2010). "125 Best Albums of the Past 25 Years spin.com". spin.com. Archived from the original on May 15, 2014. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- ^ "Best Albums of the 1980s | Music | Slant Magazine". Slant Magazine. March 5, 2012. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- ^ "100 Best Albums of the Eighties: Sonic Youth, 'Daydream Nation'". Rolling Stone. 16 November 1989. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
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- ^ "500 Greatest Albums of All Time: Sonic Youth, 'Daydream Nation' | Rolling Stone". Rolling Stone. 31 May 2009. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
- ^ "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. September 22, 2020. Retrieved April 21, 2021.
- ^ Begrand, Adrien (11 February 2020). "Hope Despite the Times: 12 Essential Alternative Rock Albums from the 1980s". PopMatters. Archived from the original on 2018-01-22. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
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Bibliography
- Azerrad, Michael (2001). ISBN 0-316-78753-1.
- Browne, David (2008). Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth. Da Capo. ISBN 978-0-306-81515-7.
- Stearns, Matthew (2007). Daydream Nation. ISBN 978-0-8264-1740-4.
External links
- Official website
- Daydream Nation (Adobe Flash) at Radio3Net (streamed copy where licensed)
- Daydream Nation at Discogs (list of releases)