JAW ON THE FLOOR: Starbucks to Release Sonic Youth Celebrity Compilation (WTF)

stephen just validated this entire thread.

obviously they read this thread, took to heart its superb arguments, and changed their mind

Bassist Kim Gordon's haunting vocals and edgy lyrics add additional depth to the numbers she sings.

Pretty sure Kim didn't write her own lyrics 'til My Friend Goo.
Pretty sure Thurston's back to writing hers again.

obviously they read this thread, took to heart its superb arguments, and changed their mind

I don't get it - did they cancel it?

Starbucks said "DO NOT WANT!" possibly?

Pretty sure Kim didn't write her own lyrics 'til My Friend Goo.

Is this true?? I'd always assumed that e.g. "Secret Girl" and "Shadow of a Doubt" were her words. They don't seem like Thurston's at all.

pretty sure this isn't scheduled to come out until 2008

xpost: there's a reason there isn't any individual writing credits on their LPs.

I just noticed this upthread:

their shilling in and of itself doesn't bother me; but if pete townshend -- someone who's sold many of his songs for use in ads -- narrated a documentary on the corporatization and commodification of music, you'd think, wtf?! and yet: http://www.mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/MoneyForNothing

And I wondered why no one else appeared to see (including, apparently, the members of Sonic Youth) the blatant contradiction between narrating that movie and gettin' chummy with S-bucks.

xpost I think she's said so in interviews.

it seems to me that once you start to download illegally you sort of lose your right to act all self-righteous about people selling their music to commercial or stuff like this starbucks partnership.

http://www.7andy.jp/cd/detail?accd=C1090089
02.ＤＥＡＴＨ　ＶＡＬＬＥＹ　６９　（ＳＡＩＣＯＢＡＢＡ　ＶＥＲＳＩＯＮ）

ok wow....

audio samples there

Yoshimi trying to ape Kim on vocals I think!

or Lydia.

it seems to me that once you start to download illegally you sort of lose your right to act all self-righteous about people selling their music to commercial or stuff like this starbucks partnership.

so so OTM. i'm not into downloading at all and i'm gonna buy the starbucks comp. so what?

1 4 : S U G A R C A N E ( V E N T I R E M I X )

Starbucks seems kind of gross. Obvious soulless low-com-denom in a middle-aged, middle-class housewife sort of way (misogyny warning redacted). Plus corporate evil blah blah, but mostly just gross. I'm not talking about what Starbucks actually is, mind, just what it seems to represent, culturally, to youngish city people who give a shit about what's in season.

Meanwhile, SY are supposed to be the opposite of all that. Some kind of timeless, all-weather coolness bastion that stands in opposition to zombie cow people who buy the wrong shoes. Unfortunately, they mean the most to once-cool people who are starting to get old, maybe even wrongly shod. That's why this conjunction fucks us up. It seems to foretell the death of something, at least time's ongoing uglification of everything that used to be beautiful. No mystery at all.

Mostly I love people who get on threads to talk about how stupid threads are. Fucking rock.

I think SY shut down this argument when they pointed out that Starbucks is in no way any "worse"/more corporate than the label they've recorded for the past 18 years.

plus they are middle-class, middle-age

How inspiring.

xpost

Have I shared with you guys my former roommate's theory that SY are older than the Rolling Stones? "Think about it," he said. "Sonic Youth had kids and stayed home with them and stuff. The Rolling Stones never did that shit!"

re Alex:

Yeah, but Starbucks are much, much worse in the gross (but totally bullshit) cultural associations sweepstakes. It's like SY recording a record for Depends. Not in any way immoral, but the black cloud hangs heavy.

College kids look like fucking children nowadays. Like they're twelve or something. Was it always like that?

yxpost your former roommate is hiiiiiiiiiii

It's like SY recording a record for Depends.

Huh^^^^^^^^

= getting old

Bob, SY has been my favorite band for like half my life and even I can't fathom the idea of them as some kind of "timeless, all-weather coolness bastion" that stands in opposition of everything bad in the world. Put down the pipe.

Maybe it's just me, but that's always seemed like the marketing angle. And I'm kind of attached to the pipe. It goes with my hand.

