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

exactly

Re Alex's defense of Starbucks: I've heard they're a good employer at both the corporate and the retail levels. Then again, I've also heard they're brutally anticompetitive bastards in the Wal-Mart mold. So my wildly inexpert take on Starbucks is that they're neither good nor bad but partially both, like so many other things. Also that their coffee is okayish, better than what you get in a lot of other places, but nothing great. And I kinda hate 'em cuz they feel like malls and malls make me terribly, terribly depressed. Always have, even when I was a kid. Plus the mushroom propagation of Starbucks always seems to go hand in hand with the mushroom propagation of really shitty condos, but I think I covered that.

Re gff's post before last: I'm not sure any realistic answer would convince anyone. My suspicion is that the only problem here, the reason for the hooting and hollering, is the basic incompatibility of Starbucks of SY (in terms of their cultural labeling) in some people's minds. I haven't got far with that line of argument, so you might wanna take it with a grain of salt.

Agree w/ Nabisco about the broadness of the contemporary indie-rock market. So I guess I oughtta differentiate between Indie Rock Classic (80s "corporate rock still sucks" die-hards) and New Indie Rock (nice people who like nice music made by nice people). IRC folks are the ones with their nuts in a bunch. NIRs are cool with Starbucks in the first place.

Starbucks also injected the whole notion of coffeeshops into places that didn't have them; part of their early spread really did have to do with the whole notion of foamy espresso concoctions being rare and alluring to people, and then being converted into like daily purchases

they weren't that rare. even big rapids had an independent coffee shop with lattes and espresso. I saw a few shows there!

I've heard they're a good employer at both the corporate and the retail levels.

they're anti-union, if I'm not mistaken

What has always amazed me about Starbucks is that they will charge double for a cup of coffee and then EXPECT YOU TO PUT YOUR OWN MILK AND SUGAR IN IT.

FUCK

YOU

yeah, even my piece-of-shit homogenized, nowhere-near-anything-interesting soCal suburb had a couple

x-post

I MEAN GODDAMN YOU JUST PUT WHIPPED CREAM, MELTED CARAMEL AND HEATED, FROTHED MILK IN MY FREAKING COFFEE BUT A LITTLE SUGAR ISN'T IN YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION??

XPOST I'M GOING HOME MY HEAD IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE FROM THIS TRIPLE CARAMEL MOCHIATTO

"Good employer" can be measured lots of ways. I mean in terms of pay, benefits & workplace culture vs. other comparable business. Union thing is another matter.

if starbucks crushed independent coffee shops, why are there still like 8 zillion independent coffee shops?

i never thought of sonic youth as particularly "rebellious" or whatever, they are more like the grateful dead to me, this sort of institution that has an enduring cult and a sort of self-contained little musical world and style that they've mined to greater or less success for a long time...they've always seemed exceedingly careerist to me.

The parts where Starbucks succeeded like mad, competition-wise, were (a) realizing they could create a market of people who wanted to grab coffee drinks on the go that would absolutely DWARF the market of people who wanted to spend time in pleasant coffeeshops, and (b) realizing that the world was becoming increasingly like an airport, in cities and small towns alike, and happily meshing into a food-court society would conquer attempts to offer people a break from it

Tracer I am aware that Euro-style coffee drinks were available in the US before Starbucks, but I can tell you from personal experience than you are overestimating their presence in much of America: in the place I grew up (100,000 people!) the first trad coffeeshop I ever encountered was across town, and when I moved to a smaller Midwestern town (in 1993!) there was no coffeeshop whatever (until some guys moved from Colorado and started one), and the people in these places did not have knowledge of such drinks much in their heads (except maybe as nice-restaurant after-dinner items) until coffee chains converted them into quick on-the-go daily staples

ha, xpost, Quantum, there was Shaman's Bluff, yes -- and I played a crapload of shows there -- but that started right when I moved there, before that I don't believe there was ANYthing, except maybe some kind of coffee cart / cafe on campus!

(Hahaha also I'm pretty sure Shaman's folded a year or two after I left? I think it existed solely to make that town great for me / allow me to open for Wally Pleasant)

Across town! Oh noes!

Coolness, marketing, and images aside, I'd just like to point out that one of the members of Sonic Youth narrated a film about the dangers and pitfalls and general fucked-upedness of corporate influence on/commodification of music:
http://www.mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/MoneyForNothing

Tracer: I think they'd put the milk in for you if you calmed the fuck down and asked nice. Pretend you have a disability and can't touch things.

