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

goodbye 20th century...

i caffeined i dream

uh

ysi?

table will ysi that bile right into your mouth, dude

Somehow that sums up what I've felt about SY for years.

Yo guys I heard they used an M.I.A. song in a commercial.

hey they were totally headed this way after dirty right? 'daydream nation' is a national recording registry pick! if i were 14 in a starbucks i'd totally buy ddn... after reading THIS:

223. Daydream Nation. Sonic Youth. (1988)

Pioneer members of New York City's clangorous early 1980s No Wave scene, Sonic Youth are renowned for a glorious form of noise-based chaos. Guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo had previously performed with Glenn Branca's large guitar ensembles, and their alternative guitar tunings and ringing harmonies attest to this apprenticeship. On Daydream Nation, their breakthrough album, the group's forays into outright noise always return to melodic songs that employ hypnotic arpeggios, driving punk rock rhythmic figures and furious gales of guitar-based noise. Bassist Kim Gordon's haunting vocals and edgy lyrics add additional depth to the numbers she sings.

sympathy for the strawberry > i dreamed i dream

ok I'm one of the last remaining "I hate it when good music gets used in commercials" fuxx and even I don't see what's the big deal about this

btw starbucks if u read this call my publisher, awesome thanks

"I Killed Tim Horton With My Grande Fucking Latte"

Is it actually called a "Sonic Youth Celebrity Compilation"? Cuz that probably appealed to their Karen Carpenter side.

is this really that surprising? doesn't anyone remember the GAP billboards with kim gordon? didn't thurston moore recently reveal that the source material for the songs on their last record was instrumental pieces he'd written for a series of bank commercials?

instrumental pieces he'd written for a series of bank commercials?

It starts at the top
Now it's deflating down
Works best when it's out
Gainin' interest around

Never mind it now
We can bring it back
It's total cash
And it's a natural fact
That I track the Dow

I don't see what's the big deal about this

People with crap taste in coffee buying a compilation? Hmm, come to think of it, I don't see the fussy either.

Come on, SY - don't you know the true path to hipness is via a Tim Horton's comp????? Tim Bits and a DDN to go, please!

Dunkin Donuts Nation

The idea that this should be thought of as jaw-dropping is kind of jaw-dropping. Call me when the Starbucks G.G. Allin compilation comes out.

I'm just disturbed at the idea of Grande latte swillers swaying their hips to a bossa nova version of Teenage Riot.

But lol elitist/rockist/corny indie fuxxor etc

it's the perfect soundtrack to the african teenage riot soldier bio they've been shilling.

i think the only reason it's so jaw-dropping to me is that...well, i haven't paid SY any attention since Sonic Nurse, so the fact that they'd be okay with doing something for Starbucks (right on paul mccartney's back, mind you) kind of made me go, "whuh?"

i love you, sonic youth.

this is more punk than punk then back to punk then past it again and then back to it.

pulling a slim moon that's actually FUNNY.

<i>this is more punk than punk then back to punk then past it again and then back to it.</i>

I love how SY has made fans think this is what's going on -- that it's some nod/wink Warholian punk thing, when in fact they've been marketing whores for years now. No diff than all the mindless commercials on television.

Sonic Youth is no different than all the mindless commercials on television?

I want to clarify that what I'm aghast at is the inevitably awful music this project is going to produce, not the concept of it being sold in a Starbucks. I didn't really get the hoopla about the new Macca album either.

What about those weird tuning? You don't hear that in all of television's mindless commercials.
X-post

Isn't this CD a compilation selected by different celebrity fans? Except for the one new song, hasn't the "inevitably awful music" already been produced?

<i>this is more punk than punk then back to punk then past it again and then back to it.</i>

I love how SY has made fans think this is what's going on -- that it's some nod/wink Warholian punk thing, when in fact they've been marketing whores for years now. No diff than all the mindless commercials on television.

-- QuantumNoise, Saturday, June 16, 2007 9:06 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

you are an idiot.

yeah, that's what it looks like, celebrity picks and one new tune:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/43669-starbucks-to-release-sonic-youth-celebrity-compilation (xpost)

I hope the new song is good! I like the idea of them doing a one-off song between albums that won't be some half-assed instrumental thing for an indie compilation. Also depending on what celebrities they ask, the song choice could be pretty interesting.

oh well fuck me then, bring it on starbuck youth

you are an idiot.

-- andi, Saturday, June 16, 2007 9:30 PM

Putting aside the fact that QuantumNoise is picking on you, do you think he's wrong?

I drink drip coffee only, black, a lot of it, and Starbucks is above average.

I like the idea of them doing a one-off song between albums that won't be some half-assed instrumental thing for an indie compilation.

covers aside, I can't think of a time SY has ever used their whole ass for a comp track.

Thurston's "oh yeah we gotta get around to that" tone doesn't promise much either.

She knows how to make foam for me
She know how to make foam
Starbucks-power, Starbucks-power, Starbucks-power
Over Me

you are an idiot.

-- andi, Saturday, June 16, 2007 9:30 PM

Putting aside the fact that QuantumNoise is picking on you, do you think he's wrong?

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, June 16, 2007 9:41 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

yes! very much so!
really. i haven't played sy in years, but shit like this just reminds me why i kind of love 'em. it's just a laugh. get it or don't (which is fine, if you don't). just don't laugh at someone for laughing.

Or, with record/CD stores closing with alarming regularity, SY might just be exploring another possible venue for selling their product.

And I can't blame any band for that.

Or, with record/CD stores closing with alarming regularity, SY might just be exploring another possible venue for selling their product.

I wonder if they've heard of the internet.

I'm sure they have.

You're suggesting that bands looking for alternatives limit themselves to Internet retailers?

i wonder if they've heard of making a living for years now, off of what they've been doing.

i've always wondered if the sonic youth apologists (contorting themselves into explaining how all these commercial endeavors are, um, "punk") are the same people who think a band like the Who are hopeless corporate sellouts for doing essentially the same things.

She knows how to make foam for me
She know how to make foam
Starbucks-power, Starbucks-power, Starbucks-power
Over Me

-- dlp9001, Saturday, June 16, 2007 11:35 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Please stop it.

http://www.moviesoundscentral.com/sounds/vanilla_sky/cum.wav

What was jaw-dropping to me was just that Starbucks would have seen enough commercial potential to be interested in doing this.

Sundar making the only sense on this thread so far.

I drink drip coffee only, black, a lot of it, and Starbucks is above average.

Starbucks, above average?? Are you fucking kidding me? Did you see the study in Consumer Reports magazine where they tested four different coffees from Starbucks, McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts and Burger King? It turned out McDonald's was the best(?!) and Starbucks was the WORST of the four -- and come on, they are the ONE ACTUAL COFFEE SHOP in the study!

Seriously Mr Rich@rdson, I shit you not:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003553322_webcoffeetest02.html

it's just coffee, dude, and it looks like you should drink less of it

larf

Starbucks, above average?? Are you fucking kidding me? Did you see the study in Consumer Reports magazine where they tested four different coffees from Starbucks, McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts and Burger King? It turned out McDonald's was the best(?!) and Starbucks was the WORST of the four -- and come on, they are the ONE ACTUAL COFFEE SHOP in the study!

haha, starbucks sucks and CR is like guaranteed non-LCD reliable. what else do you get wrong?

anyway, this is awesome, in no small part because of how many people it will piss off.

LCD reliable?

he means Consumer Reports sucks too

it's not necessarily that the fact that sonic youth are DOING it pisses me off.

a conversation:
STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE A sentimentalist, pimpled.
JOHNSON BRADDOCK A man with a stroller, a goatee, a brownstone.

STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE: So, that was non-fat soy caramel green tea mochalatacino frappe?
JOHNSON BRADDOCK: Yeah. Hey, what is this?
STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE: This is from Starbucks' newest CD, by Sonic Youth, called "Schizophrenia is Taking Me Home." I think this is "Catholic Block," picked by Jeff Tweedy. It's only 10 dollars with any drink purchase.
JOHNSON BRADDOCK: Huh.
STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE: I think it's pretty good.
JOHNSON BRADDOCK: Well, let me take that too then.
STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE: Great.
(purchase is made with Gold card, and JB leaves)
STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE: *sighs* Kill me.

i mean, it's just unfathomable to me that this could actually work.

Consumer reports does suck too. What is "LCD reliable" tho.

xpost table, I'm annoyed by the fact that drunks will bring this up with me for the nest 18 months.

i mean, it is a nice big joke. if i were a starbucks employee and these people walked in, i'd think, "great, now we're getting acid casualties coming in"

http://blogs.walkerart.org/offcenter/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/sy.jpg

three acid casualties and an elf on heroin

NON lowest common denominator reliable? He was making fun of dude for citing CR.

Yes, that would make sense.

When did Renaldo turn into Stuart Smalley?

Sounds like I need to try that McDonald's premium coffee! But where does it say Starbucks came in last in that CP test? If Burger King's "tasted more like hot water" drink scored higher than Starbucks' "strong, but burnt and bitter," I think we have different ideas about what makes good coffee.

"three acid casualties and an elf on heroin"

Could be the best SY album title this century!

thurston goldblum

i've always wondered if the sonic youth apologists (contorting themselves into explaining how all these commercial endeavors are, um, "punk") are the same people who think a band like the Who are hopeless corporate sellouts for doing essentially the same things.

OTM.

I'm not pissed that SY are corporate shills. I don't care, really. If Kim Gordon wants to model for companies that reportedly use sweatshop labor (cough: Calvin Klein), so be it. I just tire of how the shilling is framed as something other than it is -- that I don't "get it," if I call it commercialism. There is nothing to get. They're not art performance adbusting punks having an ironic laugh on corporate America. They are shills for corporate America plain and simple. So am I to a certain extent, but if somebody calls me out on it, I say, "You're right." I don't say, "Oh, you don't get the joke, man. I'm punking the system from the inside."

the table is the table OTM.

STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE A sentimentalist, pimpled.
JOHNSON BRADDOCK A man with a stroller, a goatee, a brownstone.

STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE: So, that was non-fat soy caramel green tea mochalatacino frappe?
JOHNSON BRADDOCK: Yeah. Hey, what is this?
STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE: This is from Starbucks' newest CD, by Sonic Youth, called "Schizophrenia is Taking Me Home." I think this is "Catholic Block," picked by Jeff Tweedy. It's only 10 dollars with any drink purchase.
JOHNSON BRADDOCK: Huh.

Why does this bother you so much? Goateed stroller dude is probably just as likely to have bought Daydream Nation when it came out as to not have heard of Sonic Youth, and my guess is you're a younger guy who wasn't old enough to be into SY at the time. Why do you have any more right to it than he does?

speaking of pimping for $:

http://www.richardkern.com

Table, I am sooooooooo confused as to why this thread even exists.

well, i haven't paid SY any attention since Sonic Nurse, so the fact that they'd be okay with doing something for Starbucks (right on paul mccartney's back, mind you) kind of made me go, "whuh?"

