Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation (1988)

I often feel like I don't really belong in the classification of millennials. I didn't spend my childhood online, I was already adult when I started using any kind of social media etc. Then again, music-wise, I feel like I had to really work to understand the brilliance of Generation X music. Of course, I also haven't really embraced millennial music either. This probably really means that Xennial is an appropriate concept. So, why am I talking about these different generations? Because I feel like Daydream Nation is the ultimate Generation X album. It is so central to the whole musical movement of that generation. It's bleak, aggressive alternative rock that has raw electric guitars on overdrive, off-key vocals and anti-establishment lyrics. Daydream Nation offers all of these and much more! It's definitely one of the most important albums of the Generation X youth.



Sonic Youth was always present in my youth. They were this really cool band that had influenced so many bands that I listened to. They were referred to in films and television series all the time. Despite all of this, I had difficulties in understanding their music. I grew up listening to quite straightforward rock music, offered by the Britpop movement and new indie bands that were mostly looking back to 60's pop music for influence. Daydream Nation was the most well-known Sonic Youth album, so that was also the first album by them I listened to. I borrowed it from the local library. I couldn't understand why they wanted to distort all the sounds out of key and it mostly just sounded like noise to me. This experience led me off Sonic Youth for quite some time.

It took me one of their more recent albums, Rather Ripped, which is a lot more approachable album, to start really appreciating their sound. I still kept to more recent Sonic Youth albums and I noticed that I loved albums like The Eternal and Sonic Nurse as well. After so many years, I went back to albums like Goo and Daydream Nation and this time, they just blew my mind. I have done a lot of music listening outside my comfort zone in recent years while I've been doing these blogs of mine and that seems to have made me realise just how different, just how innovative, just how original Daydream Nation is as an album.

I'm not going to do my usual song by song analysis for this album, because I think Daydream Nation is more than the sum of its songs. It's one unified whole of noise, avant-garde exploration, improvisation and pure attitude. You have to look at it as an album, not as a collection of songs. Of course there are some highlights, such as the airy opening song Teen Age Riot that has proper pop elements and clear guitar riffs, Silver Rockets with its fast-tempo punk rhythms, Eric's Trip and its amazing experimental noise sounds, Total Trash with it's heavy guitar riffs and the buzzing strangeness and beauty of Providence. Nevertheless, you have to listen to the whole album from start to finish to get the full force of this masterpiece.

I've talked to some older people who have been listening to music extensively for their whole lives and they often bring up the fact that it's a bit boring that nothing new is invented in music anymore. I've recently discovered this myself as well. Now that I've gone through pretty much the whole spectrum of Western pop music, I feel like there's nothing very groundbreaking anymore that would bring something new to the world of music. Of course there are new good albums and songs, but they're always more or less retro. Sonic Youth and other alternative rock bands of the 80's are one of the last completely new sounding musical genres that must have felt so revolutionary when they were first heard. I had to go through the whole circle of pop music history to finally understand what exactly was great in some of the 80's music. It was revolutionary in sounds. It changed the way we thought about music. Music wasn't anymore just something that was played with instruments. It was screwdrivers in electric guitars, hammer blows to amplifiers, kitchen sinks and all of that. This is what Daydream Nation is as well. Also, they're openly laughing at old rock stereotypes in their lyrics and for example with the fact that they have four symbols in their inner sleeve to smirk at Led Zeppelin's fourth album.

This awareness of rock n' roll history is also present in the music video for Teenage Riot. It features messy footage of gig backstage and on-stage material for artists like Ian MacKaye, Patti Smith, Mark E. Smith, Iggy Pop, Black Flag, Sun Ra, Daniel Johnston, Neil Young, the Beach Boys. The video is just as aware of history and just as aggressive and noisy as Sonic Youth's music.

I'm a bit disappointed that I never really got to see Sonic Youth live. I discovered their brilliance way too late. I have seen Thurston Moore many times and Lee Ranaldo as well, but it's really not the same thing anymore. The attitude of their youth is just not there anymore even if they still make some great music. I'm still really glad that I gave Sonic Youth another chance and was able to finally understand their brilliance!

Listen to the album on Spotify.