Friday, April 24, 2020

#33 - Daydream Nation: Sonic Youth (1988)


Sonic Youth was one of the more avant-garde of the post-punk bands. Fairly noisy and discordant, they were a group you either loved or hated. That said, I must admit, I was personally always a little in between. ;^)

The heart of the band was a couple, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore. When they got divorced, the band would break up as well. :^(


Daydream Nation is probably their magnum opus, a double album that Pitchfork cited it as the best of the ‘80s. The two big hits on it are “Teenage Riot” and “Silver Rocket,” though I love “Providence,” a little bit of concrete music (you know, like “Revolution 9”). I’ve got the album on a cassette somewhere.

If you know your modern art, you may have already guessed who did the cover. Yup, it’s none other than Gerhard Richter, quite possibly the greatest living artist. 


He’s known for photo-realism, but with a fascinating dream-like quality. Pretty fitting for the title of the album. He’s also known for his abstracts as well:






Interestingly, he’s got two dozen credits on discogs, mostly for more serious stuff though: 




Sonic Youth have a ton of really cool covers. Here are a few more that are pretty iconic: 



And a few others that I really like:





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