There's only been one album since Sonic Nurse. And was that album so avant-garde and/or anti-corporate (it was released on DGC after all) that their link to a(nother) corporation should be so surprising?

And while I dug your little playlet, you're assuming that Starbucks employees are forced to say they like ANY album in the store as opposed to merely pushing an album, two very different things. And for what it's worth, no Starbucks employee has ever pushed a CD on me nor ever made any comment to me about any of the music in the store.

You're also assuming that a Starbucks employee would automatically hate this CD.

Love,

Tim Horton

you're misunderstanding. i have no more right to it than he does, it's just that any conversation of that sort-- whether it be about Paul McCartney or Sonic Youth-- makes my stomach churn.

That and yes, I am a younger guy, who happened to buy my first SY record when I was nine years old. Granted, that was in 1993, but still-- they were as much a band of my youth as any older dude's.

And yo - a Jeff Tweedy "Catholic Block" could absolutely work.

KJB-- perhaps you should ask yourself why threads such as "5th Best VU Album" exist.

man what a sell-out. next thing they'll be signing to a major label.

As far as I can tell, this is one of the dumbest threads ever.

man, table, what is the big deal? who cares? why are you getting all worked up about this?

I'm not pissed that SY are corporate shills. I don't care, really. If Kim Gordon wants to model for companies that reportedly use sweatshop labor (cough: Calvin Klein), so be it. I just tire of how the shilling is framed as something other than it is -- that I don't "get it," if I call it commercialism. There is nothing to get. They're not art performance adbusting punks having an ironic laugh on corporate America. They are shills for corporate America plain and simple. So am I to a certain extent, but if somebody calls me out on it, I say, "You're right." I don't say, "Oh, you don't get the joke, man. I'm punking the system from the inside."

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

Glad this thread exists, if only to remind youngsers that Sonic Youth's primary demographic these days probably is stroller pushing homeowners. I tried the goatee back in the 90's, but it didn't work out.

Was there a time when Sonic Youth's fanbase wasn't middle class college-track types?

I don't feel worked up, Mr. Que. I'm not pissed off about this or anything.

I just find the corporatization of what was once anti-corporate culture-- and the willingness of anti-corporate culture to embrace corporatization-- rather interesting. I mean, what's next? A greatest hits of Magik Markers CD called "My First Ass-Fuck"?

It's not anti-corporate hatred on my part as much as interest in the motives behind SY's decision and Starbucks' branding mechanism and how it will work.

Kim and Thurston need money for their kid's college fund. And I don't blame them.

once people get old enough they'll do anything for money. cuz they know they are gonna die and nothing matters. it's no big deal. old people who never sold out have no teeth left. and they are sad a lot.

t's just that any conversation of that sort-- whether it be about Paul McCartney or Sonic Youth-- makes my stomach churn.

Ok, so you invented an unrealistic, unlikely conversation to churn your own stomach?

Scott's observation is doubtless more right than we know. Perhaps slightly related to it:

...primary demographic these days probably is stroller pushing homeowners.

The more I go on in life the more I'm utterly bemused at how...conventional that demographic in general still sounds. More so, since I'm of an age where I 'should' be a stroller-pushing homeowner etc. I'm not surprised by that path at all (nobody should be unless they're from planet Tharg or something), it's more I like I'm observing something through a window.

Anyway, back to music.

Not only is that their primary demographic, but most of *the kids* probably couldn't care less about them.

As far as the commercial potential - I'd take the SY-headlined, cancelled Lollapalooza as a barometer, i.e. it'll probably do fine in coastal cities, college towns, Chicago, etc. and fail in middle America. Of course if Starbucks is smart, which they are, they're probably not pushing this in all stores.

KJB-- perhaps you should ask yourself why threads such as "5th Best VU Album" exist.

Do you come with Cliff Notes, Table?

Love,

Someone not from Planet Tharg

It should be no surprise to anyone but the delusional kids on this thread that financial security = good thing.

Ned, what do you mean by "conventional"? If you mean, they do what "the average" American does, well, that's not surprising, since most people in America are average Americans, and so most "stroller pushing homeowners" are average Americans.

Or do you mean something besides that?

Sometimes a tie is just a tie.

And sometimes it's purple.

rimshot.wav

http://www.winnipegfreepress2.com/blogs/speirs/wpcontent/uploads/2006/07/web%20600%20half%20dressed%20man%2025.jpg

They're not "shilling" for anything. They're not going on TV and telling you to go to Starbucks. When you're in the music business, you go around and play shows and make recordings and people offer you money for those things and you take the money.

I mean, unless it's something really gross. Starbucks isn't that - it's a chain coffee shop.

http://www.winnipegfreepress2.com/blogs/speirs/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/web%20600%20half%20dressed%20man%2025.jpg

Some kid at a recent of Montreal show I went to had scrawled "Fuck Outback Steakhouse" on his t-shirt.

Do you come with Cliff Notes, Table?

You obviously come with an asshole, KJB.

"Should helmets be mandatory?" is a great headline.

Some kid at a recent of Montreal show I went to had scrawled "Fuck Outback Steakhouse" on his t-shirt.

"I'll show you a Bloomin' Onion!"

I mean, if Lennon's "Imagine" turned up in an army recruiting ad, I might raise an eyebrow...is there some irony being missed given that, as I understand it, Thurston is a stroller pushing Connecticut homeowner? Named Thurston?

Or maybe he rents...

having kids is so "conventional"

something really gross. Starbucks isn't that

Uh, Starbucks is fucking gross, dude. Their coffee and food are awful.

Also, Mr. Lord Sotosyn, I'm perfectly aware that financial security is a good thing.

Their coffee is ok. Do you have really high standards for COFFEE?

The Sprawl:

To the extent that I wear skirts
and cheap nylon slips
I've gone native
I wanted to know the exact dimension of hell
does this sound simple?
Fuck you! Are you for sale?
Does 'Fuck you' sound simple enough?
This was the only part that turned me on
but he was candy all over

come on down to the store
you can buy some more, and more, and more, and more
you can buy some more, and more, and more, and more
you can buy some more, and more, and more, and more
you can buy some more, and more, and more, and more

I grew up in a shotgun row
sliding down the hill
out front were the big machines
steel and rusty now I guess
outback was the river
and that big sign down the road
that's where it all started

come on down to the store
you can buy some more, and more, and more, and more
come on down to the store
you can buy some more, and more, and more, and more
come on down to the store
you can buy some more, and more, and more, and more
you can buy some more, more, more, more

Seems to me that there's some masculine/feminine issue here, too. If it was a beer shop, would anyone be saying, "Pabst Blue Ribbon is fucking gross, dude?"

Starbucks > Pabst Blue Ribbon

There is certainly better coffee than Starbucks out there, but if you think it's truly awful you should try and remember what things were like 15 years ago. It was all Maxwell House that had been on the burner at 7-11 since yesterday -- and we liked it!

Yes. Starbucks is progressive.

i have proof that starbucks genetically engineers their coffee beans to be angry, contentious loudmouths. the aggressive and pedantic debating style of these GMO coffee beans is disrupting the fragile ecosystem of the amazonian rainforest by making the banyan trees sad. currently, the rainforest is becoming sad at a rate of 3,760 hectares PER DAY.

WE NEED STING

i only drink Starbucks coffee when i am driving long distances, as it's the best (sometimes the only) stuff you can get on the road. otherwise, i make my own or get it elsewhere (and no, not at Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds).

Ironically, if they'd done the album for Dunkin' Donuts, though, there would have been less outrage.

also it is funny that you just called me a loudmouth, vahid.

also, it doesn't matter what it was like in the past, dudes. mediocrity is staring you in the face and slipping down your throat and you're like, "well, at least it isn't maxwell house." it doesn't matter what it isn't, it matters what it is, and that is sub-par coffee.

i didn't just call you a loudmouth, table!! i was talking about the beans. i have definitive proof of a conspiracy by corporate elements in our society to subvert our very way of life!

speaking of mediocrity, my grandfather, who holds a PhD in petroleum geology and lectures and san diego state university, has proof that the use of aspirin and ibuprofen by pregnant women causes acute mental retardation. he has determined, by means of a brief visual survey of the latest class of undergraduates at SDSU, that acute retardation rates among teenagers today may be as high as 50 percent.

furthermore, he has definitive proof that the spiraling economic woes faced by our great nation can be correlated to the decline of the practice of memorization of logarithm tables. today, fewer than one student in 50 can claim to have even memorized one logarithm table.

BTW i don't go to starbucks, i go to PEET's. i have lots of choices of non-chain coffee but i gotta say that peet's chain coffee is even better than the organic free trade coffee that's hand-roasted by my friend at the local mom&pop and even better than the artisinal single-estate venezualan coffee i get at the other mom&pop.

Vahid, you know coffee, man.

another one of my grandfather's theory is that "pet culture" is a conspiracy. he finds it quite striking that america has such high rates of pet ownership. in the middle east very few people have pet dogs or cats, especially when he was growing up. yet these days there is a booming multi-billion-dollar pet industry. a depiction of a family in mainstream media is considered incomplete if the family pet is unaccounted for. just look at the simpsons! they have a dog AND a cat!

what could be the purpose of this vast and insidious social engineering project meant to inculculate pet ownership into the minds of americans?

why, to squeeze every last penny of profit out of the waste products of the all-powerful meat industry.

think about it.

dude does yr grandfather have like a brochure or something, because i am v v intrigued by his ideas and would like to know more

Coffee's such an individual thing, but really, anyone who didn't grow up drinking Savarin from a stove-top percolator is in no position to call Starbucks mediocre.

We also had to walk to school in the snow.

In the early 90s people started going nuts for the Doors, a band that peaked about 20 years earlier. 20 years ago from today, Sonic Youth peaked ... but in this version of the story, they're alive to ca$h in on the cred.

Indie now is the epitome of bland, safe, and beige, having been CUTtIng Edge in the 80s - why do you think the "hipster" scenes today are filled with the most mind numbingly boring and safe people on earth? (all covered in yupsters, etc.)

So yeah, Sonic Youth is just going the natural course of indie/hipster by releasing a CD for Starbucks. nbd.

They're not "shilling" for anything.

http://itchylot.com/ck/misc_postcard_kimgordon_1.jpg

Indie is still cutting edge - music I've been most interested in this year: of Montreal, Ghost, the Fall, Jennifer Gentle, Mary Weiss album with Reigning Sound, etc.

Not "shilling" for anything in this instance

Anyway, that's modeling, dude.

Modeling is very subversive. You don't do anything and you get paid. You don't have to have an expression on your face.

moonship, can you ask your grandfather to start a blog?

