The 500 - #328 - Daydream Nation - Sonic Youth

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 328

Album Title: Daydream Nation

Artist: Sonic Youth

Genre: Indie Rock, Post Punk, Art Punk, Alt Rock

Recorded: Greene Street Recording Studios, Manhattan, New York

Released: October, 1988

My age at release: 23

How familiar was I with it before this week: In name only

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, 171 - moving up 157 places

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Teen Age Riot

When I secured my first teaching assignment, in September, 1999, I met Peter (Pete) Reid who was to be my teaching partner and mentor. Pete was a fascinating individual, only 49 years’ old and had been teaching since the early 70s. He actually began teaching while completing his education degree in Teachers’ College in London when he was barely 20.

The school where Peter and I met

Pete was not an outlier. Many young teacher candidates were hustled into the profession because of significant changes to Canada's immigration policies, leading to a population boom. Without getting too bogged down in details, the Prime Minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Justin's Dad), announced in October, 1971, that Canada would embrace multiculturalism. Canada was in need of high-skilled workers and a points system was implemented to give preference to young immigrants based on education, experience and language proficiency. The consequence of this policy was rapid population growth through young immigrant families who would settle in Canada's major cities, Pete began a full-time teaching job while attending night school classes at Western University’s Faculty of Education.

Former P.M. Pierre Trudeau rode a wave of "Trudeaumania"
in the early 70s.

I share this to amplify Pete's resume. In the 30 years he had been teaching, he had experienced many changes in both Federal and, more importantly, Provincial leadership. Consequently, he had witnessed, and been part of, fundamental shifts in education policy, philosophy and practice. One of the many nuggets of wisdom he shared with me was that "education tries to reinvent itself every few years but, for the most part, its trajectory is more like a pendulum. Ideas fall out of fashion, but they usually make a comeback a decade later...slightly different and branded with a new name".

Throughout my teaching career, I've often thought about the things Pete shared. The idea of pendulum swings struck me as I did my research into this week's record, Daydream Nation. Released in 1988, it was the fifth studio album from the New York-based, four-member, art-collective Sonic Youth. The group was part of the No Wave Movement of the early 80s. This avant-garde art scene was a counterpoint  to the punk rock and new wave music popular at the time. No Wave music was, according to the Kill Your Idols documentary by Scott Crary, “more a set of ideas than a sound" – a reaction to the tropes of popular music and the belief that punk rock and new wave were simply recycling rock and roll cliches.

Poster for Kill Your Idols - a 2006 film about
art punk bands in New York

Bands such as Sonic Youth, Swans, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and even Suicide, whom I wrote about at #441, were part of a shift toward music that, according to Village Voice writer Scott Anderson; 

"pursued an abrasive reductionism to undermine the power and mystique of a rock vanguard by depriving it of a tradition to react against."  

No Wave music was intentionally atonal and repetitive, emphasizing musical texture rather than melody. It did not embrace the anti-establishment themes present in most punk rock. Instead, it was negative and nihilistic. If anything, it was inspired by 1960s improvisational psychedelia and acid jazz. If Punk Rock was "Chuck Berry, anarchy and Buddy Holly", No Wave was "Miles Davis, Frederick Neitzsche and Jim Morrison". Much like Pete had told me, things that fall out of fashion are reborn with a different name and a slightly different twist.

Sonic Youth (l-r) Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley
& Kim Gordon (1987)

Over my 25-year career, I have seen educational trends and philosophies come and go. I have even ridden the waves of a few. However, perhaps Pete's thinking was accurate. Maybe he was even aware of French New Wave director Claude Chabrol who once made the remark; "There are no waves, only the ocean".

Director Claude Chabrol