As I mentioned in last week's installment, I've made many tapes for J.G. over the years and have converted her to several artists, but mostly people that are fairly accessible to begin with, like Ted Leo or Brendan Benson or Jeff Buckley. So I was kind of surprised when she asked me recently about what Sonic Youth albums are good and if I could make her a tape or something. They're pretty much my favorite band of all time, but I never really tried to sell her on them, just because they're kind of an acquired taste and a good bit more out there than the aforementioned artists. But she saw something on TV about them, I think a VH1 list show (the only one I've ever seen them on was the greatest hard rock bands of all time), and was intrigued. So I made her a tape:

side 1:
1. Teenage Riot
2. Skip Tracer
3. French Tickler
4. Purr
5. Kool Thing
6. 100%
7. JC
8. Dirty Boots
9. Beauty Lies In The Eye
10. Mote

side 2:
1. Schizophrenia
2. Eric's Trip
3. Sugar Kane
4. Kissability
5. Sunday
6. Bull In The Heather
7. Candle
8. Shadow of a Doubt
9. Genetic
10. Diamond Sea [single edit]
11. Kotton Krown

It was kind of hard to put their catalog in enough perspective to really pick out the right songs. I mean, last summer I went through a phase of making tons of tapes to listen to in the car, and I made 5 themed SY mixes (all of Lee's songs, or all instrumentals, etc., I'll probably post some of those eventually), and a lot of the songs on this tape weren't on any of those 5 tapes. I've never really disliked any of those songs (except "100%", which was the first song I ever heard by them and I always hated it), I just don't feel the need to put, say, "Kool Thing" on a tape for myself. So it was nice to revisit some of the (ahem) hits in order to give J.G. a fitting introduction, along with some of my favorites. It's not a very complete picture, though, obviously; nothing before '86 or after '98 (although I'm a bigger fan of the later stuff than many), and an emphasis on Sister through Dirty. You really can't go wrong with that stuff, at least when you're trying to show how good they can be at being a rock band. The eventual best-of of the DGC years will make a pretty great stocking stuffer.

Labels: mixtapes, Sonic Youth

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 08, 2005 at 6:15 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.