I guess I have a kneejerk hate response to Starbuck's music in general; it's usually generic, bland pabulum for aging breeders (not the Kim Deal kind)-- Norah Jones, McCartney, etc. But can you really come up with a best-of style Sonic Youth compilation that fits this mold? They have some background music tracks, but a best-of comp. is likely to have some ballsy shit in it. At least Starbuck's is branching out a little!

Also, I like the coffee, and cute girls are almost always working there.

Sounding too much like Momus - apologies. (x-post)

The Lily Allen album was in Starbucks recently (NYC). I'm not head of her fanclub or anything, but is she really generic, bland pabulum for aging breeders? Not a rhetorical question by any means.

"Vahid, you know coffee, man."

nah he just lives in nocal

Not "shilling" for anything in this instance

I know, Tim. I was just pushing some buttons.

However, I do believe artists who work with Starbucks help sell the brand that is Starbucks. They become part of this larger lifestyle that Starbucks is trying to sell/create: lattes, (bogus) fair trade, stainless steel kitchen appliances, Wilco, Lily Allen, New York Times, and now a little SY. This (psuedo) liberal, we're-the-cool-corporation image. It's all so Clintonian.

And again, if that's what they want to do, go for it.

Ironically, if they'd done the album for Dunkin' Donuts, though, there would have been less outrage.

-- Tim Ellison, Sunday, June 17, 2007 6:01 PM (49 minutes ago)

nah, They Might Be Giants have Dunkin' Donuts locked down.

honestly, even if Starbucks went out there way to pick the most mellow or accessible songs from the Sonic Youth catalog, it would still probably be a pretty good CD. I'm not even sure what songs that would mean, though. all canonical choices like Teenage Riot or just laid back jams like Sunday, maybe? actually, I would totally listen to an album of Sonic Youth's most lullabye-like songs (Unwind, Sweet Shine, Diamond Sea, etc.)

What the hell is wrong with stainless steel kitchen appliances? This thread is starting to get offensive.

Late period capitalism hoovering up everything in its path. Yawn.

Like you would rather that Sonic Youth were old, broke and working the nightshift at Wal Mart. Yeeesh!

This thread is kinda silly.

also, it doesn't matter what it was like in the past, dudes. mediocrity is staring you in the face and slipping down your throat and you're like, "well, at least it isn't maxwell house." it doesn't matter what it isn't, it matters what it is, and that is sub-par coffee.

Horror of horrors!

(this mockery is coming from someone who, by the way, burr-grinds and lever-pulls his own espresso shots every morning)

fair trade, stainless steel kitchen appliances, Wilco, Lily Allen, New York Times, and now a little SY. This (psuedo) liberal, we're-the-cool-corporation image. It's all so Clintonian.

I understand what you're getting at, it's just hard to argue Sonic Youth exists outside that as it is.

Clintonian as opposed to what, though? Kucinich?

Clinton was a progressive, though, and I'm sympathetic to the idea of being accepting to a certain extent of whatever happens to occur, you know? If I hear Lily Allen or Sonic Youth in a Starbucks while I have to hear Panic at the Disco at a local hipster independent shop (which I did recently), I at least note the significance of that.

I understand what you're getting at, it's just hard to argue Sonic Youth exists outside that as it is.

That's a great point. My original contention was with the idea that SY working with Starbucks is some kind of ironic media-punk thing. I just don't buy that. But I also don't think they're now sell outs or anything like that. I just took issue with the idea that this deal was anything more than business as usual.

Clintonian

Tim, not to get too off the subject (whatever that may be), but for me the Clintons simply epitomize the modern take on the socially liberal/economically conservative thing -- the commodification of cool and all that. And the Starbucks brand is a part of that tradition. This is the reason why, in the mid- to late-90s, Harvard Square allowed Starbucks and Urban Outfitters to open shop but rejected McDonalds on the basis that it doesn't allow corporate chain stores. They just don't want corporations with the wrong image (even though Starbucks' business practices are extremely suspect as they are with any chain hell bent on spreading across the globe like a virus).

I think hurting 2 is right, SY could be seen -- on some levels -- as a part of this tradition (if I'm understanding what he's saying). In many respects the rise of alt-rock and Clinton in the early 90s made perfect sense. I can totally see the point of view that says Geffen signed SY simply in order to gain some street cred in the underground. I'd be curious to know what folks think of that idea.

Just for argument's sake, I've been asking myself what I would think if Fugazi did this. But Fugazi isn't on Geffen, and it would more fly in the face of what they openly claim to stand for.

Still, even Fugazi represents a kind of soft capitalism. MacKaye is highly entrepreneurial and business-savvy, and the low-marketing strategy they use happens to be brilliant marketing.

(bogus) fair trade

Do you have a source on this? Just curious, I'd like more reasons not to go to Starbucks.

This (psuedo) liberal, we're-the-cool-corporation image. It's all so Clintonian.

What the hell does this mean?

I can totally see the point of view that says Geffen signed SY simply in order to gain some street cred in the underground. I'd be curious to know what folks think of that idea.

What underground are you talking about here? The indie underground? So you think that by singing SY to Geffen, then the "underground" hipsters or whatever would think Geffen was cool??? Huh??? This thread makes no sense.

Sonic Youth are just a band, that's it. If you think they've sold out by doing this, you are fooling yourself. Geffen is a huge music corporation and Starbucks sells coffee and stale scones. SY "sold out" (whatever that means) years ago when they signed to Geffen. Get over it.

(even though Starbucks' business practices are extremely suspect as they are with any chain hell bent on spreading across the globe like a virus).

Does McDonalds provide health insurance for their employees?

^^

This is what I'm getting at, everything I've read and everyone I've known that's worked for Starbucks talks about how remarkably progressive they are (not just in comparison to other chains, but *actually* remarkably progressive).

If you think they've sold out by doing this, you are fooling yourself.

I've explicitly stated that this is not my issue. Please reread my posts.

Does McDonalds provide health insurance for their employees?

The answer is no, but that doesn't mean Starbucks is a great company. Both these sites address some very important issues regarding unionizing and health insurance:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/starbucks/grinding.cfm
http://www.starbucksunion.org/ (This link has plenty of debate regarding the health insurance)

SY to Geffen, then the "underground" hipsters or whatever would think Geffen was cool??? Huh???

Years back, J. Marlowe wrote a review on A Thousand Leaves for Ugly American, and he talked about this idea that Geffen signed SY, in part, to help validate the label with other indie bands that might've been more suspect of signing to a major: Look we're not so bad we signed SY and let them do what they want. I'm not saying this was the case, but it's an intriguing view. I can see it happening. Geffen is one deviously smart dude, and after reading Mansion on the Hill, I can see the guy forseeing the possibility of some kind of commercial "alt-rock" movement and devising ways to cash in on it. I don't think that's so outlandish. I mean, it wasn't like SY were tearing up the Billboard or moving major units back in the early- to mid-90s.

info/criticism on fair trade and milk:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Starbucks/index.cfm
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/1795.html
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/starbucks.html
http://act.oxfamamerica.org/campaign/starbucks_mtf

there was certainly the idea that they might break through via "kool thing," etc. at the beginning.

Ultimately I think the main thing all of this attests to is that it's pretty damned hard to maintain a middle-class lifestyle into your fifties and sixties based even on a successful music career if you're not a MEGA star.

(not just in comparison to other chains, but *actually* remarkably progressive)

i don't think Starbucks is nearly as insidious as Wal-Mart or even McDonald's, but it is all about globalization, which is something I just don't dig. By design, I don't think globalization is good for the world.

there was certainly the idea that they might break through via "kool thing," etc. at the beginning.

That's certainly true. Was Sonic Youth instrumental in getting Nirvana to sign with DGC? I don't know that history.

Ultimately I think the main thing all of this attests to is that it's pretty damned hard to maintain a middle-class lifestyle into your fifties and sixties based even on a successful music career if you're not a MEGA star.

This is becoming increasingly true for all of us. It's scary.

xpost well ok but it's not just a middle-class lifestyle these guys want, they want e.g. a Lower Manhattan studio. I'd be surprised if anyone in SY is anything like struggling financially, but I could be wrong.

is there some irony being missed given that, as I understand it, Thurston is a stroller pushing Connecticut homeowner? Named Thurston?

i pointed out the irony earlier. thurston moore was the narrator for a documentary about the corporatization/commodification of music/the music industry: http://www.mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/MoneyForNothing

also, i wonder if some of the folks defending sonic youth right now (for getting it on with starbucks, for playing daydream nation in its entirety in their current shows) are the same ones who dumped on the Who in 1989 for accepting corporate sponsorship for their reunion tour, and for (on a few occasions) playing tommy in its entirety.

The Who's first farewell tour in 1983 was sponsored by Schlitz. "Schlitz Rocks America!" And indeed they did.

Sorry, it was 1982:
http://www.postergeist.com/posters/roll10/PIC00013.jpg

Starbucks > Schlitz

I saw that tour. LOVERBOY opened teh show.

When I was fourteen I drank most of the Schiltz 24 pack in my grandpa's basement. xposts

not unrelated to the topic of "punks" "selling out," the clash opened a few dates of that Who tour. apparently they were conflicted about singing "career opportunities" at shea stadium.

but hey, it took a great beer like schlitz to bring the Who to america: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C95fEQNDclY

I like these underground bands that only make records and stuff that they sell only at gigs, and it's only available if you go to the gig to their merch table and they advertise it on their site and at different blogs and they'll list all these things like "edition of 50, only available on this little tour we're doing." So if you're a fan you kind of got to go to get the merch.

After doing some more thinking during my absence, it is this statement that really struck me about pfork's interview. Thurston's right in some sense, but he's making a comparison b/w Sonic Youth and "these underground bands" that doesn't hold up. *Insert noise band name here* selling tapes or lathe-cut records ONLY at their gigs is not the same as Sonic Youth selling a record ONLY at Starbucks. In this way, Sonic Youth is essentially saying, "You must go to Starbucks in order to listen to our newest music," which cannot be construed as anything other than an endorsement of a brand that I don't care for in more ways than one.

In other words, it's not as if I'm crying, "SELL OUTS!" They've been on DGC for years and tour great big venues with other great big groups, and often they put on a really excellent live show. What gets me is the endorsement of a brand that I think is responsible for much of the blanding of our nation's streets (remember what St. Marks looked like without three Starbucks facing each other?) and palates, not to mention the expansion of waistlines. It's the corporation that SY are dealing with that gets me going, not the fact that SY are dealing with corporations in the first place.

Starbucks > Schlitz

this is madness

Indie is still cutting edge - music I've been most interested in this year: of Montreal, Ghost, the Fall, Jennifer Gentle, Mary Weiss album with Reigning Sound, etc.

Okay, let's think about this, Tim.
- Of Montreal have been making the same record over and over since 1997. They are not cutting edge, and the dude's voice is grating.
- Ghost are admittedly awesome, but they also been doing the same sort of awesome thing for many many years. To defend Drag City's output as "cutting edge" at this point is laughable.
- the Fall are a bunch of old fucking men.

