Sonic Youth's Hits Are For Squares, And They're Coming To Starbucks

When you picture coffee shop music, you usually imagine some kind of quiet, low-key tune played on an acoustic guitar. That's about to change. Noise rockers Sonic Youth are exclusively releasing an album of their most beloved tracks, hand-picked by celebrity fans, through Starbucks.

This means you can listen to "Teenage Riot" at full blast while ordering your tall, non-fat, no-foam, extra hot, sugar-free, cinnamon dolce latte with two pumps of vanilla syrup, or some other Starbucks drink with 16 modifiers. Hits Are For Squares features 14 tracks personally selected by celebrities like Beck, Radiohead, Flea, Eddie Vedder and The Flaming Lips. Hits Are For Squares also includes a new Sonic Youth track called "Slow Revolution."

Hits Are For Squares will be available on June 10 at select Starbucks stores in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., but less cosmopolitan Canadians will be able to buy it online at hearmusic.com.

"I guess, for some, Sonic Youth represents something that they don't really equate with Starbucks," guitarist/vocalist Thurston Moore told Billboard.com last year. "But I kind of like the absurdity of it. Sonic Youth has always, in a way, made itself available to the super mainstream."

As for those who will criticize this move or brand the band sellouts, Moore doesn't agree. He told The Boston Globe newspaper last year that he sees no difference between working with Starbucks and major record companies.

As far as new Sonic Youth material goes, there's no word on a follow-up to 2006's Rather Ripped, nor is there word whether it will be available from your local barista.

Here are the songs on Hits Are For Squares (and who chose them):

"Bull In The Heather" (selected by Catherine Keener)
"Sugar Kane" (selected by Beck)
"100%" (selected by Mike D)
"Kool Thing" (selected by Radiohead)
"Disappearer" (selected by Portia De Rossi)
"Superstar" (selected by Diablo Cody)
"Stones" (selected by Allison Anders)
"Tuff Gnarl" (selected by Dave Eggers and Mike Watt)
"Teenage Riot" (selected by Eddie Vedder)
"Shadow Of A Doubt" (selected by Michelle Williams)
"Rain On Tin" (selected by Flea)
"Mary-Christ" (selected by David Cross)
"World Looks Red" (selected by Chloe Sevigny)
"Expressway To Yr Skull" (selected by The Flaming Lips)
"Slow Revolution" (new recording)