Daydream Nation is one of those albums a lot of people own just because they think they should – it pops up on "best of" lists all the time, gets praised by tons of critics and musicians and just has a generally mysterious air about it. But it's also kind of imposing, and trying to decode what the hell Thurston Moore is talking about is just too taxing sometimes. Never fear: in this installment of the 33 1/3 series, Resonance magazine contributor Matthew Stearns breaks down the hype behind Sonic Youth's finest album, and he does it in the best way possible – track-by-track. Each of the album's 14 songs is assigned its own section, wherein Stearns attempts to decipher some of those stream-of-consciousness lyrics, expounds on the dense, epic style of the album and more. The best bits are the interviews with SY members interspersed throughout: my favorite revelation is that the album's overly-serious artwork was all a big joke by the band, who assigned themselves "symbolic rock identities" a la Led Zeppelin, used a "Heavy Metal-ish" typeface on the track listing and incorporated "a prog-style song trilogy" just to take the piss. Also includes a foreword from SY co-founder and guitarist Lee Ranaldo. 160 pages.

reviewed by Chris Lemon-Red