So, how are they cutting edge? Or are they simply bands whose recent output you like? That is fine. But to call them cutting edge is absurd.

"You must go to Starbucks in order to listen to our newest music," which cannot be construed as anything other than an endorsement of a brand

No. They didn't make an endorsement. If you want, you can go in and buy the COMPACT DISC and leave without purchasing any of their vile corporate COFFEE.

- the Fall are a bunch of old fucking men.

The Fall is one old man and anyone else he can convince to be in the band, including your grandmother, Bongo Debbie.

anyone seriously engaged in this conversation has already lost

also, i wonder if some of the folks defending sonic youth right now (for getting it on with starbucks, for playing daydream nation in its entirety in their current shows) are the same ones who dumped on the Who in 1989 for accepting corporate sponsorship for their reunion tour, and for (on a few occasions) playing tommy in its entirety.

-- Lawrence the Looter, Monday, June 18, 2007 3:37 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

these are pretty old people, no? who gave a fuck about the who's corporate ethics in 1989 anyway? it's not like they'd done anything decent in three decades!

Of Montreal have been making the same record over and over since 1997.

That's absolutely fucking ridiculous. Listen again.

Ghost are admittedly awesome, but they also been doing the same sort of awesome thing for many many years.

They've stayed within an aesthetic but have produced albums that keep topping the last one in moving ways. Ways that are significant in terms of the whole history of the genres they're using. They are very, very good.

the Fall are a bunch of old fucking men

No. There's one guy in his forties. The rest are a bunch of young people from L.A. or wherever. He's had crap bands for a decade but this new one made a really good album.

Or are they simply bands whose recent output you like? That is fine. But to call them cutting edge is absurd.

Name me some aesthetic that is more cutting edge than the recent output of these groups please.

To defend Drag City's output as "cutting edge" at this point is laughable.

I wasn't. I was talking about one band they signed like ten years ago. I'll also defend Joanna Newsom if you want, though.

MES is fifty this year

already is, i mean

The track Elena sings on the new album kind of sounds like the Metal Boys.

And that's cutting edge in your face, ass.

anyone seriously engaged in this conversation has already lost

-- strongohulkington, Sunday, June 17, 2007 11:12 PM

mods make masthead

i have my tickets to the daydream nation concert in brooklyn this summer. YAAY!

I don't engage in debate with people who like Of Montreal and are past high school, Tim. Live YOUR fanboy life and let me live mine. I'll just be dancing.

Now I am done with this thread.

Seriously, this is a thread of incredible stupidity.

lol

HOW CAN IT SURPRISE ANYONE THAT SONIC YOUTH LOVE BAD FUCKING COFFEE? GET OVER YOURSELVE AND YOUR STUPID STANDARDS

You obviously come with an asshole, KJB.

You don't know how true this is, sugar britches.

I thought we learned a lot: about coffee, at least. Am sad to find a thread where people simultaneously think that Sonic Youth are currently worth worrying about *and* that The Who haven't done anything decent in three decades, but that's kids for you.

haha, "globalization"

these are pretty old people, no?

old people? hell, ancient. mid-thirties. which, ironically enough, is a good 15 years younger than anyone in sonic "youth."

the sy and pixies fans in my high school (and i was a huge sy fan up to dirty) gave me shit for wanting to see a "dinosaur" band like the Who. i distinctly remember saying to them, "yeah, well, in 15 years sonic youth and the pixies will be doing their reunion cash-in nostalgia tours." i was wrong on only one point: sonic youth never broke up, hence no need to reunite. but the nostalgia "did-i-ever-tell-you-kids-about-the-late-80s" thing is still all up in that.

who gave a fuck about the who's corporate ethics in 1989 anyway?

lots of folks gave several fucks about the Who's corporate ethics in 1989, like charles m. young in his musician magazine cover story: http://featuringdave.com/Data/Webpage/townshen/musician.htm

it's not like they'd done anything decent in three decades!

naw, they just made it possible for bands like the velvets, stooges, and sonic youth to do what they do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L80BUs0EUh8

To KJB, Mr. Lord Soto, and Tim:
http://www.lilysea.net/smdanjesstoast.jpg

Sorry for nastiness.

I thought we learned a lot: about coffee, at least. Am sad to find a thread where people simultaneously think that Sonic Youth are currently worth worrying about *and* that The Who haven't done anything decent in three decades, but that's kids for you.

otmfm

I call it Fourbucks.

Sorry for nastiness.

-- the table is the table,

They look happy! What's your point?

Name me some aesthetic that is more cutting edge than the recent output of these groups please.

-- Tim Ellison, Sunday, June 17, 2007 7:16 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

the knife?

sry

my point is that i am sorry for being a bit of a dick. glass is raised.

Portia de Rossi?

I keep reading this thread title as JAWN ON THE FLOOR and thinking it's a Hollertronix thread.

http://www.thecoolwaterband.com/landshark.jpg

I mean, if Lennon's "Imagine" turned up in an army recruiting ad, I might raise an eyebrow...is there some irony being missed given that, as I understand it, Thurston is a stroller pushing Connecticut homeowner? Named Thurston?

Or maybe he rents...

I think he and Kim own a farmhouse in western Massachusetts.

It should be titled-

"Espresso to Yr. Skull"

When is this out? I haven't seen it yet in any of the Starbucks I regularly patronize to buy delicious iced coffee drinks.

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.

(iow Tracer OTM)

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?

FWIW I have never detected an iota of leftism in Sonic Youth's music, I don't know where people get that.

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.

considering how much business they've got out of places that had never seen nor heard of a coffee shop, how true is this? and their prices are no different round my way

FWIW I have never detected an iota of leftism in Sonic Youth's music, I don't know where people get that.

Most of Dirty (Youth Against Fascism etc)

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

This seems unimpeachably kinda-true, and yet I get absolutely ZERO sense that Starbucks is looking to nice up its hip brand image with SY product; mostly I get the sense that I am freaking old and SY have been institutionalized enough as a revered middle-to-highbrow music staple that they have "ascended" to coffeeshop placement.

The trick, and the problem with the quote above, is that SY are already FINE with the actual "indie audience," especially the segment that's gonna go around sneering about Starbucks and shit: hence the perfectly sensible move of selling a COMPILATION to people who stop in for a quick coffee without feeling like it has some giant bearing on their coolness, cred, or ethics, and are like "oh yeah, Sonic Youth, I like them okay," and whose mental brand notion of SY (revered arty clever important band) might actually be perfectly in line with their feelings about going to coffee shops

considering how much business they've got out of places that had never seen nor heard of a coffee shop, how true is this? and their prices are no different round my way

having worked in coffee shops when Starbuck's was in its initial ascendancy I can verify that this is absolutely true, and that Starbucks crushed/put out of business several local coffee shops in my college town.

also SY's feminist-themed stuff (esp. early on) has obvious ties to trad lefty identity politics

"Use the word... FUCK"

I.e., the indie-rock market segment does not consist of "certain college kids and ILXors," it consists in good part of people who enjoyed Garden State and whatnot

xpost but 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

'crushed'?? cmon this isn't the mafia, more people bought starbucks. what are you going to do??

^^^ not necessarily true, dude

"survived competition" /= "sold more"

"I believe Anita Hill" said with the most bratty, sarcastic sneer imaginable and then saying "It's the song I hate" immediately afterwards never really did it for me.

Neither did the rest of their words and images, to be honest. They made some great noise once, though.

its just a figure of speech. there was a competitive market in the local economy, and Starbucks won. I could go into a host of reasons why locally owned and locally operated businesses are preferable to international corporate conglomerate operations, but I'm pretty sure everyone here already a) knows those arguments and b) doesn't care

x-post

"foamy espresso concoctions" = coffee

You will find that most places calling themselves coffee shops sold this. Even little Southern towns had these. Poetry readings, alt-weeklies from the nearest burg, etc.

Is Starbucks really more expensive than most local coffee shops? The crushing local business thing is indisputable though and they aren't a nice company, no doubt. But Universal isn't a nice company either. Walmart isn't a nice company. Borders isn't a nice company. Multinationals suck, no doubt, but anyway who is going to base by a Sonic Youth CD on whether it comes out on DGC or Starbucks is just being silly.

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.

FWIW, Alex, I think there's something spoiled about a lot of the anti-Starbuck's sentiment I encounter (anti-parental, even misogynist as I suggested in my 1st post). While I don't like the chain, my objections are more in line with what Nabisco described a while back. Starbucks makes me sad. I think it contributes only emptiness to the American landscape. I don't think it's wrong or evil, but something about it makes me feel awful inside. I have the sense that it's a kind of social failure colored up and packaged to resemble success, and that makes it even worse than plain old urban blight. But I'm getting off topic.

What would make Starbuck's a social success?

DOGTITS LATTE

Besides that.

I don't know that I can argue a serious case for that, HD, just given how contentious ILX is. What I'm talking about here is a matter of personal aesthetics that verges over in something vaguely spiritual (i.e., bullshit).

I just think that some spaces are life-defeating. Intrinsically empty. Made not to be experienced or inhabited, but merely constructed to house transactions - financial or otherwise. The perfection of these spaces exists in their invisibility, even their fundamental non-existence. Perfect examples are airport lounge areas, hotel hallways, mall courts. These spaces do not exist. Time spent in them is between time, meaningless.

Problem is that this kind of emptiness is conducive to certain kinds of financial transactions, too. And it's cheap. And it offends no one. So it grows. These spaces and their emptiness grow like cancer, taking the world away one structure at a time. Worse still, we grow accustomed to them, so that after a while we don't feel the chill. Hell, some of us even seem to like it.

There's something about vacant uniformity of manufactured culture/society/architecture/life that terrifies me. And I know that it makes sense. That the future is in high density and cheap mass manufacturing. So maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, getting ready to pine wistfully for "the good old days". I dunno.

Personally, my solution to the social failure I'm talking about is the imperfect work of imperfect human hands. Smallness. Distinctness. You know the drill.

anybody else keep reading the thread title like that bank advertisement where the manager robs all the customers? JAWW ON THE FLOOOOOOORRRRRR!!!!!

JARRRRRRRRRRRVIKKKKKKKK ON THE FLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRr

estoy lol

LET THE LATTES HIT THE FLOOR, LET THE LATTES HIT THE FLOOR

What I'm talking about here is a matter of personal aesthetics that verges over in something vaguely spiritual (i.e., bullshit).

^^i love this.

but really i think i get what your saying, bob.

Bob, I think you are incredibly self-aware because I am sitting here seething with mock-irritation because you pulled the "bullshit" card on yourself before I could.

