Hip to be Square

Sonic Youth has created some controversy by deciding to release a somewhat-best-of album exclusively at Starbucks on June 9th called Hits are for Squares. Each of the 15 tracks on the album has been handpicked by musicians, actors and literary friends of the band, save for the one new track "Slow Revolution". So far, it's only being released in major cities in the States, but you can also buy it from Starbuck's website at hearmusic.com. Some fans are showing some disapprovement in the blogosphere above the corporate sponsorship of this album, and while I don't like having only one option to get my hands on it, I'm too excited about the tracks selected here.

Okay, so "Kool Thing" (chosen by Mike D) and "100%" (chosen by Radiohead) are not surprising choices, but I love that more obscure tracks, particularly "Stones" (chosen by Allison Anders) made it onto here. I think if I got to choose a song by Sonic Youth, I would have included "Stones" as well. If you listen to it at around the 4:15 mark, you'll know why it deserves to be on here!

Sonic Youth - Stones (mp3)

Juno

A couple of days ago, Impressionable Youth and I got free passes to see a screening of the movie "Juno" at the Cumberland theatre. It was a cute movie, with the same kind of quirky awkwardness as the Royal Tenenbaums etc. It was about a sixteen year old girl played by Ellen Page who gets pregant and decides to give the baby up for adoption to a yuppie couple played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman, who plays Michael in "Arrested Development." We got t-shirts at the end of the film of a comic book in the movie staring Yuki, the Japanese pregnant manga superhero. Its one of those images that provokes a raised eyebrow expression and the uttering of "wtf?"

And the part in the film where they played Sonic Youth's cover of the Carpenter's "Superstar" brought back memories from when I was about 14 and I first saw the music video where Kim Gordon played the drums wearing a red dress. I thought it was the coolest thing ever that a girl was playing the drums.

Sonic Youth - Superstar (Carpenters cover) (mp3)

And thanks to all who helped ImpressionableYouth click on the Two Hours Traffic Banner. We got second place. Yay! So as a token of our gratitude, here are two previously unreleased live tracks that came with the winnings:

Two Hours Traffic - Sure Can Start (live) (mp3)
Two Hours Traffic - Better Sorry than Safe (live) (mp3)