Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth didn’t exactly take the world by surprise with the release of Daydream Nation back in 1988. The group’s ambitions and artistic direction had already been made obvious by that album’s breakthrough predecessors EVOL and Sister, to the extent that people were primed for something great, and Daydream Nation provided just that: a double-disc sprawl of experimental (but catchy) noise-rock. Still, its true impact would take a few years to sink in. In retrospect, Daydream Nation marked not just Sonic Youth’s creative peak but proved a vital, defining, defiant bridge between two rock eras, the underground punk scene of the ’80s and the alt-rock boom of the ’90s. Indeed, the next Sonic Youth record would mark the band’s major-label debut, paving the way for the arrival of Nirvana (among others), and Sonic Youth has remained a hip staple ever since.

Twenty years later, Daydream Nation sounds no less exciting and innovative (in 2006 it was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry), but it’s still a little hard to come to grips with a deluxe-edition double-disc celebration of an album formerly relegated to the periphery. Perhaps that explains why the bonus demos and covers sound so irrelevant to the album itself, though it’s fascinating to listen to a selection of live Daydream Nation tracks from the archives. Yes, Sonic Youth remains a strong live draw, but these classic renditions from a band in its prime, hurtling forward into the unknown, serve as stark reminders that the group used to be even better.— Joshua Klein

Sonic Youth performs Daydream Nation in its entirety at the Pitchfork Music Festival Friday 13.