This entire passage is completely nonsensical to me: The perfection of these spaces exists in their invisibility, even their fundamental non-existence. Perfect examples are airport lounge areas, hotel hallways, mall courts. These spaces do not exist. Time spent in them is between time, meaningless. This passage is nonsensical because, well, these spaces DO actually exist and they exist for a reason. Airport lounges give people a place to wait for their planes that is more comfortable than standing in line and in close enough proximity to the gate that you don't miss your flight when boarding starts. Mall courts exist so that patrons have a place to rest while they are shopping, increasing the overall comfort of the shopping experience. Hotel hallways exist because a hotel without hallways is either a motel, where every room has a door to the outside, or a really stupidly-designed hotel where you have to walk through other people's rooms to get to your own. You are rejecting things fundamentally aimed at increasing the comfort level of the people utilizing them as being uncomfortable wastes of space and time and offering in their place... what? From what I gather, you want to take these spaces that bring people together and break them up into isolated, segregated units because you feel that seperating people is more socially successful than putting them together. I don't think that makes any sense, so either I'm misconstruing you or the social failure is your reaction to these spaces, not the spaces themselves, which could also be extrapolated to this entire Starbuck's/Sonic Youth debate.

I think his argument hinges on the last sentence you quoted, that said spaces (and starbucks) have all the semiotic value of an ampersand

Guys, Bob already explained that he's merely expressing a bunch of ridiculous opinions that he himself doesn't really believe, I don't know why you're still trying to engage him in any kind of debate. He's having an out-of-argument experience, floating above us all.

Alex, I'm killing time before leaving work.

Tom, that last sentence scans if you buy the sentence before it, which I do not.

social success vs. social failure here I think really boils down to whether you share a particular sort of optimism with regards to other people (that if you get to know them they're all okay, everybody should talk more) or don't (fuck people wtf I want to deal with them for) or alternatively whether you lean more towards walker percy or, like, foucault (which I certainly prefer the former but am generally not that naive when I'm in, for example, a starbucks)

is there anyone here who genuinely believes this is a "sellout" move on SY's part? (besides maybe sara sara sara?)

I have been reading some percy and trow and shit like that can you tell

LET THE LATTES HIT THE FLOOR, LET THE LATTES HIT THE FLOOR

lol

Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Starbucks

What you're talking about, HD, is functionality. I agree the spaces in question (hotel hallways, airport rest areas) are functional, practical, efficient. In that sense, even ideal. But I wasn't complaining about their functionality, or even calling them uncomfortable. I was talking about their vacancy on some level that I don't even have a word for. Spiritual? emotional? yes and no, less and more. Fact is, with regard to these spaces, that kind of vacancy is appropriate, even necessary. We want transitional spaces to be invisible, to simply facilitate the passage of thing one into another.

Problem, as I see it, is that this kind of emptiness is consuming more and more of the built landscape, and in turn, more and more of our lives. It's a kind of surrender. We give up actuality and human presence in the name of practicality, efficiency and comfort. In doing so we create a ghost world that superficially resembles something that people might inhabit, but is inimical to real human life. Best Buy, the Cheesecake Factory, Starbucks, Washington Mutual, The Gap, McDonald's, Ikea, malls, Irish-themed "pubs", most office suites and new-built condos. These places extend the lifeless, anaesthetic emptiness of transitional spaces into the non-transitional, supposedly meaningful parts of our lives. And they pith us, making us ghosts to match the decor.

I don't know what the alternative is. I mean, if you're living in an old-fashioned "failed city", a ton of shitty condos and a Niketown probably seem like a small price to pay for jobs, industry, culture and a reduction in crime. It's hard to argue with success, especially when you imagine that the only alternative is failure. But I don't think we have to look at this in either/or terms. I like to imagine that we can have functioning, healthy cities that don't depend on turning civic culture into a kind of outdoor shopping mall.

Guys, Bob already explained that he's merely expressing a bunch of ridiculous opinions that he himself doesn't really believe

Fuck, Alex, that's just childish. I wasn't doing that in the first place, and I'm certainly not doing it now.

I think his argument hinges on the last sentence you quoted, that said spaces (and starbucks) have all the semiotic value of an ampersand

Exactly, but also that they extend that semiotic emptiness into us, and in acclimating ourselves to it, we diminish ourselves.

Tombot: I am optimistic with regard to individuals, pessimistic with regard to people.

There are several Starbucks in the Boston area that are specifically targetted as being lounge-friendly; they have large floor plans with many couches and coffee tables and are staffed by people who exude friendliness. There is no practical difference between the Starbucks in Davis Square, for example, and the two independent coffee shop lounges within a block of it. In fact, even among the "get in/get out"-style Starbucks there is enough difference in terms of layout and staff disposition that each one feels like a unique store despite being part of the same monolithic chain with the same soundtrack and color palette. My experience doesn't jibe with the picture painted of Starbucks in this thread, which makes the whole thread read as reactionary and silly to me.

Also, I think that looking for spiritual enrichment in a hotel hallway is probably going to lead to disappointment 100 times out of 100. Is your life REALLY so devoid of meaning that you need for everything around you to feed you spirituality?

I would like to note for the benefit of J0hn D., Alfred, Cutty, and anyone else who's ever accused me of deliberately targeting them for mean-spirited rebuttals and zings, that that's what I'm doing to Bob Standard right now, not those other times.

I guess I shouldn't have said "specifically targetted"; my point is that there isn't a monolithic "this is what a Starbucks is" blueprint in terms of store size/layout/usage profile in the way that there is for MacDonald's/The Gap/(insert successful chain store with stronger layout controls here), so complaining that every Starbucks is the same makes me think either the ones outside of Boston must really suck or people like making lazy judgements.

My experience doesn't jibe with the picture painted of Starbucks in this thread, which makes the whole thread read as reactionary and silly to me.

Yeah, but see, my experiences don't jibe with yours. Doesn't make me think any less of you or your opinions.

Also, I think that looking for spiritual enrichment in a hotel hallway is probably going to lead to disappointment 100 times out of 100. Is your life REALLY so devoid of meaning that you need for everything around you to feed you spirituality?

Gah. Again, I think it's appropriate and GOOD that hotel hallways are spiritually empty. I think it's sad, on the other hand, that we seem to want to extend that emptiness into so many other parts of the world.

P.S. Lowering this to the level of "is your life so devoid of meaning that..." just totally sucks.

"no starbucks" could be the indie rock "no homo"

HD: I do think that all Starbucks feel more or less the same. Some more grubby, some immaculate. Some harried, some leisurely. Some expansive, some cramped. Yes, but all variations on a theme. And the variations don't make the corpse seem any more animate.

If you think it's good that hallways are spiritually empty, why did you use them as an example of a public space that is leeching the spirituality out of our society?

Arguments like this are exactly why people need religion.

(By which I mean, the absence of religion creates the need for people to look for meaning in all kinds of bizarre places, like for example airport lounges.)

CAN O WORMS RIGHT HERE

GETCHA LIVE BAIT

^_^

Ha, Dan, I find it hard to believe you're quite as mystified by "nonsensical" doubts about airport-like public space as you're claiming here

It's not so much that as much as it is the idea that an airport lounge is a space where people should be enriched spiritually. Or, for that matter, that a coffee shop is a place where people should be enriched spiritually; a coffee shop is a place where people should be able to buy some coffee.

I used hotels hallways as a template example of a kind of emptiness that is being exported into other parts of the built environment. When I first talked about this, I said, "Problem is that this kind of emptiness is conducive to certain kinds of financial transactions, too. And it's cheap. And it offends no one. So it grows."

So the roblem isn't that transitional spaces are themselves soulless, but that they're a kind of self-replicating machine that's growing to eclipse the rest of the world. Like JG Ballard's planet that consisted of an endless airport lounge.

"Spiritual enrichment" frames it in overreaching terms -- we could spend all day just figuring out what the spirit it, leave alone what enriches it. But point being there's a regimented and anti-social atmosphere that comes with these kinds of spaces, one in which massive amounts of industrial psychology are being deployed to make large groups of humans use the spaces profitably and efficiently and quietly, etc. -- it's not at all nonsensical to compare these kinds of environments to ones that have specific personal influences on them, spaces that are not somewhat industrial and impermanent and modular!

Starbucks is a bad example in that comparison, because most customers desire to use it in an efficient, industrial sense -- purchase coffee and move along. But as a greater issue, umm ... I don't think it's at all strange or bullshitty or mystical to worry that the atmosphere and social effects of spaces like the airport food court might expand farther than makes many people happy.

The thing is, the emptiness/meaninglessness isn't intrinsic to the built environment as much as it is the overpopulation of the built spaces and the need to supply as much service to as many people as possible with the highest margins. We could be having this same kind of discussion on ILE if we were a bunch of Londoners complaining about chain pubs. Or replace Dan with Laurel and the rest of us are beer enthusiasts who despise anheuser busch products.

I think the worst thing about starbucks is no different than the problems with all suburban shopping centers, and that's not starbucks' problem, it's an urban planning one. An urban planning problem caused by overpopulation that began two generations ago. *wrings hands, shakes head, etc*

Tombot OTM. Nabisco OTMOTM.

HD: It's not that I want all coffee shops to be pregnant with spiritual possibility, but that I am bothered the fact that the efficiency of our production (production of ideas, objects, values, spaces, etc.) often seems to be directly proportional to the essential vacancy of the things we produce. Meanwhile, population density, the profit motive and resource depletion all seem to demand ever greater efficiency. Nowhere to go but up, right?

Agree w/ Nabisco that Starbucks is often a transitional space, so it's emptiness isn't necessarily a failure. The failure, as I see it, is how how successful we've been in marketing transitional emptiness as desireable, fun, distinctive and meaningful.

it's != its

Agree w/ Nabisco that Starbucks is often a transitional space, so it's emptiness isn't necessarily a failure. The failure, as I see it, is how how successful we've been in marketing transitional emptiness as desireable, fun, distinctive and meaningful.

wtf are you talking about here? Pop music?

Pizza Hut

i like drinking coffee.

I want to know where transitional emptiness is being marketed as meaningful. From what I've seen of modern society, NOTHINg is being marketed as meaningful and that's kind of the point; "meaning" is practically a dirty word on par with "hypocrisy" and the resultant cognative dissonance is slowly turning everyone's minds to mush.

wtf are you talking about here? Pop music?

Not so much, though I guess an argument could be made (by somebody else). I'm talking primarily about the built environment, but also about how we construct corporate, civic and individual identity. I mean, the "emptiness" that I'm talking about isn't a physical absence.

I posit that the metaphysical absence you are talking about has existed since time began in practically every building ever built that wasn't a palace, cathedral or landmark skyscraper.

or the Big Hunt

I said "practically" for a reason, Tom!

From what I've seen of modern society, NOTHINg is being marketed as meaningful and that's kind of the point; "meaning" is practically a dirty word on par with "hypocrisy" and the resultant cognative dissonance is slowly turning everyone's minds to mush.

