Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth

Daydream Nation, Sonic Youth's fifth album, came out on Enigma on October 18, 1988, a sprawling double LP cut that summer at Greene St. Recording in New York with Nick Sansano co-producing. Fresh off their split with SST after Sister, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley let the songs stretch out the way they did onstage, and Moore was writing at a furious clip.

The result is the noise gang throwing the gates wide open. "Teen Age Riot" kicks it off with a surging, jangling rush that's practically a pop anthem, and from there the record swings between tidal improvisations, squalls of pure noise and quick, catchy blasts, with William Gibson and Joni Mitchell among its touchstones. Critics went wild, it placed second in the big year-end critics' poll, a major-label deal followed, and in 2005 it went into the National Recording Registry.

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