💯🖕 1001 Albums: DiS - Day 3: Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth

Day 3! A goodun!

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0 voters

EIGHT

1 Like

It’s a solid 9 from me. Hands down my favourite SY record

It’s excellent and a definitive album of its time and genre. And this is coming from someone who sometimes reacts to Sonic Youth with a huge cringe. However this one is where even the pretentious stuff is funny and charming. 9.

not my favorite SY album but good album for new and old fans alike

1 Like

Plus, as Kurt Cobain’s top 50 albums go, it’s probably aged a bit better than whoever that band were who sang about having coconuts for testes.

Before this the only Sonic Youth album I’d heard was Bad Moon Rising which at the time was just too weird for me, this was the album that made me realise they could actually write some cracking songs instead of just messing about with feedback and noise! It’s an eight from me.

that’s a 9 or 10 album any day of the week

3 Likes

I have awarded this album with a 6 because I think it is a 6.

When it hits it hits but it doesn’t do it anywhere near often enough, much like SY in general.

Loveless, Spiderland and The Sophtware Slump are all much, much better and more consistent.

3 Likes

There we go. Great album, probably not their best but definitely closer to the classic album status. Some absolute belters on this album ( 'Cross the Breeze is probably one of my favourite SY tunes).

Hovering between an 8-9 but will probably plump for an 8 knowing that a lot of the albums on this list are going to be on the top end of the scores so need to leave myself with some room to go with other albums.

2 Likes

This is spot on.

Was going to go 9 because I think I have SY albums I prefer and never quite had the love for Teen Age Riot others do but that’s silly, it’s a 10 really.

There are a load of individual songs I’m not that fussed about on their own but the good songs are so good they pull the whole thing up to amazing.

Second half really tails off and loses the big wide-open guitar sounds of the first few tracks

1 Like

Spooky, already had this lined up to listen to today, at my parents and been digging through my CDs.

Very good album obviously.

Think Evol is my favourite though

  1. A very good album that I like a lot even tho I don’t really listen to it so much

Relistened to this the other day. The textures of those guitars are so nice, album goes by super quick despite being over an hour long. All timer

10

2 Likes

Yeah a proper classic this though again not my favourite SY album. Probably stick on Sister / Evol more often. So many great jams though and the band sound so confident / assured in themselves too which is a rush to hear.

Always baffled by how often this is trotted out as the favourite SY album, it’s nowhere near for me. Certainly but a bad record by any means (it’s better than lots of bands get anywhere close to) but Sister and Evol did the early - dirty - noisy thing much better and Dirty and Washing Machine did the more mainstream bangers /more complex songwriting thing much better.

1 Like

i think the fact that’s a long epic (and their first long epic) makes it an obvious choice for the favourite. it’s also a culmination of everything they’d done up to that point, and cleans up the noise of Sister a bit but not too much. Evol is probably my favourite SY album (big softspot for Bad Moon Rising too but that’s obviously a lot more niche) but there isn’t really an agreed favourite between Evol and Sister is there? (Sister’s very good but i reckon it isn’t as cohesive as either Evol or DN)

Washing Machine is a good album but it doesn’t feel anywhere near as essential - you’re listening to a band doing something they’ve done several times before, most notably on Daydream Nation, albeit still doing it well. Dirty is very hit and miss imo - some great stuff and some shite. really dislike Kim’s vocal style on a lot of it.