I agree entirely. But I think that we're also being indoctinated with a new, debased kind of "meaning". We're told that things are meaningful to the extent that we desire them, and that we should desire things to the extent that they make us happy. In this context, our purchasing decisions become arbiters of meaning in our lives.

"meaning" is practically a dirty word on par with "hypocrisy"

you mean this to be like a current cultural conceit, right?

we should desire things to the extent that they make us happy

Why else should we desire things?

I posit that the metaphysical absence you are talking about has existed since time began in practically every building ever built that wasn't a palace, cathedral or landmark skyscraper.

Dunno about the beginning of time, but I agree about the 20th century. I'm concerned about degrees and increase.

Why else should we desire things?

The quote yr responding to was predicated on this: "things are meaningful to the extent that we desire them." But I don't know that desire and satisfaction are the only way to construct meaning. We can base meaning on the desires of some diety. Or on the dictates of absolute truth and justice. Or as the product of the intrinsic beauty of the universe. Etc. There are lots of ways to construct meaning.

Last one to Euler.

From what I've seen of modern society, NOTHINg is being marketed as meaningful

I disagree with this entirely, good lord: every single thing you do or buy is totally coded with cultural meaning, on levels that even aspire to the spiritual! You can't even pick up a furniture catalog without it saying "it's not furniture, it's a LIFESTYLE, it's a WAY OF BEING" -- this is everywhere. And it's completely off to imagine that even the people who just want to grab coffee and go do not view the Starbucks purchase as having cultural meaning; the place's rep has blanded out a bit for sure, and Britney Spears is not helping, but there is still a coding of urbanity and sophistication that goes with getting a half-caf latte and scone (vs. a McMuffin!), and that kind of thing is precisely the sort of meaning that people piece their lives together out of.

and that kind of thing is precisely the sort of meaning that people piece their lives together out of.

Or at least seem to. That's what I'm wringing my hands over here. Again, thanks for sorting and saying it so clearly.

(In fact another efficient marketing success for Starbucks has been to put VALUE on being a grab-and-go store user: "You are an awesome sophisticated go-go-go-getter, and you need your morning cappucino to feel vigorous and businesslike.")

(xpost - This is not some kind of grand lie, either: I can certainly remember getting my first office job and having the morning coffee pick-up become an awesome-feeling routine that signified I was no longer a post-collegiate slacker record-store clerk but now a clever active worker in nice slacks. I consider that kind of thing meaningful, yeah; it's the bits of the tenor of your life that you piece together into feeling and narrative, you know? I think those things are terrifically important, which is part of why I do think there's significance in whatever we're calling the airportification of space.)

you mean this to be like a current cultural conceit, right?

I suppose so, insomuch that I studied computers instead of history and can't off the top of my head point at specific examples in ages past that show that this, too, is a fact of life on Earth rather than a social construct that's arisen as a side-effect of modern life.

I disagree with this entirely, good lord: every single thing you do or buy is totally coded with cultural meaning, on levels that even aspire to the spiritual!

That's kind of my point, Nabisco; if everything is laden with "meaning", nothing is actually meaningful.

And it's completely off to imagine that even the people who just want to grab coffee and go do not view the Starbucks purchase as having cultural meaning; the place's rep has blanded out a bit for sure, and Britney Spears is not helping, but there is still a coding of urbanity and sophistication that goes with getting a half-caf latte and scone (vs. a McMuffin!), and that kind of thing is precisely the sort of meaning that people piece their lives together out of.

This is really reaching. I'm willing to wager that more people go to Starbucks because it's the ubiquitous coffee place rather than it's the ubiquitous coffee place; in fact, the people I know who actually care about that kind of thing specifically avoid Starbucks in favor of independantly-owned clones precisely because everyone else goes to Starbucks.

right, nabisco, so one way to understand Bob is that he wants people to stop desiring what's coded as urbane and sophisticated but isn't really, and instead to desire what really is urbane and sophisticated; another way to understand him is that he wants people to start desiring things coded with other meanings (something "more lasting", I guess, here I don't know what the view is); or else he's saying that the problem is that desire and meaning are linked at all. I am not following the view very well though.

ARGH.

"I'm willing to wager that more people go to Starbucks because it's the ubiquitous coffee place rather than it's the POSH coffee place;..."

Everybody go read LOST IN THE COSMOS

Um, no.

(Unless it has sci-fi boobs in it...?)

no it's got some pretty funny questionnaires in it though

Dan you're evaluating "posh" on a kind of top-down scale here, like versus other coffee shops. That's not what I mean. I'm saying that for a great deal of America, grabbing a latte on the way to work still reads as urbane behavior -- as opposed to going to McDonalds on the way to work, or stopping in a small-town diner for a cup of black coffee. Whether or not it's actually the posh spot, that's part of what it sells, or what it offers you the potential to feel like. And again I will tell you from experience that when Starbucks started appearing in smaller Midwestern towns, the prevailing reaction was a bit "oo la la," and the people who frequented those places were very much placing themselves, in the context of their towns, as being somehow ... sophisticated. Urbane.

And I think it's a bit of an easy paradox to say "if everything's laden with meaning, then nothing is" -- the point was things are very much marketed in terms of meaning. But sometimes the meaning sticks, and sometimes it doesn't; some products are successful in creating that sense around themselves (haha APPLE), and others are not

right, nabisco, so one way to understand Bob is that he wants people to stop desiring what's coded as urbane and sophisticated but isn't really, and instead to desire what really is urbane and sophisticated; another way to understand him is that he wants people to start desiring things coded with other meanings (something "more lasting", I guess, here I don't know what the view is); or else he's saying that the problem is that desire and meaning are linked at all. I am not following the view very well though.

Geez. Under the microscope.

I do not want people to desire "what is really urbane & sophisticated". Nor do I want people to desire things coded with other meanings.

What I'm saying is that it makes me sad to live in a time when putative and intrinsic meaning have become so entirely separated from one another - to the point where "intrinsic meaning" seems absurd, and coded meaning is the only kind we accept. The fact of this separation doesn't make me sad in and of itself. In isolation, it's actually pretty fascinating. But inhabiting, day to day, the eroded social/cultural/physical landscape that results depresses me terribly.

That's kind of my point, Nabisco; if everything is laden with "meaning", nothing is actually meaningful.

I think a number of monks would disagree with this - that's forty-five degrees off of what you're saying I know, but I just wanted to aside that abundance of meaningful actions/stimuli doesn't have to detract from the general fund of meaning

But we can degrade the value and function of meaning by separating it from any sort of objective reality and manufacturing vast piles of it to suit our every need.

The air-quotes are important there; my argument hinges on the central thesis behind all of our metaphysical posturing, namely the codification of false meaning into things that are ultimately "unimportant" (ie, luxuries).

Bob, please stop.

Actually I should stop, too; going home to see my wife is more important than this conversation.

The air-quotes are important there; my argument hinges on the central thesis behind all of our metaphysical posturing, namely the codification of false meaning into things that are ultimately "unimportant" (ie, luxuries).

yes, this is OTM. Assignation of meaning to things that don't merit it is a neat parlor trick, and a popular one, but is pointless/probably harmful

HD: You've pushed this along just as much as anyone else. If you've got an objection to what I've said, just lay it out. Keep the playground gamesmanship to yourself.

warning: more bullshit

It's been a long time since thinking things were "intrinsically meaningful" was credible in our culture. Like, since the seventeenth century.

I read folks like Rilke as trying to make objects speak their meanings to us again, but Rilke seems to have seen himself as a "medium" for the transmission of meaning. So that's not really intrinsic meaning either, but meaning mediated by the sensibility of a person. What we've seen in "modernity" is how powerful we can be when we get good at serving as such a "medium"---advertising is a pretty good example of this.

Bob, I take issue when people start talking about "objective reality" in support of arguments about the devaluation of individuality because it really makes it clear that the central point of their argument is "Why doesn't everyone think like me?"

yo dan:
http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/12/boy-survives-mo.html

also see http://www.figureprints.com/

I take issue when people start talking about "objective reality" in support of arguments about the devaluation of individuality because it really makes it clear that the central point of their argument is the central point of their argument is "Why doesn't everyone think like me?"

I think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that I believe in any kind of "objective reality" that we all can or should share in. I know that we (humans) have been in the process of rejecting that kind of thinking for quite a while now. In fact, at this point in our history, we're so comfortable with the idea that ALL meaning is manufactured and disseminated for selfish purposes that we've reached a point of almost perfect cynicism with regard to "the real". But it's not the loss of the real that I'm bemoaning (I don't think I have any more access to objective truth than anyone else). I'm expressing concern about the total cynicism and ruthless efficiency with which willfully truth-neutral meaning is manufactured and consumed in the modern world.

That's kind of why I don't like Starbucks, or malls. They're this dense field of supposedly comforting, encouraging signs, but they feel hollow underneath (to me anyway, I'm only talking about my experience). The dissonance between the attractive, meaning-dense surface and the absence of personally relevant meaning underneath makes me feel bad.

I suspect that this despair-inducing dissonance is a product of the very sophisticated mechanisms we now use to create and disseminate custom tailored meaning.

Really? I personally find places like malls and Starbucks to be incredibly comforting and happy places, as does everyone I know. We'd totally go to those places to hang out and spend time even if we had no intention of buying or drinking anything there. Your opinion is so unique and original, I'm glad you articulated it for us.

If all you ever wanted to say was that you agree with me, you could have spared both of us a whole lot of bullshit.

did you just read a baudrillard book or somthing

No. Why?

"Fear of a Starbucks Planet"

200 posts in a day?? sheesh! i wasn't really expecting that when i revived the thread to make a flippant joke about the album title. anyway i mean, i love SY and all, but when their last album was Rather Ripped (aka: Rather Adult Contemporary), why is everyone all outraged about SY at Starbucks? how is this any different than any other form of promotion such as song placement in movies, TV spots/ads/commercials, radio airplay, etc.? it's all just a means of getting the music out there and making enough money for the band to stick around.

mark s has claimed several times to me that he actually very much likes Pitcher and Piano (a chain of homogenized, blandly corporate pubs in London) specifically for meeting (work-related) people at; he says the anonymity of these places relieves the pressure of taste and judgement that often does nothing more than get in the way

see also: pizza express!!!!

JAWN ON THE FLOOR

Did you guys know that a lot of coffee shops in Seattle don't even sell drip coffee? You have to order an Americano, and forget about cheap refills.

let the lol-tes hit the floor

01 Bull in the Heather (selected by Catherine Keener)
02 Sugar Kane (selected by Beck)
03 100% (selected by Mike D)
04 Kool Thing (selected by Radiohead)
05 Disappearer (selected by Portia de Rossi)
06 Stones (selected by Allison Anders)
07 Tuff Gnarl (selected by Dave Eggers and Mike Watt)
08 Teenage Riot (selected Eddie Vedder)
09 Shadow of a Doubt (selected by Michelle Williams)
10 Rain on Tin (selected by Flea)
11 Tom Violence (selected by Gus Van Sant)
12 Mary-Christ (selected by David Cross)
13 World Looks Red (selected by Chloë Sevigny)
14 Expressway to Yr Skull (selected by the Flaming Lips)
15 Slow Revolution (exclusive)

people with fish eyes and brown socks ... at least Chloe has taste.

