Daydream Nation is widely regarded as one of the best albums of the '80s indie rock. So I listened to it 5 years ago. What I heard: crappy songwriting, pretentious "avant-garde" noise diarrhea, the whole thing sounds like it was recorded in a garage. Lee Ranaldo saves the album with his shoegaze though, the only talented one IMO. OK as proto-shoegaze in general, the rest is brought down by the production.
OK, I listen to the rest of their discography. Occasionally some cool stuff, but mostly unlistenable trash. Dirty was actually OK, but still they sound like they can't write sings no matter how they try. Again, noise sections consisting of picking one note for eternity. They only got better after their fucked up guitars got stolen.
So I get really confused about why there's so much praise for them. I read Goodbye 20th Century. OK book, but still no answers.
In the end, Thurston Moore says Daydream Nation's production was absolute shit, that they started trying only on Murray St., and some music guy mentions in the book that "Sonic Youth didn't really influence anybody in terms of crazy noise jams".
So WTF? Where do all those awards, national music registry inclusions come from? No one ever cared about SY. IMO the best thing they did was help discover Nirvana. That's it. Oh yeah, they have a bunch of OK shoegaze songs, mostly by Ranaldo.
Kim Gordon is just fucking awful, too.
>>63505840
True. Even she herself said "she's not a musician". Barely can even play bass. But always the first to spew feminist bullshit nevertheless. Art degree confirmed.
Also, almost broke the band when she said she wanted to play guitar instead of bass. Honestly, I didn't care about her portion of the songs at all, they are all just caveman like "punk"
>>63505880
Wow thank you so much
>>63505756
Their songwriting is superb.
Their guitar interplay is some of the most unique and great ever.
Their use of weird tunings, sticking objects in their amps and guitars and pop songwriting resulted in a very unique sound.
Some guy said in a book said they weren't influential. That's complete bullshit. They influenced a shit ton of bands. Lots of bands cite them as an influence.
They perfectly blended Glenn Branca's avant garde guitar playing into pop songwriting.
>>63505756
>"Sonic Youth didn't really influence anybody in terms of crazy noise jams".
I know tons of people who have,.
Nice try though.
>>63505940
lol, and she's still a feminist icon in the music world.
>>63506031
> Their use of weird tunings, sticking objects in their amps and guitars and pop songwriting resulted in a very unique sound.
I've heard it times and times again. They just play guitars with screwdrivers. Their 'unique' sounds all sound like avant-garde shit to me.
> Some guy said in a book said they weren't influential. That's complete bullshit. They influenced a shit ton of bands. Lots of bands cite them as an influence.
They perfectly blended Glenn Branca's avant garde guitar playing into pop songwriting.
Like which bands? Almost no one does this except GYBE and some other bands I have 0 interest in. So, OK, let's assume they did invent them. Still, I can't see what's the big deal about it.
OK, I admit they did OK job in some songs mixing together noise and pop. But in the remaining 70% to me it's just abrupt, barely has any meaning except "hey it's that part where we destroy everything".
Anyway, I thought maybe they influenced electronic music or something like that. But I'm not that deeply interested in EDM
>>63506128
OK, name them to me. Please. I have no idea, seriously. Enlighten me.
>>63506262
why do you care if you're so predisposed to disliking them?
just move on man
>>63506297
MBV
Unwound
Blonde Redhead
Pavement
Eric's Trip
Arab On Radar
TFUL 282
Deerhunter
The Swirlies
Drive Like Jehu
dEUS
Just to name some of the more well-known ones.
>>63506262
Ok you're baiting. Their noise sections and no-wave sound good to a lot of people.
>>63506350
I'm just wondering how Daydream Nation has been awarded times and times again and I don't see at all for what.
>>63506386
Don't forget lou barlow was huge on Sonic Youth
>>63506297
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJCYD4CXWzQ
>>63506297
>>63506386
Also Flaming Lips
>>63506386
>MBV
MBV I do love. They write great songs, although Kevin Shields is a bit of a weirdo though.
So what you're saying is SY essentially pioneered shoegaze/noise later heard on Loveless?… I have hard time believing that, in part having heard Isn't Anything. But OK. I do like the shoegaze part of Daydream Nation (Hey Joni, Eric's Trip), and again, Lee Ranaldo wrote/sang on 95% of my favorite SY songs.
