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Originally Posted by Rob Instigator
This album got me away from Heavy Metal/Thrash music, and showed me complexity that punk did not have, and scared me with the bizarre sounds they pulled from guitars. It changed everything for me. |
Yeah, the same is true for me.
Plenty of albums have influenced/changed my life, but I think Daydream Nation actually altered the way my mind functioned and perceived and experienced sound.
I think I had been secretly harboring some fear that I wouldn't like or understand it. I felt that same fear about certain literary works when I was a teenager, but I'd never felt that way about music. I was clearly afraid that my intelligence was somehow at stake, and that I was going to fail some crucial coming of age test if anything went over my head.
So I can't really express how utterly euphoric it felt when "Teen Age Riot" kicked into gear, and sounded exactly the way I wanted music to sound. I could hear the discordant elements in the songs, and somehow I understood that this was a test of sorts, if only to determine whether or not I was the kind of person who heard beauty in static and noise and ambience and deconstruction.
Turns out I was and always would be that kind of person.
But every track got my heart pumping like a fight song. There was beauty in the ugly moments and there was something much more complicated and almost scary in the beautiful moments. I'd never heard anything like it.
Not only did Daydream Nation help my mind connect the dots between the SY albums I'd already investigated (Jet Set, Washing Machine, Bad Moon Rising), it also equipped me with a context for records like Loveless and Psychocandy, which I owned but did not yet fully appreciate. It also showed me exactly why Nirvana's sound never seemed complete to me, because it showed me what I
wished was there. It helped me to understand the inherent limitations imposed by "coloring within the lines."
I'm not sure any other album has ever communicated so much to me. It's not even my favorite Sonic Youth album!