Track Listing

1. Teen Age Riot
2. Silver Rocket
3. The Sprawl
4. 'Cross The Breeze
5. Eric's Trip
6. Total Trash
7. Hey Joni
8. Providence
9. Candle
10. Rain King
11. Kissability
12. Trilogy: a) The Wonder
13. Trilogy: b) Hyperstation
14. Trilogy: z) Eliminator Jr.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1684 in Music
• Released on: 2005-11-07
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds
• Running time: 71 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Sonic Youth's fifth full-length release is regularly cited as their masterpiece, establishing the art-damaged quartet as part of the pantheon of 1980s American indie rock alongside R.E.M., the Replacements, and Husker Du. Originally released as a double album (remember those?), Daydream Nation is 70 minutes of punk, sprawl, and white noise. Not only is it nerve- wracking, otherworldly, and prone to clear the room of less-adventurous listeners, it's also frequently gorgeous and maybe even a little pop. Maybe. Featuring the anthemic "Teen Age Riot", a chugging, Velvet Underground-like masterpiece that practically predicts the alternative rock revolution that would ensue three years later, the Youth's last indie effort constantly challenges and amazes. --Neal Weiss

CD Description
The double album that brought Sonic Youth to the attention of a wider audience and prompted the eager interest of a handful of major labels. DAYDREAM NATION, with its sleepy single candle flickering silently on the gatefold cover, harnessed their reckless live favourite, "Teenage Riot", while they ran gloriously roughshod over "Rain King" and "Silver Rocket", and offered the overtly camp glee of "Trilogy", which came with parts a, b and c. Their assured ascension to festivalbilling and the giant Geffen label came as no surprise to anyone who had heard this album.

Customer Reviews

Sheer briliance.
I personally thought that this was an extremely accessible album, though a tad long. Songs such as Teenage Riot, Silver Rocket and Total Trash will enter your head and refuse to leave, while some of the Kim Gordon sung ones (the Sprawl) might take a few listens. Just buy it. It was the first Sonic Youth album i bought, and though it isn't really a typical one (since all of their albums are totally different) it is as good an introdction as any, one of the first they did with proper song structure. For less developed songs try Sister the album before this, for more song orientated noise, try Goo, their Geffin debut which came after it.

Spacejam
I put this on when I'm doing the washing up (you care?). It warms my toes with waves of rhythm from another room. every so often i go to catch a particular refrain, "Accross the Breeze" accelerating into a frenzy, say. By the time I've got back, the water's cold, grease skein on cup disaster, redo from start.

I'm easily captivated by rhythm, like "Sister Ray" this baby's got slabs of it, and it crescendos in and out of phase with my attention until mesmerically, I'm part of the mood, and feeling space age and dirty.

They may have made a true cyber-punk album, to blast the following Rage Against the Machine's into yesteryear.

So far from Happy, so close to joyful. The human condition.

absolute sublimity
Forget "revolver", the "the bends" or "pet sounds"; "Daydream Nation" should head every greatest album of all time poll. Ok, Sonic Youth are hardly ever going to appeal to a mass audience and sell millions of records, you may never have heard of them, but that is not what music is about. Daydream Nation is the culmination of a band whose fortre was the reproduction of deafening noise ala David Lynch themetunes, and 4 albums on progressively applying this to a more melodic and streamlined pop structure. Daydream Nation is the finest album from (arguably) the greatest innovators in pop music since the Beatles. Songs such as "Hey Joni", "Silver Rocket" and "Eric's Trip" are infectiously catchy yet clothed in textured guitar distortions. Kim Gordon's songs "'cross the breeze" and "Kissability" are shrouded in female rage and angst but yet display the textual subtleties and complexities of the band's guitar playing. "Teenage Riot" could be the album's masterpiece, as close to a dance along, sing along song the band ever recorded at a sprawling length of 7 minutes. But thats what the album does, it sprawls, in all its beauty and essentially no song stands above all others as "schizophrenia" does on the previous "sister". And then there is the epic "trilogy", with 3 songs which merge perfectly into one and sees the albums end in an apocalypse of guitars and Kim Gordon. The album is a 70 minute love affair with the electric guitar, which is more accessible than anything they had done before and sees the band delve ever closer to pop whilst being obsessed with the art of feedback and distortion. Daydream Nation is self consciously cool, arty and damned right sexy, in being so it is a masterpiece that so far has not been bettered and i can not foresee that happening in the near future.