[Moshe]

n the 1984 novel Neuromancer, William Gibson surveys the postmodern landscape from a collagist perspective. The Sprawl Trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive) imagines the future as a dense urban jungle that extends into cyberspace, or the Matrix: "The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace." (Gibson). Outer space is replaced by inner or virtual space in the postmodern novel. Gibson initiated a cyberpunk aesthetic (which some, like Frederic Jameson, have argued is the sine qua non of postmodern literary aesthetics) that patches together elements of high and low culture with subcultural fads and movements like the New York punk movement, the Situationists, electronic youth culture (video games), and the criminal underground. Sonic Youth was one of the first post-punk bands to assimilate cyberpunk (Chrome, Gary Numan, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and Fad Gadget all did it before them). In 1988, SY released their postmodern concept album Daydream Nation, which layers noise, static, and fuzz in a kind of post-capitalist excess. One of the most universally praised albums of the decade, Daydream Nation was Pitchfork's "Best Album of the 1980's," a sad and painful fate for an authentic cult classic. It influenced artists like Nirvana, Atari Teenage Riot, Beck, Mogwai, The Pixies, and Medicine. DN uncannily predicts every major fad in rock and alternative music to follow its release, from grunge and the post-punk revival, to DIY electronics, trance, noise music, shoegaze, and industrial pop. It is the first album to use pop sounds as an ironic gesture of violence since The Beatles.

Sonic Youth was one of the heaviest rock bands of the eighties. Bad Moon Rising (1985), especially, was criticized for being too dark, aggressive, and violent. But theirs was a purposed violence directed against the music industry. SY were always reluctant to sign with a major label, and encouraged bootleg cassettes of their albums and live shows. In an article for Wired Magazine about mix tapes and DIY culture, SY lead singer-guitarist-songwriter Thurston Moore acknowledges the important influence mix tape culture had on 80's subcultures. He writes about how, while on tour with the band, he bought a boom box to play mix cassettes by fans from around the world before concerts: "We had it onstage with us when we played, and I miked it through the PA for between-song tape action. Kids gave us cassettes all across the US - some of them hopeful demos and some mix tapes, and we'd jam them all. By tour's end, there must have been hundreds of tapes strewn about the van, with their plastic cases stomped and cracked." (Moore). As a mode of creativity, mix tape making sets the stage for later experiments with sampling, sound manipulation, and online file sharing. It is an analogue culture that anticipates digital culture. The DIY aesthetic pervades Daydream Nation, which somehow sounds immaculate and cheaply produced at the same time. Cyberpunk literature also draws on this DIY aesthetic which draws on street culture:

The cyberpunks, being hybrids themselves, are fascinated by interzones: the areas where, in the words of William Gibson, 'the street finds its own uses for things.' Roiling, irrepressible street graffiti from that classic industrial artifact, the spray can. The subversive potential of the home printer and the photocopier. Scratch music, whose ghetto innovators turn the phonograph itself into an instrument, producing an archetypal 1980s music where funk meets the Burroughs cut-up method (Sterling 347).


Sonic Youth's post-Marxist, DIY, punk aesthetic fuses with the postmodern SF literary aesthetic developed by important SY influences like William S. Burroughs, William Gibson, and Philip K. Dick. Daydream Nation wasn't the first postmodern SF album: Chrome's Half-Machine Lip Moves (1973) and King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King (1969), which both drew on William S. Burroughs as well as other postmodern sources, could be considered pomo SF. But it is probably the best album of the genre. The album's lyrics touch on a number of themes associated with cyberpunk and postmodern aesthetics: youth culture, urban space, cybernetics, psychedelics, sex, drugs, violence, and the posthuman. In "Silver Rocket," Moore seems to identify himself with one of Gibson's "street geek" protagonists:

"Snake in it
jack into the wallTV amp on fireblowin' in the hallgun yr. sledclose yr. peeping tomsturbo organizercrankin' on the knobYou got ityeh ride the silver rocketcan't stop itburnin hole in yr pocket"- "Silver Rocket"

The song is about various excesses: financial, technological, sexual, etc. Moore compares playing the guitar to "jacking in" (a reference to Neuromancer) to cyberspace. The song, as well as the rest of the album, also comments on the temptations of consumerism, the way it peddles addictive products like a drug dealer. The speed of hypercapitalism is reflected sonically by "machine gun" guitar effects and dense layers of noise. Daydream Nation is one of the only punk albums to take on late capitalism (Never Mind the Bollocks... and Subterranean Jungle are noteworthy exceptions), rather than industrial capitalism. It offers DIY or street technology and youth culture as the solution to the predations of late capital.

Works Cited

Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace Books. 1984.

Moore, Thurston. "The Best 90 Minutes of My Life." Wired Magazine. April 2005.http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/play.html?pg=3

Sterling, Bruce. "Preface to Mirrorshades." Storming the Reality Studio. Ed. Larry McCaffery. Durham, NC: Duke University. 1991.

Sonic Youth. Daydream Nation. Enigma Records. 1988.


http://exo-media.blogspot.com/2008/12/daydream-nation-as-postmodern-sf.html

[demonrail666]

That's an interesting post. Are you the author? I see it's from a blog but I'm not sure if it's yours or not. Either way.

I think it's fairly established that the band were into Gibson during the recording of the album and that certain tracks, most notably 'The Sprawl', are an obvious reference to that (although personally I think 'Providence' is the more truly cyberpunk). Looking at the album as a whole as a postmodern 'text' specifically tied to the cyberpunk genre is an interesting, but ultimately problematic, tactic. I think in a strict postmodern sense (assuming such a thing exists) The Fall's I am Kurious Oranj album (also released in '88) arguably eclipses it. However, by giving postmodernism a Jamesonian twist does perhaps edge things more in favour of DN.) Although even here it could be argued that the affectless LA sprawl depicted in Jane's Addiction's Nothing's Shocking album (again released in '88) provides an even truer depiction. At the end of the day, DN is I think too decidedly urban even for a purely Jamesonian reading of the postmodern - the more pastoral Bad Moon Rising works better in that sense. But as a cyberpunk, rather than necessarily postmodern album, then I think DN does indeed come into its own. At least in terms of the rock genre. I'd definitely say that Juan Atkins' Metroplex and Derrick May's Transmat labels (formed in 85 and 86 respectively) came closer to a cyberpunk aesthetic in their DIY approach to technology, fascination with corporatism and generally dystopian inner city imagery - although neither label had actually released an album before DN had been put out. Which also forces me to question the claim that DN somehow anticipated Trance. It didn't at all. American Techno artists such as Derrick May and Joey Beltram did that - albeit with a little help from Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Giorgio Moroder, and Motown of course.

It's a slightly unimportant point, I'm just saying that while DN may have been an album strongly linked to the cyberpunk genre I don't know if this really contributes to us also looking at it in a postmodern context. And that even given the band's interest in the cyberpunk movement, stronger links were I believe forged, primarily within the newly emerging Detroit Techno scene represented at the time by labels such as Metroplex and Transmat - whose atitude to sampling technology certainly seems closer to Gibson's line about 'the street finds its own uses for things' than Thurston's point about 'jacking in' guitars. In that sense Sonic Youth seem closer to 'Steampunk' than they do Cyberpunk.

A really interesting article. Thanks!

[Moshe]

Not me.

[✌➬]

Thanks moshe I really enjoyed the read.