Teenage Riot by Sonic Youth

Album: Daydream Nation (1988)

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Thurston Moore told Q Magazine October 2007: "At the time, J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr represented our slacker genius, so in tribute we wrote a song called 'Rock'N'Roll For President' about him being president, which we eventually renamed Teen Age Riot."
The photo-painting, Kerze, that adorned the Daydream Nation album was the work of avant-garde German artist Gerhard Richter. The original canvas was sold at Sotheby's in London in February 2008 to an American private collector for £7.1 million, close to treble its catalogue price. According to Francis Outred of Sotheby's, Richter never intended his work to be used to accompany the music and had almost certainly never heard of the band. "Kerze" translates as "Candle," which is also the name of a song on the double album.
A deluxe edition of the album was released in 2007 and was hailed by various magazines such as Rolling Stone and Spin as the #1 reissue of the year.

Comments: 2

Luna Loud from Royal Woods, MichiganI like the band, and the song, and the idea of having rock n' roll for president, but like, what's the song-writing process/lyrical technique for these guys? Do they make it up as they go along? Is it like a stream-of consciousness sort of thing like Kurt Cobain did? Do they get deep-thinking and philosophical? I know they're not storyteller-type lyricists, as I can tell by listening to this and their other material.

Also, musically, I know they're known for using a lot of alternate tunings on their axes (they've even inspired other alternative acts like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam to do that in some of their songs). Do they sit down and write riffs or do they just jam out in the studio and then try to make it into a somewhat coherent structure and then put their lyrics over it? Just curious.
John from Los Angeles, CaThis song is great, but I need to add this awesome trivia fact about Sonic Youth--their original drummer, Richard Edson, was the valet in Ferris Bueller.

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