As far as the "crushed independent coffee shops" thing goes, Starbucks are and have been sued for just that (not terribly successfully, but they tend to have far deeper pockets than the average mom & pop). Starbucks' corporate strategy involves intentionally opening too many shops for a region to support, simply to drive out competition. They have the resources to rent, build out, staff and close "suicide" operations simply to reduce traffic at competing independents. Or so I've read...

Coolness, marketing, and images aside, I'd just like to point out that one of the members of Sonic Youth narrated a film about the dangers and pitfalls and general fucked-upedness of corporate influence on/commodification of music:
http://www.mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/MoneyForNothing

-- Sara Sara Sara, Thursday, December 6, 2007 6:56 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

are are are you you you going going going to to to link link link to to to that that that website website website every every every day day day???

nabisco OTM; there was nothing like a "coffee shop" in my home town until approx. 1998. Before then, everyone went to Perkins.

Tracer in a western town of 100,000 people "across town" is like ... this is like if you lived on Soho and someone said "there are coffeeshops everywhere, there's one in Astoria!"

Yes yes yes. Because for whatever reason the link between SY and that film has been pointed out by exactly two people, and the link between SY and "omg I loved Dirty in college, don't hate!" has been pretty much covered.

Starbucks does charge a bit more for their coffee than most independent places, although I get riled sometimes when people complain about "FIVE DOLLAR coffees!!!" because they're only $5 if you get, like, a 32 oz. latte with soy milk and chocolate syrup and whipped cream. I haven't been in a Starbucks in a while, but I'd be surprised if a 12 oz. black coffee is over two bucks.

Amazed that there's any debate about SY's history of anti-corporate rhetoric and leftist politics. It's been present, at least suggestively, in their lyrics for decades. Thurston still drifts that way in Bull's Tongue.

"at least they didn't name a motor oil after me" - Jerry Garcia on Cherry Garcia ice cream

Nabisco I defer to your well-reasoned, what shall we call it? process of understanding Starbucks. It's a very good point that funkiness and "a place you want to hang out in" is not the point of Starbucks at all. McDonald's designs and buys its furniture specifically so that people will grow uncomfortable on it after a set period of time. Starbuck's doesn't go this far but the idea is the same. I think it's a shame. Coffee is great. It deserves to be given its own little moment, not absently sipped at from some great cardboard vat while answering email and scrabbling for a mobile phone in your Jansport backpack.

Amazed that there's any debate about SY's history of anti-corporate rhetoric and leftist politics. It's been present, at least suggestively, in their lyrics for decades. Thurston still drifts that way in Bull's Tongue.

-- Bob Standard, Thursday, December 6, 2007 2:01 PM (4 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

I'm aware of their anti-corporate rhetoric, I just tend to ignore it or not place too much stock in it since they've been employees of one of the biggest major labels for 20 years.

a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion
a Guardian style "lol open your eyes, sheeple" kind of opinion

there's still not a coffee shop in the town i grew up in, it's only around 4,000 people.

there is a starbucks in the next town, it's about 12,000 people, about 20 minutes away, i know people were excited when it opened.

and sonic youth were the ones that made it "okay" to SIGN to a major for the most part, i think that was part of cobain's thinking if i recall.

Tracer, now I'm going to have to find this memo that leaked from Starbucks, where someone very much at the top lamented that Starbucks sucked and proceeded to list every business decisions that had made the stores awful. (They used to be more comfy -- there was a transition moment from "pretending to be real coffeeshop" to basically being airport walkthrough places)

"The parts where Starbucks succeeded like mad, competition-wise, were (a) realizing they could create a market of people who wanted to grab coffee drinks on the go that would absolutely DWARF the market of people who wanted to spend time in pleasant coffeeshops, and (b) realizing that the world was becoming increasingly like an airport, in cities and small towns alike, and happily meshing into a food-court society would conquer attempts to offer people a break from it"

- nabisco

Exactly. That's what I meant when I said Starbucks makes me depressed cuz it feels like a mall. But said much better.

and sonic youth were the ones that made it "okay" to SIGN to a major for the most part, i think that was part of cobain's thinking if i recall.

Seminar N-233: Sonic Youth and the Gentrification of American Indie Rock (4 hrs, with coffee break, Q&A)

http://www.slate.com/id/2161504/entry/0/

Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and what some might call the commiditization of our brand.

and sonic youth were the ones that made it "okay" to SIGN to a major for the most part, i think that was part of cobain's thinking if i recall.

