Arguably the greatest album to come out of the American alt-rock/college rock/indie/whatever scene of the 1980s (forget You're Living All Over Me, Document and Zen Arcade, although Surfer Rosa runs it close), it initially surprised me and I'm sure a lot of other people when word got out it was due for a remastering and expanding. I mean, how do you improve on perfection, right? My copy of Daydream Nation on CD still sounds pretty great, so what could you do to it to trick us fans into trading our old for new?
Well, this reissue takes the "let's just make it louder and add some live stuff" approach, and you know what? It achieves the impossible; Sonic Youth and Universal have made the already great even better. The new re-fit succeeds in making this peerless record that little bit greater. The original's expansive-yet-raw production isn't sacrificed on the altar of the shiny and new and the bonus disc of live cuts of each album track is completely essential in documenting one of America's most fascinating bands at a time when they were really on top of their game.
Also, it's just a timely excuse to revisit the album and see if it is still better than everything that came before and since. Well, of course it is. Daydream Nation still acts as a distillation of every great rock movement that pre-dated it while lighting the way for all the bands that followed their lead (Nirvana… um, that's about it). Sonic Youth have never made an album as good as this since, but then again, neither has anyone else. Dense, immediate, limitlessly rewarding, you really don't have any excuse for not owning this anymore. Then again, you didn't have one before either.
http://www.highvoltage.org.uk/displaydemoreview.asp?num=2798&band=187
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