Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation

33⅓ Main Series #39

by Matthew Stearns

"Daydream Nation" is the kind of gorgeous monstrosity (born of extremes, rife with difficulties, and mythic in proportion) that can crush the will of the most resilient, well-intentioned listener if the necessary preparations haven't been made. Matthew Stearns explores the album from a range of angles, including a track-by-track analysis and a look at the historical and cultural context within which the album was made. Featuring a foreword by Lee Ranaldo and exclusive interviews with the band, this truly is the definitive guide to "Daydream Nation."

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Musicals, Essays, 21st Century, Punk, Pop Culture

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

for an album with so much discursive potential, it's really sad to see it tackled by a writer who is more concerned about showing how much he looooooooooooves the album and how critically important it is that you love it as much as him than actually talking about the album. his lyrical analysis wouldn't pass snuff in a high school english class. he makes a point and then reiterates it with slightly different phrasing multiple times. the book's only saving grace is the interviews with the band members which are insightful, interesting, and totally fun. but what this book needed was an editor to reign in some of the author's horrid prose.

[Mallory · Rating 1 out of 5]

Welp, I've been reminded why I basically stopped reading books by white men.

The good:
-It can be weird to try and talk about Sonic Youth's music in concrete terms, and the author nails descriptions of their music very well occasionally.
-The interviews with the band.

The bad:
-See my previous status update. YOU REALLY GONNA SIT THERE AND SAY KIM GORDON ISN'T SAYING SOMETHING FEMINIST IN HER LYRICS?
-The author's sexism is so thinly veiled that he might as well have just said "I don't like women."
-Funny how the songs Lee and Thurston wrote and sing get so much more critical attention and so much more of their own words in this book (one can only assume Kim didn't have time to suffer this fool).
-Also funny how most of the non-Kim songs get such rich, detailed analyses; meanwhile, the author's (sorry not sorry I can't be bothered to learn the name of this dude) analysis of "'Cross the Breeze" talks about the "chick in the song."
-I can't even remember which song this is in relation to (sexism blurs together after a while), but the author also assumes that Kim or another version of Kim is the narrator in a song. Really, bro, any high school English class would teach you that's just plain shitty, lazy analysis.

I didn't listen to Sonic Youth for the longest time, due in large part to the dude-bro fans that unfortunately flock to them. And hey, I found one who got to write a book about them. It's disheartening--Sonic Youth did a lot of super cool, super progressive, and super interesting stuff (in all their songs, not just the ones Kim wrote), but mannnn, it's almost impressive how quickly a few bros can try to wipe that away.

[Chad Post · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went on a bit of a Sonic Youth bender when I was in Michigan last week, and because I love this particular album so much, I decided to read this short, entertaining book.

Matthew Stearns isn't a great writer--his prose is hyperbolic to the extreme, his conversational style frequently comes off as faux-naive and annoying, and he uses more superlatives than should be allowed by law.

That all said, Daydream Nation (the album) is a masterpiece, and it's interested to look at from a number of different angles: the political scene in the 80s, the art-rock scene in the Lower East Side, the claustrophobic representation of The City, the attempt to break everything and create a wild noise that can see you through (like by blowtorching guitar strings to find that special bit of feedback), the ironic and subversive relationship of Sonic Youth to traditional "rock" bands, the relationship to the concept of "time," etc. and etc.

So, this is worth reading, but be aware that you do have to suffer some cheesy-ass prose along the way.

[Bill Fuller · Rating 1 out of 5]

One thing is certain: "Daydream Nation" ROCKS MATTHEW STEARNS' WORLD! This is about all I could discern from his book after 160 pages of effusive praise for the band and the album. Don't get me wrong, I like Sonic Youth (not nearly as much as Stearns) and I think "Daydream" is a great album, but the reason I picked up the book (as I'm sure most readers will) was to get a little insight into the making of the album. Instead, we get a chapter on each track (conclusion: each track is AWESOME!) broken up by some gibberish that is barely readable. Matthew, if we're reading the book, we like the band and the record, you don't have to sell it. One of the worst books in a decent series. Save your money and buy the deluxe version of the record.

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not one of the best in the 33 1/3 series. Too much autobiographical stream of consciousness BS and loose ties to sketchy ideas (e.g. Kim singing about Satan? Which apparently the author mentioned to the band and they said "no, it's not about that at all" ...so it still makes it in the book? WTF? or my personal favorite is the author wondering what kim singing "kick it" is about, right after pages of describing the band recording in the same studio as Public Enemy, befriending PE and getting into NY urban/hip-hop culture.

[Dave Whip · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is terrible.

I love Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation as much as the author does. I know it's a great album. That's why I bought the book.

But instead of getting a more objective, factual, well researched account of it's conceptualisation and creation, you just get the author jerking off, in ridiculous language about what happens in his head when he listens to the songs.

It is nearly unreadable, I don't know why they payed this guy to write it, I don't know why they published it.

Don't waste your money or time.