JAW STILL ON THE FLOOR

NIGHTMARE

Actually, I just copied that tracklisting from Pitchfork. They forgot one:

Superstar (selected by Diablo Cody)

which is slotted between "Disappearer" and "Stones."

I'm curious if Dave Eggers and Mike Watt both just so happened to pick "Tuff Gnarl" or if that meant as a collaborative choice.

LOL. "Mr. Watt and I had a lengthy discussion about this."

I could see their e-mail exchange being a McSweeney's piece

No 'Eyes And Teeth' :(

I really like the cover art.

I could see their e-mail exchange being a McSweeney's piece

Heavily footnoted.

I hope they make a lot of money.

09 Shadow of a Doubt (selected by Michelle Williams)

Michelle, can you handle this? I don't think you're ready for this jelly.

If you're going to do a "Sonic Youth's Greatest Hits" CD, this is pretty OTM (except for the omission of "Dirty Boots").

04 Kool Thing (selected by Radiohead)

??????

I find that pretty unsurprising, I think!

Stones is awesome

i couldn't give a toss about sonic youth, but this sleeve is awesome:

http://assets4.pitchforkmedia.com/images/image/50636.hitsareforsquare-lg.jpg?

I CLDNT GIVE A TOSS ABT THAT SLEEVE

Is that guy meant to be a square or not?

anybody else keep reading the thread title like that bank advertisement where the manager robs all the customers? JAWW ON THE FLOOOOOOORRRRRR!!!!!

this still happens

WOMG ITS LIKE IT CATCHES THE QUINTESSENCE OF STARBUCKS

xp

"alternative rock u guys!!1! o shi, wait it's 2008..."

No square would sit with their hand in their pocket like that, the other hand gently plucking out the opening riff to teenage riot selected by Eddie Vedder

he's having a tug

obv

is that sonic youth man? well turn it up!

,

Fucking hell, that's one monstrosity of a Starbuck's on the cover. Do they host sporting events in there?

http://i25.tinypic.com/20ru2vd.jpg

I mean, really, that's a huge fucking Starbuck's

It really is a great sleeve though. I want to hang it on my wall.

The sleeve looks just a screenshot of a Starbuck's commercial with the words SONIC YOUTH and the title over it. shrug. There are worse CD covers, but this is pretty eh at best.

yeah it's fucking shit.

the basketball-playerless one I mean.

that cover is awesome. 270 Park Ave, the JP Morgan/Chase building

omg

No it's really great. Beautiful photo, even poignant, and finds a pretty slyly funny way to comment on the cultural phenomenon that it's a part of.

why is it funny?

In a deadpan way. Because they're already disappointing and confusing fans by doing a Starbucks comp and they go and actually put a Starbucks on the cover - something that even Norah Jones would never do. And the guy on the cover kind of embodies a certain kind of aging indie kid turned corporate man.

270 is the building the Starbucks is in. the one across the way is 245 Park, also a JPMC building and also housing Major League Baseball.

Right I see. But I still think it's bad.
xp

is chloë sevigny the only celebrity with any commitment to making herself look cooler than aging startbucks cd rack patrons - i mean really

anyone know who actually took the photo?

The dude is probably listening to the Decemberists.

It should be titled-

"Espresso to Yr. Skull"

-- stephen, Tuesday, December 4, 2007 9:45 PM (Tuesday, December 4, 2007 9:45 PM) Bookmark Link

LOL

gabbneb what's your choice?

lol @ op

Jams Run Free, natch

cover is funny

lolz at Sonic Basketball

I can't believe Hurting 2 had to resort to explaining the cover like that (which he/she did exceptionally).

Do you think they requested the Parental Advisory sticker on there? I can't think of any objectionable content in any of those songs (though I don't usually filter stuff that way mentally, so I'm probably forgetting something).

Do you think they requested the Parental Advisory sticker on there?

Maybe for this:

he's got a hard tit killer fuck in his past
- "Tuff Gnarl"

"Parental Advisory : Kids might turn out like Juno"

EURGH

haha

You probably seen this, or linked to it, but for those who do not leave here, ever...

Pitchfork: Is Sonic Youth working on any new material right now?

Thurston Moore: No, no. We kind of need to record a song for this Starbucks record that's coming out.

Pitchfork: For, uh, Starbucks?!

Thurston Moore: Yeah. We sort of devised this idea of a Sonic Youth record where we asked all these different people to choose their favorite song, people like artists and actors and other musicians and what have you. So all these people, from Jeff Tweedy to Beck to Marc Jacobs to Portia de Rossi to Michelle Williams [laughs ], they all chose their favorite songs and wrote a little thing about it. So it's a compilation record of artists choosing songs of Sonic Youth. There's going to be one exclusive song of ours that we'll record, so that's something we have to record.

Pitchfork: So it's going to be one of those things up at the counter along with the biscotti and the disc of Elton John's favorite Christmas songs?

Thurston Moore: [laughs ] Yeah, something like that. I wish Starbucks would ask me to compile a mixtape record.

Pitchfork: That would be ... interesting.

Thurston Moore: I love doing that stuff. But you know, it's so funny, because Starbucks is the new record store, right? [laughs ]

Pitchfork: Yeah. I guess if you're in there buying a four dollar cup of coffee, the idea of throwing down a few more for the CD seems like no big deal.

Thurston Moore: Exactly, or getting the Paul McCartney gift card, you know. It's attractive, in a way [laughs ]. I like these underground bands that only make records and stuff that they sell only at gigs, and it's only available if you go to the gig to their merch table and they advertise it on their site and at different blogs and they'll list all these things like "edition of 50, only available on this little tour we're doing." So if you're a fan you kind of got to go to get the merch.

Well, there you have it. A Sonic Youth album... for Starbucks.

[laughs ]

[all the way to the bank]

I agree that the cover art is making fun of the phenomenon. What I don't get is why. Sonic Youth contracted with Starbucks to produce a CD of their songs to be sold (and not inconceivably, played) in Starbucks. Why does the cover art mock the Starbucks/Sonic Youth customers? Similarly:

Michelle Williams [laughs ],

Sonic Youth asked her to lend her name to this project. Why is he laughing at her? This isn't just sly irony, they're showing a smug sense of superiority and entitlement. The cover art is clever. It's also obnoxious.

There's this new artist Andy Warhol that's becoming really influential these days perhaps you've heard of him

There's nothing mocking, disingenuous, nor revelatory about the cover art that I see. Looks like just some kid after a late night shift inside a huge-ass Starback's that's about to close. It looks just like a Starbuck's ad.

I know it's hard not to see this as high art because of how low album art standards have become in 2008, but christ.

What's the source of the (very top) cover anyway? I initially thought the cover was a fake.

high art you say

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/50827-sonic-youth-reveal-starbucks-ihitsi-comp-details

http://tinypic.com/flek.php?f=2zh1tl2&s=2"">ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK

http://tinypic.com/flek.php?f=2zh1tl2&s=2

(ILX MODS FIX YER UI AND PARSING CODE)

Catherine Keener WOULD pick Bill In The Heather

View My TinyFx

http://tinypic.com/flek.php?f=2zh1tl2&s=2

lol

AWESOME

Makro's right. It looks like a Starbucks ad. It looks EXACTLY like and (let's face it) actually IS a Starbucks ad. It shows a typical customer in typical environment actually enjoying the product. Yes, there is an element of urban ennui and alienation in the image, but not to any "subversive" extent. Just enough to associate Starbucks with the basic iconography and aesthetics of the band.

The only people who will see anything subversive or "ironic" in this image are those who insist on viewing it solely as Sonic Youth's commentary on the economics and social significance of the arrangement. Even viewed as such, however, it's basically no commentary at all. And that's the wrong way to see it in the first place. It's a freaking STARBUCKS AD. Period. This isn't any more subversive or artistically interesting than Martha Stewart putting her name on a gravy ladle for Target.

No one said it was subversive

SONIC YOUTH ROCK BAND ON GEFFEN RECORDS PERHAPS YOU HAVE HEARD OF THEM

JAW ON THE FLOOR

isn't geffen a subsidiary of in the red?

ok I'm one of the last remaining "I hate it when good music gets used in commercials" fuxx and even I don't see what's the big deal about this

-- J0hn D., Saturday, June 16, 2007 7:11 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark Link

otm

i don't know if it's 'subversive', but i think it's a good joke, and that both SY and Starbucks are in on it

Michelle Williams [laughs ],

Sonic Youth asked her to lend her name to this project. Why is he laughing at her? This isn't just sly irony, they're showing a smug sense of superiority and entitlement. The cover art is clever. It's also obnoxious.

-- dad a, Friday, May 23, 2008 5:00 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

jesus, project much??

dad a is Jesus?

******JAW ON THE FLOOR*****

SOMEBODY CALLED MAXIMUM ROCK N ROLL. JAW ON FLOOR ATTRITION

There's nothing mocking, disingenuous, nor revelatory about the cover art that I see. Looks like just some kid after a late night shift inside a huge-ass Starback's that's about to close. It looks just like a Starbuck's ad.

It is... but do you not see any irony at all in putting the title "Hits Are for Squares" above this image (when putting a Starbucks ad on your album cover)? I'm not sure what I think of the statement but I do agree with Hurting's reading.

That was Maximum Rock N Roll by Jaw on Floor Atrition Records.

Unfortunately, the title reminds me of a Huey Lewis song.

i got it! it's kinda like saying "hay is for horses." hits is another word for inhales. one inhales smoke, as from a cigarette. another name for cigarette is a square. hits are for squares! sy, you always tell it like it is!

..which is not "Heart and Soul" (xp)

Sundar, I do see the irony, but it's razor thin irony lite that isn't particularly noteworthy.

It's Ironique(TM)!

All that said, this is a good Sonic Youth compilation.

Message Board Poster: Starbucks Sonic Youth Compilation Fails to Effectively Critique Capitalism

No one said it was subversive

-- Hurting 2

Because they're already disappointing and confusing fans by doing a Starbucks comp and they go and actually put a Starbucks on the cover - something that even Norah Jones would never do. And the guy on the cover kind of embodies a certain kind of aging indie kid turned corporate man.

-- Hurting 2

There's nothing wrong with that on any level. But it's the least interesing and challenging image possible. Andy Warhol, I get it. But kind of thing stopped meaning anything long before he died.

Message Board Poster: Starbucks SY Comp Isn't That Interesting

you're a jack-ass and a snob

"It's an introduction aimed at the Starbucks customer base as a while, aimed mostly at people who know very little about the band as an artistic entity and are just going to see the cover as a pleasant image that relates to the place they bought it. It's a Starbucks ad."