Anyways, the rest of the album is a pretty average punk, and Kim's songs are almost throwaway material for me.
> Eric's Trip
No shit
> Ok you're baiting.
Nope. If I was baiting I wouldn't be wasting my time posting this 5 years after I first heard them.
>>63506518
>>63506563
One could safely assume every single slacker rock, indie rock, or "alternative" band from the 90's - 00's was influenced by them.
This is my favourite Sonic Youth album and it's hardly ever talked about, so I don't really know what to say.
Try it out, though, OP, it's really quite good.
Kim is a dumb feminist bitch
Thurston is a fucking prick
they're all a bunch of cunts who treated nardwuar bad
>>63506626
>they're all a bunch of cunts who treated nardwuar bad
Well he deserved it
>>63506518
Dinosaur Jr/Sonic Youth had a love affair with each other pretty much. Thurston said they used Jazzmasters because J Mascis used them.
The irony: I love Lou Barlow, I love MBV, Deerhunter, shoegaze in general, but IMO Sonic Youth just can't write decent songs (beside having interesting chord changes).
>>63506570
In your posts you just they they sound bad TO YOU. Why do they sound bad? Is it too dissonant? Too structurless? You don't specify anything just ramble how it's shit.
And no, they didn't pioneer shoegaze. They probably just influenced Shields in the way he uses the guitar as a vehicle for noise and texture, and how he composes songs based on alternate tunnings. SY and The Jesus And Mary Chain were crucial for his perspective of how he saw the guitar.
>>63506570
>So what you're saying is SY essentially pioneered shoegaze/noise later heard on Loveless?
No, you asked who was influenced by Sonic Youth and we listed at least 13.
Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's not influential you dope
>>63506386
Shit I forgot all abotu dEUS!!!!
loved those bitches
But I agree about SY - I saw them twice back way back in the day
I always thought they were trying to hard.
Case in point - saw them open up for Neil Young supporting their Washing Machine record in like 1990 or something
They played hard and did all their crazy shit and it was OK.
Then NY came on stage and made them look like complete wannabe amatuers.
The looked liek they were trying so hard to impress and failed and Young looked liek he could give a pineapple fuck if you liked him and he played 2 hours of incredible noise. Completely disgraced Sonic Youth
The are sophemoric
>>63506601
>nardwuar
Agreed. My top 3 SY albums: Rather Ripped, Sonic Nurse, and Dirty (because Butch Vig can make a fart sound good).
>>63506651
What makes a song decent?
>>63506699
>Washing Machine record in like 1990 or something
Clearly we are dealing with a genius here
>>63506661
>>63506724
I've said it several times: to me, they lack songwriting. At all. Thurston's songs just fail to engage. They are like mood pieces playing at cafes. It might be the point, but they are a freaking rock band. Only later, in 2000s, he's managed to write some songs I actually like—like Empty Page. Before that, they sound like he had listened to one punk single too many.
Ranaldo is much better to me, with his Beatles-esque melodies. He wrote my #1 absolue favorite SY song, Karen Revisited. It's just gorgeous beyond words, from lyrics to melody. And again, the break is not really great in it… Because it used to be 2 different songs.
>>63506839
you may be right - must have been Goo in 1990 and Washing machine on my second attempt at them live
>>63506880
OK but what about it is not decent, other than
>because I don't like it!
>>63506933
I've seen them twice (2002 and 2006) and they were fantastic both times
>>63506693
And yeah—that's what I wanted to say exactly. There already was Jesus and Mary chain before. Kevin Shields did use many tricks from SY's book, I admit. But what he did was so much more whole, it had one central "theme"—clash of noise and melody. SY's albums just sound like outtakes from their jams, edited to make songs.
The voice of underground New York for a time, Sonic Youth were the keystone to the American noise-rock movement, but gave birth to many groups that would go on to interpret their own version of the quartet’s post-punk experiments in the process. So many genres of popular (and not-so) came in the wake of Sonic Youth’s explosion; others were irreparably changed (we’re looking at you, shoegazers) by their presence. Sonic Youth’s sound was important, but the DIY nature of how artists approached music, business and image changed with them too. Nirvana were every bit as influenced by Sonic Youth as they were the Pixies — particularly by those punk tenets that Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon & company subscribed to. It’s impossible to look at a single band post-1977 that, at least to some degree, doesn’t owe SY. Pavement, Blonde Redhead, Deerhunter, Bikini Kill, Polvo, Sleater-Kinney, Slint, Sebadoh, Flaming Lips, Jon Spencer, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Fugazi, Jawbox, Mogwai, Catherine Wheel, Pussy Galore, Helmet, Royal Trux, Jon Spencer, Sigur Ros, Autolux, Liz Phair, Afghan Whigs, Dinosaur Jr. … pretty much everyone.
http://diffuser.fm/influential-bands/
>inb4 but I don't care about those bands.
