album // Hits Are For Squares
Hits Are For Squares is an almost career-spanning
sixteen-track Sonic Youth compilation album. The
album was released initially only in US Starbucks stores in 2008
in conjunction with Geffen, Sonic Youth's home since leaving SST
/ Enigma (in the States) and Blast First (in the
UK) following the release of Daydream Nation. Ignoring
the obvious charges of 'selling out' by letting the mighty Starbucks
put out a compilation album, what's relatively unique about Hits
Are For Squares is that the tracks themselves were all chosen
by various celebrity fans (rubber-limbed Chili Pepper Flea, actress
Catherine Keener, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder and so on) or collaborators
(Minutemen's Mike Watt). Those choices, plus their reasons for choosing
a particular track are explained in the liner notes alongside brief
notes on the tracks and where they fit into the Sonic Youth back
catalogue. And hey, the self-deprecating album title isn't dissimilar
to Hip To Be Square, the 1986 album from Huey Lewis &
The News beloved by Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis's American
Psycho, and that's always cool with me. Meanwhile, the sleeve
looks like it's trying to be an Edward Hopper portrait, the suit
drinking his Starbucks coffee shamelessly reinforcing the commercial
nature of this album. A 'caffeine-free' vinyl edition was released
by the band later in 2010.
What's immediately evident from the selections is
that there are way more choices from the Geffen 'commercial' Sonic
Youth period rather than their earlier independent label period,
aside from firm fan favourites like 'Teen Age Riot' (from Daydream
Nation), 'Tuff Gnarl' (from Sister), 'Shadow Of A
Doubt', 'Expressway To Yr. Skull' (aka 'Madonna, Sean And Me') and
'Tom Violence' (all from Evol) and the earliest track here,
the raw 'The World Looks Red' (from the Confusion Is Sex
EP with Grinderman / Nick Cave And The
Bad Seeds / Silver Alert drummer Jim
Sclavunos on the skins and lyrics by Swans' Michael Gira).
In general the tracks lean toward the accessible side of the Sonic
Youth back catalogue rather than the more experimental, but that's
what you get when you try and shift your album in outlets of the
ubiquitous Seattle coffee chain (Seattle resident Eddie Vedder,
incidentally, has a bit of a rant about not liking coffee in his
notes to 'Teen Age Riot', which is rather like biting the hand that
feeds if you ask me, but it's still funny). Also, most of the tracks
are those sung by Thurston Moore; Kim Gordon
gets a couple of her lead vocal tracks included (including the annoying
'duet' with Chuck D, 'Kool Thing' and the beguiling 'Shadow Of A
Doubt') and poor Lee Ranaldo doesn't have any of
his sung / spoken tracks included at all. Diablo Cody chooses the
cover of 'Superstar' from a tribute album to The Carpenters which,
while pretty, still feels uncharacteristically kitsch for Sonic
Youth; far better would have been something from the more radical
Ciccone Youth album.
Personally, I'd liken this compilation to the type
of coffee you get from Starbucks – in other words a bit watered
down, vaguely inauthentic but nevertheless addictive all the same,
precisely because it is so accessible. I approached this album having
not listened to most of the Sonic Youth back catalogue for some
time and it felt like I was hearing these tracks for the first time
all over again, 'Teen Age Riot' (still one of my favourites from
their entire body of work) and 'Bull In The Heather' (from Experimental
Jet Set, Trash And No Star) in particular sounding really fresh
and unfamiliar, just like I was listening to them for the first
time again.
The album also includes a previously unreleased
track, 'Slow Revolution', which mines a similar vein to Washing
Machine's long-form 'Diamond Sea' (a track I'd definitely have
included, though at twenty minutes it was clearly never going to
make the grade while the single edit lacks the very expansiveness
that makes the song so impressive); like 'Diamond Sea', 'Slow Revolution'
is a languidly-paced number, all Jaki Liebezeit-style
drums from Steve Shelley and layers of hazy guitar
riffs, Kim Gordon wailing away somewhere in the middle ground like
she's singing in tongues. It's a far cry from this band's more blistering
white hot punk tracks, but it's quite beautiful nonetheless; think
the Velvets' 'Pale Blue Eyes' passed through a Krautrock filter.
'Slow Revolution' is worth buying this compilation for in itself.
Gripes aside, Hits Are For Squares provides
a great overview for anyone unfamiliar with Sonic Youth. It's not
as good as my own Sonic Youth compilation tapes that I made at the
start of the last decade, but that's personal choices for you.
cd:
1. Bull In The Heather
2. 100%
3. Sugar Kane
4. Kool Thing
5. Disappearer
6. Superstar
7. Stones
8. Tuff Gnarl
9. Teenage Riot
10. Shadow Of A Doubt
11. Rain On Tin
12. Tom Violence
13. Mary-Christ
14. The World Looks Red
15. Expressway To Yr. Skull
16. Slow Revolution
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