By "always", I mean since Daydream or thereabouts. And they were my favorite band for a good quarter of my life (20-30). So, I think we're in conjoined ballparks.

So the marketing angle for a rock band is understood to be completely true to life and unimpeachable, but the marketing angle for a coffee shop chain is something horrible and insidious that kills everything it touches.

loosely translated: I HATE YOU MOM

hey guys let's hate on awesome bands for stupid reasons

Can you guys imagine if you were at a garage sale and you stumbled over a Rolling Stones comp that had been sponsored by STP oil treatment?? It would be like "oh my god, coolest thing ever"

SNAP

Alex: I just mean that to the indie rock market segment (certain college kids, ilxors, etc), SY are an attractive brand. To the same market segment, Starbucks are a crap brand - associated with dumbness, bad money and shitty condominiums. I'm sure that other groups see things differently. That's why we need to have so many different commercials.

STP oil treatment is okay with me.

BAD MONEY

doo doo dooo

BAD MONEY
for me and you

Bad Money
check it and see

i don't got
any moneeee

as Thurston said about buying CD in Starbucks vs online,

"FUCK ONLINE"

"To the same market segment, Starbucks are a crap brand - associated with dumbness, bad money and shitty condominiums."

This is because certain college kids, ilxors, etc, are dumbasses.

"Hi, We're the Shitty Condominiums. We have T-shirts and seven inches for sale in the back."

I HATE YOU MOM

sonic youth have one 'commodity': being sonic youth. if a large coffee retailing concern wants to pay them to do that, fine. pretty sure it's what they would be doing otherwise. they're also old. with kids. i don't begrudge them cutting any kind of deal.

i hate to find myself with a daily mail style "lol socialists grow up" kind of opinion, but there it is.

Alex in SF & Matt H are otm

however, Starbucks coffee is not very good

Anyone who doesn't get the association of Starbucks with shitty condominiums is blind, therefore forgiven, but no less blind for that. Whether and/or how you perceive the other associations I mentioned is up to you, but I don't understand the claim that SY's only cultural commodity value is "being Sonic Youth". Nothing known can be demographically meaning-neutral in that sense. How would that even be possible?

I HATE YOU MOM

-- sexyDancer, Thursday, December 6, 2007 1:00 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

If I'm off-base in tagging Starbucks and SY the way I did, what are the correct tags? Not in terms of your own opinions, I mean, but with regard to this or that demographic (specifically the SY-record-buying one). I know it's weird nigh impossible to clinically discuss how groups seem to view things, but it's something I often think about, so why not?

"however, Starbucks coffee is not very good"

Sadly this is true (although at least it's consistent in it's average-ness), but as a company I think they are actually probably better than most.

"but as a company I think they are actually probably better than most."

Why/how? Not taking shots, I'm genuinely curious.

P.S. Drop the "mom" taunt. It's more insulting than constructive.

"sonic youth are cool, and starbucks are not cook. but someone less cool than me may go into a starbucks and see a sonic youth cd and think that starbucks is in fact cool, and that is not right."

"some other person may get the idea that sonic youth are enthusiastic supporters of all aspects of the starbucks business, worldwide. but not me, i would never have that idea. but someone might."

"starbucks make their money doing things that are probably bad or at least 'lame' and for sonic youth to have a part of their income derived from that isn't right."

honestly, what is the nub of the objection here. i understand how this 'looks bad' but if you try to explain what is actually wrong none of it convinces.

xp baristas get a health plan.

starbucks are not cook, indeed

Alex in case you've forgotten, Starbuck's is a lowest-common-denominator, homogenized, blandly corporate take on what was once an independent, locally-owned, lively phenomenon: the coffee shop.

The fact that they charge double or triple what that independent, locally-owned coffee shop did just adds insult to injury. It's as if McDonald's started charging eight dollars for their fucking "hamburgers".

I mean, I hate to find myself with a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion, but there it is.

None of this touches on Sonic Youth, whose marketing decisions I could not care less about.

I don't think Starbuck's is cool and avoid it as much as possible. Which is fairly easy since I don't drink coffee. Sonic Youth can do whatever they want - what do I care - but I'm not gonna buy some Starbuck's comp CD.