Serious question: what do you think those folks are going to think when they go home and listen to this?

HI I AM CORPORATE DRONE I NEBER HERD OF SONIC YOUTH WATS DAT IS IT CLASSIC GENIUS LIKE RAY CHARLES OOH PRETTY PICSHURE

The CD will only available in metro areas (NYC/SF/LA/CHI etc.)

I think the sleeve is funny. I think its ironic and yes maybe ironic lite, um, ironically enough. I like the one with the basketball players on too

I like the song that Michelle Williams chose.

I hope Thurston Moore wasn't laughing at Michelle Williams, hopefully he didn't considering she is involved. On the other hand Michelle Williams and Thurston Moore are considerably richer than me so I probably shouldn't worry too much about that.

Did Starbucks make some 'world music' cds for their branches once? I don't go to Starbucks because I don't like coffee too much

Is it really true that Starbucks pioneered having multiple branches very close together? saturation something? or was that another company?

Serious question: what do you think those folks are going to think when they go home and listen to this?

-- Alex in SF, Friday, May 23, 2008 12:17 PM

I think people will like it! I think people tend to like most things when it is presented to them in a certain context

Interesting above that somebody said that Mcdonalds coffee is better than Starbucks coffee. They should have made a cover in a Mcdonalds too though there probably wouldn't have been room for the basketball players too

you're a jack-ass and a snob

I think people are misreading the interview. Thurston is amused at the range of people ("to... to...") who turned up as (at least purported) SY fans. He may be laughing at the specific fact that she turned up, but not at her.

It's also not clear that SY picked each person who picked a tune on the record, or whether this was a joint effort.

i would consider getting this comp b/c i don't own any sonic youth albums, except a) it has a fair amount in common with the comp jaymc made me, and b) i never go to starbucks, like, ever.

i do kinda want to read the celeb liner notes.

This is not a comp aimed at fans.

Maybe not. But I'm a huge SY fan, my favorite American band of the last 20 years or so. I think the tracks are well chosen, I like the running order, I'm sure I'll enjoy the liner notes -- *and* these are all good-to-fucking-fantastic songs! What's wrong with a band selling at Starbucks? How is that any different from selling at, say, Target? Or at Best Buy? How is that different from licensing a song to a commercial? Or a movie? Do you really care if a band wants to expand its fanbase a bit? Is "artistic" "integrity" that strict, that bands cannot market their music through popular avenues like the Starbucks record racks? Why does it matter whether the cover is subversive, ironic, clever or not? If it's open to different interpretations, what's wrong with that? Is there anything else you wanna bitch about?? All that said, this is a comp with a bunch of "famous" SY fans choosing their favorite track(s) and writing about them in the liner notes, which all in all looks like it resulted in a really, really good track listing. So I'll buy it. You don't have to. But enough with your bitching about it, it's really just pointless.

I think you are right Gabbneb, it seems more likely he was amused at the idea of it rather than being horrible about her. I wonder if Sonic Youth drink coffee

Tough crowd. For what it's worth, I don't see anything at all wrong with the band selling their greatest hits at Starbucks. Seems like a reasonable move, and I genuinely hope they do well by it. They deserve it. All I'm "bitching" about is the cover art, which leaves a weird taste in my mouth.

For the cover to mean anything in the manner Hurting describes, you have to go in with the understaning that Sonic Youth are inherently super-subversive. You have to believe that simply by associating with Starbucks, SY are generating some kind of weird art-tension. In other words, you have to be so solidly in SY's camp that they don't have to actually subvert anything for you to perceive them as subversive.

The album art depends on a built-in, "H-ha, it's SY record at Starbucks, WTF?!?". But there's nothing weird or subversive about selling records at Starbucks. It's not so amazing at this point that Sonic Youth might show up on the radio, on TV, in a mall or even in a coffee shop. It's par for the course. It's what they've been doing for the better part of two decades. So the "ha-ha WTF?" aspect comes across as hollow, defensive and dishonest. Just to me. And it doesn't really bother me much, but I don't see why I shouldn't talk about it.

How to make enemies on ILM.

Maybe the fact that the cover art's meaning is even debatable is a good sign as to its effectiveness. "All great art provokes either extremely positive or extremely negative reactions, lots of controversy, different interpretations," etc. etc.

Jesus Christ there is so much projecting going on in this thread. I love the basic assumption that anyone stepping foot in a Starbucks is automatically a mouthbreathing retard.

Don't worry about that silly;)

Is it more that there's still a kind of disconnect between being on tv/radio/mall and associated with a corporate behemoth? Like a lot of the rhetoric is about taking over or doing well, on own terms - rather than being tied up with a corporate company (disregarding that hooking up with a corporate might actually *be* someone doing it on their terms!)

I think the art is kind of functional with a little tongue in cheekness about it. Depends who was responsible for the design itself, it would be good to ask them!

Depends who was responsible for the design itself

highly OTM ^

What's wrong with a band selling at Starbucks? How is that any different from selling at, say, Target? Or at Best Buy? How is that different from licensing a song to a commercial? Or a movie? Do you really care if a band wants to expand its fanbase a bit? Is "artistic" "integrity" that strict, that bands cannot market their music through popular avenues like the Starbucks record racks?

Watch this film -- narrated by Thurston Moore -- and ask those questions again.

Isn't the basic assumption not that stepping in Starbucks is for dumb people. but that buying starbucks branded media is for dumb people

I think thats a bit sad tho, i hope we aren't criticizing people for their choice of media consumption!

http://thumbnail.search.aolcdn.com/vsthumb5/tn/90/F9/90F9D88153DADCF277DEEE.jpg

I wonder what people would think of a Starbucks branded Charles Mingus CD?

If i was in Starbucks i would probably buy one. I might buy the sonic youth one too if i was stopping off for coffee in a town somewhere and didnt have any music in the car

What is that picture Jeff?

f i was stopping off for coffee in a town somewhere and didnt have any music in the car

haha yeah. we've got a reggae comp from there because of this reason basically. damn impulse buy!

Lots of people buy stuff for this reason! Ive bought stuff I already had when ive been on a roadtrip

If you took the writing away from the starbucks cd it looks like a Bowery Electric cd

I imagine that the band thinks that an audience that would get upset or be insufficiently discerning about departures from purity on the part of their entertainers ultimately has some stifling impact on artistic creativity.

I think it might be that they are doing what they want to do;)

It kinda looks like a scene from one of their videos. You know, the high school romancey one, or was that Dinosaur Jr?

that is JAWSUS

roadtrip impulse buys are the best

I got this on a road trip

http://www.amazon.com/Wheels-Tears-Kay-Adams/dp/B0002B16EG

Its very good. Better than Sonic Youth and Starbucks:P

Watch this film -- narrated by Thurston Moore -- and ask those questions again.

I've seen it. Here's a quote from the film that, basically, sums up what it's about:

"But even though music is the popular medium -- it's the people's medium -- it really isn't the people's medium in our society today. It's the property of four or five companies who have inordinate control over what sort of music gets produced and what sort of music doesn't, and that made it much more difficult for it to be the people's medium, and this is the problem we face. This is the crisis we face." -- Robert McChesney, University of Illinois

So tell me, how is that applicable to SY choosing to sell a hits compilation at Starbucks? Are they being forced to do so? Is the record company exercising its control over what gets produced in this case? Because if I recall, this was SY's decision to go forward with this compilation. Thurston seems excited about it in the interviews I've read. I don't think it's a good example of "the people's medium" being stifled or silenced. It's just a new way of marketing SY's music to more people.

I was going to ask the same question but hadn't seen the film, so I would have been talking out of my ass. Thanks, stephen!

I don't have a problem with them making their music available as broadly as possible. More power to them! But the cover looks to me like a slam on the people they're selling to, which is just a bummer. Like they're condescending by making their works available to power-coffee drinkers instead of whatever more authentic audience they envision for themselves. And yeah I'm projecting here, but that's what it looks like to me.

Hang on, is that Michelle Williams the actress or Michelle Williams the singer?

(I kind of agree with dad a.)

Again: It's all in how it's interpreted. Which is the beauty of it, to me.

the cover looks to me like a slam on the people they're selling to, which is just a bummer

does that guy look like the people you see in a Starbucks store? clearly, he is a 'corporate' guy. some people regard Starbucks as a purveyor of 'corporate' coffee.

the cover says, "look at us, we're selling out!"

I'm going to love it when it's revealed that the "cover" is actually a quick Photoshop done by a Pitchfork news staffer.

that would be v v disappointing

I think they simultaneously like the idea of selling their music in Starbucks, because it will reach a lot of people and they'll make a little money, and also realize the ridiculousness of it, and that they'll catch shit for it. But they've been around long enough and have nothing to prove so they don't really care. So they're making fun of themselves and their fans with that cover also, but hopefully everyone involved is in on the joke and can have a chuckle. It's not an either/or kind of situation. And I think lots of people who go to Starbucks, even heavy users, realize there is something a little comical about the whole Starbucks experience. Hence the number of comedians who have made jokes about there being a Starbucks on every corner.

^^real talk

On the back cover of his first major label solo LP, Thurston Moore was wearing a Ralph Lauren Polo pinpoint Yarmouth oxford dress shirt.[2]

who cares?

Ben Weasel to thread

(full disclosure: i own both the Psychic Hearts LP and a similar Ralph Lauren Polo dress shirt.)

JAW ON THE FLOOR

~~jaw on the floor lookin boy~~

yes deej, we noticed, thanks for continuing to point it out

ts: repeating lol thread title vs. tedious debate about 'sellouts' and starbux

horrible, awful, gay, jaw, on, the, floor

aaaaaaaaaanyway who gives a shit if they are selling via starbucks, let them get money they deserve it

and if youre all up in arms psychoanalyzing the cover you need to take a step back for a sec

Why are you two douchebags posting on this thread if you don't care so much again?

cuz i thought the shock and horror in the op was lol
ill leave it be now tho, be cool

Ben Weasel to thread

genuine lols! I wrote to MRR arguing with that letter of his!

But I like talking about the cover!

Reading the Weasel scribe is the gem of owner the Master Dik 12"

owning

Hello, just popped in to say: the funniest comment so far has to be

"What do you mean, Starbucks make above average coffee, didn't you see the survey/test panel results?"

I take it they never got round to recording that 'special' track for this, anyroad.

um, they did. It's the last track on the CD.

oh yeah.

My only objection is that the CDs Starbucks sell aren't exactly 'discount', even though they look cheap.

HI I AM CORPORATE DRONE I NEBER HERD OF SONIC YOUTH WATS DAT IS IT CLASSIC GENIUS LIKE RAY CHARLES OOH PRETTY PICSHURE

cracked me up

I am excited to buy this. At the Starbucks I stopped at tonight for a delicious iced latte, they had a Doors greatest hits CD and a James Brown greatest hits CD for sale by the register.