Sonic Youth “Hits Are For Squares” 2008 double-LP comp. Today, April 28th, is Kim Gordon’s birthday (b. 1953) so I’m spinning this retrospective of Sonic Youth tracks chosen by a bunch of celebs (i.e. Mike D, Beck, Mike Watt, Flea – pretty cool) and published by Starbucks (not that cool), released on vinyl for Record Store Day 2010 (a bit more cool). There’s obviously some great songs on here from Dirty like “100%” (chosen by Mike D) “Sugar Kane” (chosen by Beck); I had Dirty on heavy rotation in ‘92 during college and I’m pretty sure that’s the album Sonic Youth was touring for when I saw them perform with Social Distortion and Neil Young. From Goo Radiohead chose “Kool Thing” (because “it has the best guitar riff, best drumming and best lyric. Because it is sexy, lazy and doesn’t give a f***. And because you just got Chuck D to fill up a DAT with cliches and play it in the background.”), Portia de Rossi chose “Disappearer” (she says listened to it and “awoke to find [her]self wearing a Little Mermaid costume”), and “Mary-Christ” selected by David Cross. Going back to Evol, there’s “Tom Violence” (selected by Gun Van Sant because it reminds him of his little sister), “Shadow of a Doubt” (chosen by Michele Williams because “Kim’s voice was a ghostly friend whispering in my ear”) and “Expressway to Yr Skull” (selected by The Flaming Lips). One track from Sister, “Tuff Gnarl,” was chosen by two people: Dan Eggers and Mike Watt (and Watt was pissed! “God damn it! Does this mean I throw chingasos with Eggers over first dibs?” Watts covered “Tuff Gnarl” on his ‘94 solo album Ball-Hog or Tugboat?”).  “Slow Revolution,” written in 2007 and which concludes the double-LP comp, is the only new song on Hits Are For Squares; it’s almost an instrumental (there’s some kinda mumbly lyrics sprinkled here and there) that is super-ambient, dense, a bit psychedelic and a lot chaotic. Kinda summing up Sonic Youth.