You have to be older than 13 to post on 4chan, OP
It's a shit band with shit songs but came up with a great sound.
That's about it.
>>63506988
>SY's albums just sound like outtakes from their jams, edited to make songs.
What's wrong with that? Or is it an issue of
>A song is only what i say it is!
>>63506880
If you're putting melodies on a pedestal then no wonder you don't much like pre-2000's SY. Their synthesis of no-wave flavored dissonance and more conventional song structure has been their bag for the lion's share of their career. Some of the really early stuff really didn't bother much with structure but from like Evol onwards they kinda see-saw between poppier eras and more experimental ones, with Daydream Nation perhaps being the most universally regarded balance between the two extremes. Sounds to me like you just don't care for their more abstract and noisier tendencies. That said, I'll agree on one thing - most of SY's lyrics are pretty throwaway. The way they trade off between melody and dissonance is what I like about their songwriting more than anything else, shit like Silver Rocket with its fast, punky progression and detuned guitars before veering hard left into an avant-garde breakdown of fucking everything before starting back up like nothing happened. I'm cool with shit like that, that's what SY is good at.
>>63506975
I'm not a pro, I can't explain it to you in all detail. Let's put it this way: most early Thurston's songs don't head anywhere. They're just not memorable to me at all. To me they are like some moody jazz in the vein of Archie Shepp.
I do respect rock musicians who can write a hook which will get stuck in my head for years. Or make me truly open my mouth and say, "wholy fuck, this dude imagines melodies like no other". Or at least make me feel something by their playing—danger, rage, power, you name it. And while I listen to Thurston, I mostly feel boredom. That's it.
basically Sonic Youht heard Ten Years After and tried to remove the melody
>>63507101
I'm not saying it's wrong. I made this thread with a different purpose: to understand what's so good about Daydream Nation.
I don't try to prove anything, everyone's tastes are different. I just want to know what's so good about the album that made numerous critics praise it as pretty much the key album in indie rock.
>>63507197
>I'm not a pro, I can't explain it to you in all detail
Opinion discarded
Thanks for playing
>most early Thurston's songs don't head anywhere
Why would it need to? Ever simply driven around, going nowhere, with no destination in mind?
>I do respect rock musicians who can write a hook which will get stuck in my head for years
All music doesn't need to do this.
>"wholy fuck, this dude imagines melodies like no other"
All music doesn't need to do this.
>Or at least make me feel something by their playing—danger, rage, power, you name it
Maybe you lack the life experiences to understand. How old are you?
>>63507318
>I'm not saying it's wrong
You implied it was
>to understand what's so good about Daydream Nation.
You won't be able do, since the positive qualities present in the album are not things you personally appreciate or look for in music.
>everyone's tastes are different
If you believed that, you wouldn't have made the thread. Because that's the answer you seek.
>I just want to know what's so good about the album that made numerous critics praise it
Did you look it up?
http://www.chartattack.com/features/2014/10/21/10-direct-homages-thurston-moore-sonic-youth/
>>63507326
Jesus fucking Christ. Thurston, is that you?
Alright, if you're one of those guys who write a weekly column on music in your blog and have the life experience most people would only dream about, then I see where your opinion comes from.
Well, at least I know the kind of people who like SY now.
>>63507444
>Well, at least I know the kind of people who like SY now.
>Pavement, Blonde Redhead, Deerhunter, Bikini Kill, Polvo, Sleater-Kinney, Slint, Sebadoh, Flaming Lips, Jon Spencer, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Fugazi, Jawbox, Mogwai, Catherine Wheel, Pussy Galore, Helmet, Royal Trux, Jon Spencer, Sigur Ros, Autolux, Liz Phair, Afghan Whigs, Dinosaur Jr. … pretty much everyone
>>63507444
He is right in some respects, though. Music doesn't need to be melodic or hooky, two aspects that SY do not particularly specialize in. Well, kind of with the melodies - they CAN write beautiful ones, they just have a tendency to disassemble them and marry them with passages of noise.
