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Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation

Sonic Youth at a glance...

Hometown: New York, NY
Year Formed: 1980

Personnel:
Kim Gordon -bass, guitars, vocals
Lee Ranaldo -guitars, vocals
Thurston Moore -guitars, vocals
Steve Shelley -drums

Related artists:
Ciccone Youth, Two Dollar Guitar, Free Kitten, Lee Ranaldo, William Hooker, Velvet Monkeys, The Crucifucks, Cat Power, Nels Cline, Thurston Moore, In Limbo, The Coachmen, Mats Gustafsson, William Winant, J Mascis, Kim Deal, Pavement, Half Japanese, Mike Watt, Borbetomagus, Shonen Knife, Puzzled Panthers, Jim O'Rourke

Notes:
Sonic Youth rose triumphantly out of New York's early 80s No-Wave scene. Originally fueled by the ripping guitar of Glenn Branca alumns Ranaldo and Moore, Sonic Youth grew into - and maintain their stature as - a rock 'n' roll aural-experimentation unit beyond compare. Sometimes melodic, sometimes atonal, but rarely boring, the band have covered a lot of ground in its nearly 20-year history. From the early scene-splashing Confusion is Sex (1983) to the more polished EVOL (1986), the band's early evolution is apparent. 1988's epic Daydream Nation secured Sonic Youth's status as a legendary, visionary band which would forever leave its mark on rock 'n' roll. Subsequent albums and tours have served to bolster the band's popularity, even when not establishing any new plateaus of creativity. More recently, offshoot releases (like 1997's Perspectives Musicales series) have shown evidence of a continuing interest in experimentation. A perpetually active band, Sonic Youth will surely entertain and challenge for years to come.

Links:
Read Ink Blot's tribute to Sonic Youth, "Sonic Truth"
Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth
Daydream Nation
Geffen, Released 1988
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth

In 1988 Sonic Youth released Daydream Nation, a double-album that spreads itself across a musical landscape as vast and pacific as jazz, and as energetic as punk rock. It was immediately recognized as a masterpiece. It's a fully realized album that conceptualizes and illustrates the impact, complexity and originality of the quartet. Before this album, the band hadn't aesthetically deconstructed punk rock successfully, but they do so here without pretension or a posture of self-importance.

The interplay of distortion, echoing guitar chords, and heartbeats on the drums on tracks like "Total Trash" disfigure, contort and replace any conceptions of rock that a listener might have. For Sonic Youth, there is no such thing as an out-of-tune instrument, just a new pitch or tone to experiment with.

If you close your eyes, the sounds of the album literally drip over your cerebellum. On "Providence," the piano and feedback create a menagerie of sounds that are akin to a Midwestern thunderstorm. The form of "Eric's Trip" drags screaming and squelching guitars across a soft background of fuzz anchored by a metronomic backbeat. As a whole, the record plays as a cohesive fusion of spontaneity and patterned sonic progression. From beginning to end, Daydream Nation brings punk rock to the masses and gives it a voice still filled with passion, aggression and sarcasm.

If you like Sonic Youth, check out:
Sonic Youth EVOL
Sonic Youth Sister
Sonic Youth Bad Moon Rising
Sonic Youth Washing Machine
Sonic Youth Dirty
Sonic Youth Goodbye 20th Century
Sonic Youth Confusion Is Sex
Sonic Youth Goo
Sonic Youth Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star
Sonic Youth NYC Ghosts & Flowers
Cornelius Cardew Treatise
Richard Maxfield/Harold Budd The Oak of the Golden Dreams
Polwechsel Polwechsel 2
Jim O'Rourke Terminal Pharmacy
High Rise High Rise II
Sonic Youth

-- Sean Neumann

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