We're Not Who You Think We Are
Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988
. . .
The first song on side four of Daydream Nation — and the last song before the prog-bating Trilogy of songs that closed the record — was Kim Gordon’s anti-casting couch screed, “Kissability,” which was both the shortest (not counting the answering machine recording with effects “Providence”) and the most intense song on the album.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2352: Sonic Youth – “Kissability”
Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988
One of the cool things about Daydream Nation was that there are a lot of musical motifs that Sonic Youth repeat, only each time those motifs are slightly different. More than one song opens with lazily strummed guitars before the noise kicks in, or maybe they work weird time signatures during the opening instrumental parts, or maybe those opening instrumental parts go on for a very long time. Or in the case of “Candle,” all of the above!
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2351: Sonic Youth – “Candle”
Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988
. . .
After the incredibly stellar first side of Daydream Nation — “Teen Age Riot,” “Silver Rocket” and “The Sprawl,” for those of you keeping score at home — they kept the streak going with the utterly gobsmacking “Cross The Breeze,” which is basically a cross between hardcore and prog, showing off the band’s chops while at the same time drilling through the center of the planet.
Or at least that’s what the instrumental parts sound like to me.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2350: Sonic Youth – “Cross The Breeze”
Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988
. . .
And so it was probably lost to nobody that the longest song on Sonic Youth’s longest album to date was called “The Sprawl,” a reference to the setting of William Gibson’s initial cyberpunk trilogy, and the third straight Daydream Nation track with sci-fi overtones.
“The Sprawl” is a two-part epic which starts with a blistering humming Thurston Moore riff that never seems to resolve properly, propelled by Steve Shelley and Kim Gordon playing fast beats. (I initially wrote “fast beasts,” which would also work.) This first half of “The Sprawl” doesn’t isn’t as manic as “Silver Rocket,” but it’s still plenty fast, and Kim Gordon doesn’t even bother worrying about rhyming her words in the first verse.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2349: Sonic Youth – “The Sprawl”
Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988
. . .
If Daydream Nation’s opening track “Teen Age Riot” was the sound of an alternative nation daydreaming about President Mascis, then the second song (and second single) “Silver Rocket” did everything it could to dissipate that dream, starting with a peal of feedback and a silvery picking riff from Thurston Moore, which instantly heads into lightspeed hardcore territory, with drummer Steven Shelley smashing his snare drum to bits while Lee Ranaldo tosses out his own bits of silver and gold and Thurston Moore breathlessly intones the lyrics.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2348: Sonic Youth – “Silver Rocket”
Album: Daydream Nation
Year: 1988
. . .
Like Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade, Sonic Youth’s 1988 literal landmark Daydream Nation is a double album that snapped everything into place for me with a band that I’d previously not been fully into. And like Zen Arcade, it’s usually their top-ranked album whenever anyone makes GOAT album lists, though neither album is my favorite by that artist.
That said, having your head rearranged is never a small thing, and with Daydream Nation, I can pinpoint the exact moment it happened.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2347: Sonic Youth – “Teen Age Riot”