>>63507326
I'm a pro, it least as a musician, and I can see where he's coming from and I've been listening to SY for, oh, 15 years or so.
Some shit is just reaching with no payoff. They're aware of this limitation and often make the "no payoff" it's own conclusion with varying success. Also, some of their more hook-driven shit just goes down in flames when they arbitrarily degrade into just a sludge of delays, modulation, and term picking. Sometimes it works... Sometimes it doesn't.
There's a lot of great stuff in there, but there's some sifting too. I enjoyed there more pop-driven albums like Murray Street when they paired down their sound a fair bit more, it made them see more competent then some of their more overblown efforts but at the same time lacked the wild shoegaze vibe.
>>63507194
OK now this is a good response thanks
I tried to analyze many of their lyrics too, and finally came to conclusion that understanding them would be like trying to figure out "slicing up eyeballs" line without context. Some of it is just politics/social commentary, some are just about rock music, some are just Lee Ranaldo singing about his numerous friends.
But I guess what I like the most in music, they do the worst. So you're right about that.
>>63507572
>I'm a pro, it least as a musician,
Oh hey me too! What a coincidence!
>Some shit is just reaching with no payoff.
Then perhaps you can answer why music needs a "payoff"? Does life always have a payoff?
>arbitrarily degrade into just a sludge of delays, modulation
How is this bad?
Do you play in a bar band or something?
>>63507563
Yes, I do understand that. I just mean that the way Thurston generally handled melody up until to 2000s was generally pretty lackluster to me.
There's melody, there's hooks, but there's also the overall quality of songwriting—which makes you take one listen and say, "this has something in it".
Thurston has said numerous times that his main inspiration in the beginning were cheap punk singles which he collected from around high school. Later, when he finally started to incorporate more classic rock/pop in Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped, that's when I finally saw some overall quality from him.
I'm not saying I didn't like his experiments—but I just wish they had better songs attached to them with duct tape.
>>63507819
> Then perhaps you can answer why music needs a "payoff"? Does life always have a payoff?
What's the point of music?? Do we really need payoff in music?? Isn't just the sound of 2 by 4 against the wall music too??
> Do you play in a bar band or something?
Wew lad
---
But OK I got my answers from kind people in this thread. Thank you all except that one smug philosopher type
>>63507819
I'm a session cellist.
I never said it needs a payoff, I just said it doesn't have one and sometimes that doesn't work and detracts from a piece of work.
And yes, sometimes going into a bunch of delays works great, and sometimes it's entirely underwhelming.
In both instances I saw merit in what SY was doing, and sometimes their attempts fell short. I went as far as saying that even. What sort of musician are you? I mean you can't even read English, so you probably can't read notation. Fret pleb?
>>63507941
>What's the point of music??
You tell us, since you've implied there is a point, and it's not being met with SY
>But OK I got my answers from kind people in this thread. Thank you all except that one smug philosopher type
Reminder that you read a book and still didn't get it, you needed to go to 4chan
>>63508013
>I'm a session cellist.
I wouldn't expect you to understand then
>I never said it needs a payoff
Then your point is moot.
> sometimes that doesn't work
How so?
Is there a way you can explain yourself without using buzzwords?
>What sort of musician are you?
I play guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and some other random instruments in a bout 4 different bands, for the past 20 years. How about you?
>so you probably can't read notation
Of course I can.
>>63508075
My point was I agreed with someone and illustrated it clearly which stands regardless. I mean, you can be contrary all you want but I already stated why I didn't like it in occasion and remain unconvinced otherwise.
I've played cello, viola, and drums between 17 years or so, fret pleb.
>>63508381
>and illustrated it clearly
You didn't. "It goes nowhere" is not a clear criticism, as well as "it fails." You have yet to elaborate.
>I mean, you can be contrary
I don't need to be, see >>63506997
>I already stated why I didn't like it
Stating it is not enough. You have yet to elaborate.
>fret pleb.
I get more pussy than you. Hows that feel?
>>63505756
>Dirty was actually OK,
Stopped reading right there.
