SONIC YOUTH'S GREATEST HITS

That's one of the funnier headlines I've been able to come up with. Sonic Youth, of course, are not really what you'd call a "hits" group. Still, they have some great songs, and some of the more accessible ones are going to be collected on a Starbucks compilation, Hits Are For Squares. The slant on this is that a bunch of their famous fans - like Eddie Vedder, Mike D, Portia diRossi and Flea - each chose their favorite song and wrote about it. But a lot of the more well-known songs, like "Bull In The Heather," "Expressway To Yr. Skull," "100%" and their cover of The Carpenters' "Superstar" are all on it.

I first saw Sonic Youth when they were on an arena tour opening for Neil Young & Crazy Horse; Social Distortion were also on the tour. Sonic Youth were so abrasive to Neil's fans (and, according to the book Shakey, also to Neil's crew), but they were great. They just had such a "F- you" to them, I liked it. I got their Daydream Nation, but it took me a while to get into. My favorite album by them is Washing Machine. I saw them perform songs from that album a few times before it came out in the summer of 1995 when they were headlining Lollapalooza, and I was blown away. Then, they did two shows in one day at New York's Academy, I went to both and they were great. I haven't been as into too much of their music since then (although I did like some of the stuff I heard from their last album, Rather Ripped), but I will always respect them.