Sonic Youth

When I first heard Daydream Nation in my suburban, raised-on-classic-rock-radio adolescence, I was in my carpool’s Toyota Camry and he played me “The Sprawl.” It was like someone had written the history of quantum physics on the windshield and then traced over it with an ice pick. I had no clue what the hell was going on. Where’s the melody? Where’s the anthem? Where’s the harmony? The accessibility? The warm, fuzzy feeling? I remember asking if there was something wrong with the car. I mean I liked “Dirty Boots” because it had a shaker and a hook; I liked “Kool Thing” because it had Chuck D; I liked “100%” because of that awesome distorted bass and drum breakdown at the end. But I could not wrap my brain around Daydream Nation.

My carpool (a.k.a. my music guru or the guy who got me into anything that wasn’t on the dial) dubbed me a copy and beseeched me to listen to the whole album, all the way through. (I still have that scratched, black TK cassette; it’s scrawled with the bon mot: Christian Scientists will someday rule the world! — I didn’t get that then and I still don’t get it.) Nevertheless, I tried to listen to it, while studying, while mowing the lawn, while kicking back and concentrating on my baseball-bedecked bed.

I thought it was cool how that girl comes in on the first song with some classic grade-school argot: “Say it, don’t spray it,” “You’re it. No, you’re it.” Was she talking to me? Did I get tagged? Was I personally selected by this sexy-sounding lady to unravel this record and spread the good word? And then the riff kicks in and so far I’m sold. The singer comes on like he doesn’t care, and not caring is cool. He ho-hums, “Cuz it’s gettin’ kinda quiet in my city head / It takes a teenage riot to get me out of bed, right now,” and I rewind the tape cuz that’s the best line I’ve ever heard. The catchy, rambunction of “Teen Age Riot” is swallowed up by “Silver Rocket,” which sounds like an out-of-control 7 Seconds song to me. Then a minute and a half in, the first set of swirling, white-knuckled feedback breaks through and I’m sent to that LSD’d boat scene in Willy Wonka.

Are there centipedes crawling on me? Is my Dad going to burst in and see a skull where my face used to be? Ahhhhh! Thank god that lady’s back for song three. She says, “Fuck you” a couple times, and I chuckle sheepishly. Almost eight minutes later, I’m exhausted and I give up — only three songs in.

Eventually, after a few months of half-ass listens, I get five songs deep. I like the urgency and slaughter of “’Cross the Breeze,” and I too wanna know like Ms. Gordon and the Clash before her: Should I stay or go? But I just can’t get past the wah-wah snarl and self-indulgent howl of “Eric’s Trip,” and I wave the white flag and fall back on my innocuous Pearl Jam cassette.

It takes some years and the gradual opening of ears and mind before I revisit Daydream Nation. But after a steady diet of late-‘70s and ‘80s post-punk and indie rock through late high school, I tackle the mountain of Youth again and eventually claw my way to the top. Along the way, I learn that “Total Trash” is the best song I’d never heard, even with its rockslide of racket at the end; the loud-and-quiet disquietude of “Candle” soon finds its place on more than a few mixtapes; “Rain King” reminds me of a more demented Dinosaur Jr.; and the tour de force trilogy, which plunges down from the outer limits gaining speed and direction with “The Wonder,” re-entering the atmosphere with “Hyperstation” before crashing down to Earth like a heated noise-punk meteor on “Eliminator Jr.,” makes me lightheaded in the best possible way — like hanging from the monkey bars while sipping a Miller High Life.

To this day, after umpteen listens, I still can’t say I get it (saying you either get it or not is such a crock of shit anyway), but I hear something new every time and that’s what keeps me coming back. I hear that gap between Black Flag and the Pixies, between the Ramones and Dinosaur Jr., between the Buzzcocks and Pavement being bridged. And I hear the divide between my adolescent and not-so-adolescent listening years being traversed with Daydream Nation. It’s an incredible album of oxymoronic proportions — catchy noise, fer chrissakes. Hopefully, I can introduce some wide-eyed carpool kid to it someday, although, I’d probably start with “Teen Age Riot” cuz I’m still a sucker for foot-tapping pop.

P.S. There’s a live version of every Daydream song on this Deluxe Edition, plus four covers and an early demo of “Eric’s Trip.”