True, to an extent. Husker Du were the "first" to sign to a major, and supposedly Bob Mould gave SY lots of advice on how to navigate those waters. HD made it ok for SY to sign, SY made it ok (and profitable enough for DGC) for Nirvana to sign, and apres Nirvana, le deluge.

it may have led to the commoditization of the brand, but I bet it did a number on whipped-cream futures

The biggest forehead-slapper in that short memo is the one that goes "holy crap, Starbucks stores DON'T smell like coffee any more! it's a coffee shop that doesn't even smell like coffee!" -- odd to see someone lay out the specific processing decisions that made the stores start seeming less and less pleasant

starbucks should start marketing minimal so table is the table can really flip out

SY and Starbucks to put out a compilation of songs picked by celebrities ("from Jeff Tweedy to Beck to Marc Jacobs to Portia de Rossi to Michelle Williams") is totally fucking hilarious and its a shame that the debate is whether or not we should angry or offended by it.

For SY and Starbucks, rather

Reaching way back to beat some dead horses:

Bob, you sure are obsessed with stuff like "marketing" and "demographics" for someone up on such a high horse about a corporate coffee chain. Are you disappointed in Sonic Youth's association with Starbucks because of the cognitive dissonance with their public image as lefty indie deities, or do you actually see doing a one-off Starbucks-sponsored compilation as some huge ethical departure for a band that's been signed to a major label for nearly 2 decades?

Probing questions put to me by Alex.

Ummmm, I'm obsessed with marketing and demographics cuz I'm personally interested in how cultural meaning/value is created, used and transmitted. It's more or less my hobby.

And I don't think I'm "on a high horse" against Starbucks. In parsing how I think hipsters view the chain (my first posts on this thread), I was attempting to keep my own take out of the equation. Of course, I don't like Starbucks at all, so that had to factor in, but in my initial posts, I wasn't attacking them. Just talking semi-objectively about how a specific group seems to see them

Personally, the SY record deal doesn't bother me at all. Not even a little. It doesn't seem like a meaningful betrayal on SY's part, and I'm not "disappointed" by the cognitive dissonance. I love cognitive dissonance and got used to the commodification of my youth ages ago.

So...you're not offended or disappointed in SY, you're just arguing earnestly from the perspective of strawmen hipsters who might be?

I must take the position that coffee is not great, it just keeps me awake.

the thing about starbucks is that people think it poached all these people from cool independent coffee shops with really good coffee, but i think it mostly just got people that used to roll thru the mcdonalds drive thru every AM, like dan (i think said)

I must make the confession that I have gone to Starbucks in the past week, but have not listened to a Sonic Youth album.

In the last week? Or ever haha.

Alex: yeah, but I wouldn't describe my attempts so sneeringly. I live in a world with Starbucks and also with young urban hipster people. Just from talking to folks, talking to friends, reading stuff, watching TV, I get certain impressions about how various groups view things and each other, even themselves. These impressions aren't necessarily gospel truth, but I have a certain amount of (misplaced?) faith in my ability to suss them out. I don't think there's anything wrong with any of this, and a "strawman" is only a logical fallacy when it's being used to support an attack of some sort. Like I said, I wasn't criticizing Starbucks or SY in my initial posts.

If I'm wrong about how hipsters view Starbucks, then set me straight. If I'm not wrong, I don't see what the problems is.

last post re Alex's suggestion that I'm, "arguing earnestly from the perspective of strawmen hipsters who might be."

http://www.nataliedee.com/050404/natural-hipster.jpg

Fair enough, Bob. You just seemed so invested in the statements in your first post (about how Starbucks is "soulless low-com-denom in a middle-aged, middle-class housewife sort of way" and Sonic Youth is a "timeless, all-weather coolness bastion that stands in opposition to zombie cow people who buy the wrong shoes") that I assumed those were your opinions, and not a composite of opinions of people you know or talked to about the subject.

Starbucks does charge a bit more for their coffee than most independent places, although I get riled sometimes when people complain about "FIVE DOLLAR coffees!!!" because they're only $5 if you get, like, a 32 oz. latte with soy milk and chocolate syrup and whipped cream. I haven't been in a Starbucks in a while, but I'd be surprised if a 12 oz. black coffee is over two bucks.

The monster fuck-off regular coffee (20 oz?) costs less than $2 in Boston. You only pay out the ass if you are buying cappucino/mocha/latte derivatives/extrapolations, which, if you are a REAL coffee drinker, you will scoff at or handle as a special treat.

Yeah I go to Starbucks for an occasional "dessert coffee" on weekends. In the morning I get a styrofoam cup of black coffee out of the machine in my office. They're about as similiar as lemonade and 7-Up.

Alex: yeh. I don't personally agree with either of the statements you quoted.

OK, thanks for clarifying.