[Jesse · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty goddamn ponderous. The liner notes for the expanded reissue are more informative, though there are some cool interviews with Lee Ranaldo.

[Lauren]

Poorly written. I don't need someone to tell me why most of the public can't and won't listen to Sonic Youth and how the rationale behind this is "bullshit" -- I mean, duh. He could have summed that up in one word: atonality. Instead we're met with wordy, adverb-globbed masturbatory drivel about how "hardcore" and "intense" Daydream Nation is. Daydream Nation is a gorgeous, revolutionary, many-layered rock record that deserves far better treatment than what Stearns gives it. He should try blogging or writing in his diary instead.

[Eric Skillman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh. This is what I was worried these 33 1/3 books would be: bland, overthought, masterbatory rock criticism. Is there some sort of all-adjective thesaurus they give out in the Village Voice music department? Honestly, I couldn't even make it through the whole book.

Still a fucking great record, though.

[Jared Busch · Rating 1 out of 5]

God, this was terrible. I couldn't even finish it. Some of the most pretentious bullshit I've ever read in my life. Gives me hope (or maybe it should depress me) that ANYONE could get published as long as you know the right people, because that's obviously the only way this hack got on the shelf.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The beginning of this book is boring and pretentious; filled with metaphors for music and what s.y. means to the writer. I finally started getting into it when he started to break down the songs on the record. I agree that it is an amazing album, however, I disagree with many of the authors ideas on lyrics and themes. I recommend reading about each song and then listening to it.

[Lu · Rating 2 out of 5]

some interesting bits here and there but overwhelming repetitive and at times tedious with some of the word choices and so on.

[J.J. Lair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skip the first chapter. The writer is proving he can write. He goes on these tangents of scary music like he’s writing about KIng Diamond instead of an avant-garde-guard rock band. I’ve listened to Sonic Youth for years and I never really dove into the songs on this album except for side one. I really appreciated the story behind “Eric’s Trip.” I never listened enough to Kissability or Eliminator Jr. to realize what they were about. Glad this author did. There is more feminism and struggle on this album than a casual listener would get.
The real success of the book is that I’m going to go back and listen to this album. I’m going to listen through this lens of what I’ve learned.

[Jack Wolfe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stearns writes a lot like I do, so when he subtly revealed over the course of this book that he's far, far older than twenty-five, I was like, "Wow... That's weird." My impression was that once you got older than twenty-five you...
- Stopped describing all songs you like as "THE BEST SONG EVER"
- Refrained from using the word "fucking" in every sentence
- Realized that band testimony and uh, facts are gonna be a whole lot more interesting and connective for people than your weird fantasy about the lyrics of a song.

There is much to recommend here. I actually dig the enthusiasm, enthusiasm being the salient characteristic of all good rock and roll (lots of critics seem to forget this and are very boring). I think his interviews with Lee and Steve are pretty thoughtful. I like how he avoids a lot of talk about New York City, a place I've stopped trying to relate to (mainly because every other movie and book asks you to). And I like Daydream Nation. It's fun reading about it.

But c'mon. A little more detail into the music, and not the so-called "themes," would've been grand. The Bee Thousand book did this too... tons of talk about the lyrics, with lip-service to how the record was produced, but no information (aside from the BT book's excellent band testimonials) on what the album's sessions actually FELT LIKE, what the band actually DID to achieve the actual MUSIC coming from your speakers. I don't need talk about chords or time signatures (I'm like Stearns in this respect); what I do need is some notion of HOW the act was achieved, not just the "effect" the act produces. I KNOW WHAT EFFECT THE ACT PRODUCES! THAT'S WHY I CONTINUE TO LISTEN TO DAYDREAM NATION!

David Byrne's "How Music Works" is a model for how Music Writing Should Work. In that book, we get nice thick descriptions of the actual process of music making and music performance. Here, we get a list of stuff Sonic Youth jammed into a guitar. That's cool... But don't you wanna know, err, HOW that stuff was jammed into the guitar? And why? And what effect it made? And what tracks said effects are featured on? I do.

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

Daydream Nation is one of my favorite rock albums of all time - it sounds like a certain kind of summertime, it's got raging intensity and delicate beauty, it's just so full.
Unfortunately, this book is pretty much the opposite. It's crap, to put it bluntly. Stearns' writing is terrible - an unappetizing stew of purple prose and pretentiousness. He focuses so much on his own very personal experiences and perceptions of Sonic Youth's music that he crowds out any real analysis or insight. At least there's some unintentional humor in the first couple of chapters, when Stearns complains about how critics usually discuss Sonic Youth and then follows that up with several paragraphs of pretentious twaddle about how mind-blowing, edgy, beautiful, or whatever their music is in his experience. There are a few good nuggets of material here, especially when Stearns quotes band members at length, but they are buried under an avalanche of tripe.

[Robin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love this album, which is why I was so disappointed with this tripe. This has got to be one of the most fawning, pretentious, unbelievable, uncritical, overwrought pieces of writing I've ever read about any music. I wonder if all the other books in this series are this bad.

[Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Daydream Nation is one of my favorite albums. This, however, is a ponderous, badly written book with little informative analysis. I like other titles I've read in the 33 1/3 series quite a bit, but this one is weak.

[Alessandra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh dear. Not one of the finer moments in the 33 1/3 series.

[Keith Mercer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would love to see this album revisited by a different author.

[Ross Bonaime · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Daydream Nation" is probably my least favorite book in the 33 1/3 series, simply because of the way that Matthew Stearns writes about the album at hand. Stearns' writing is so specific in its metaphors that it's eye-rollingly obnoxious, and it's almost as if he just wants us to take his love of Sonic Youth seriously. There's so many odd choices here, like little quotes that Stearns adds that are never clear what they have to do with the album, or he'll go on weird diatribes about how "Daydream Nation" is one of those albums that'll fuck up your life, almost like a more aggressive Natalie Portman in Garden State. At the point where he starts waxing poetically about how the band's name on the album cover bleeds into the actual album art (it doesn't really), I was just glad I was almost done.

Which is a shame, because "Daydream Nation" as an album deserves an in-depth look, and Stearns has all the tools at his disposal. Stearns even interviews some of the members of Sonic Youth for some depth, but he rarely shares the details of these interviews, instead choosing to go on and on, admiring his own writing without much substance. Occasionally, Stearns will hit on a particularly strong idea, especially in the chapters between the song breakdown, but it almost feels like a later addition demanded by his editor to make this at least somewhat about the creation of the album.

I almost wish "Daydream Nation" would get an extra 33 1/3 book, as this is more of a masturbatory exercise than a breakdown of what makes this an important album. Stearns feels the need to let us know that this is a mind-melting, world-altering album, he just doesn't show the reader why.

[Otto · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the first 50 pages of this close to two years ago and decided to burn through the rest of this over the weekend. 33 1/3's are pretty much a coin flip with each purchase. Half give lots of great details around the production of the album and make connections you can't really find elsewhere, and typically have fresh interviews with the artist just for the book.

Though there are interviews with Steve Shelley and Lee Ranaldo (whose songs get the best breakdowns) this falls on the disappointing side of 33 1/3. It seems halfway through the author realized they mostly wanted to explain just how fuckin' RAD Daydream Nation was but got most of the good context out of the way in the first hundred pages. Daydream Nation luckily however is the most objectively "fuckin' RAD" album ever created. With a lack of strong analysis on the majority of tracks it's ad nauseum descriptions of how an album sounds dissonant in groundbreaking ways that makes you wonder why you aren't cutting the middleman and listening to it for yourself. Which, mission accomplished if you just want to spread the gospel of "how fuckin' RAD" Daydream Nation is, but there aren't any particularly fresh details of the album here.

[Dennis Seese · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writer gets a little overheated and drunk on his own wordplay sometimes. It can be overwhelming, but I admire the passion. He's definitely read some WSB and Lester Bangs, that's for sure.
His main conceptual framework is that the record is a depiction of the frenzied. stifling claustrophobia and alienation of modern urban life, particularly life in late 80s NYC. I think he's able to stick to that framework pretty effectively while describing the songs/creation etc.

I definitely learned a lot about SY's influences during the time they made DN. Some I knew: William Gibson, Dinosaur Jr. Harry Crews etc. For example, it was really interesting to hear that Lee, in an original interview, talk about being really into Joni Mitchell, Raymond Carver and Dylan, specifically 'Visions of Johanna,' while writing his songs.
It was also great to hear from Tony Sansano, the man who engineered the record.

Overall, a decent read

[Bob Bradshaw · Rating 1 out of 5]

A guy that got an 'A' in a college writing class wrote 160 pages of literary masturbation about his favorite album. He loves this album and beats you over the head with (admittedly well written) purple prose until you want to put the book down and say "Allright! I get it! You fucking love this album!" The only insights into the making of the album are from brief snippets from band members, but they are sparse. The rest are hyperbolic interpretations of song meanings and exultations on how this is the ultimate artistic achievement of humanity.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, Daydream Nation is my favourite album, and Sonic Youth is my favourite band. Naturally, I was very interested in reading this. However, although I did pick up a couple of nuggets of information, for the most part it reads as the author's opinion of how the album relates to life in NYC in the Reagan era, and how many biug words he can use to make his case. All told, I'd much rather just listen to the record again.

[Matt Spade · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good mix of a track-by-track listing and what the band was doing recording the album. The author touches on what was happening musically at the time and in New York City.
There’s some pretty prophetic prose regarding the band and this album.

[edmondegreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book

[Keith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting bits of interviews/ context but written in the style of a 17 year old boy.

[Richard Thornley · Rating 3 out of 5]

very poetic approach to the story of this, uh, storied record. worth reading but I didn't understand it completely.

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Far too much of this book is devoted to describing how listening to this album feels. Like dreaming, this very personal thing is of limited interest to other people.

[Stevie Cook · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good record, bad book.