There is a moment about ninety seconds into Teen Age Riot when the guitars stop circling and everything locks in — and that moment is one of the most purely exhilarating things American rock music has ever produced. Daydream Nation, released on October 18, 1988, was the record that changed everything for Sonic Youth and for the American underground that followed them. Recorded over two months at Greene Street Recording in SoHo with engineer Nick Sansano — better known for his hip-hop work — the album combined Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo's alternate-tuned guitars with something new: actual songs, actual melodies, actual ambition to be heard.

Teen Age Riot opens the album and opens an era. Clocking in at nearly seven minutes, it builds from a murmured intro — Kim Gordon channeling the Stooges, whispering about spirit and desire — into a dual-guitar riff that tears the track apart. Thurston Moore described the song as an anthem for an imagined alternative nation, with Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis as its figurehead president. That specificity is characteristic of the album's approach: Daydream Nation was not making general statements about youth or rebellion — it was drawing a map of a very specific underground, naming names, claiming territory.