“Kool Thing” by Sonic Youth

"Kool Thing" was the first single from Goo, Sonic Youth's sixth album, and it's Sonic Youth at their catchiest, all fuzz and strut. It went out as a promotional single in the US in June 1990 and reached Europe that September.

The song began with an interview: Kim Gordon, the band's bassist and singer, sat down with LL Cool J for Spin, and what came out of it is a song about him that never says his name. Gordon's lyric is littered with nods to his records, "I Can't Live Without My Radio" and Walking with a Panther among them, and she delivers it in a cool, half-spoken deadpan that makes every line sound like a raised eyebrow. Chuck D drops in with spoken lines of his own, and the collision is half the fun.

Gordon, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley share the composing credit, and the music grinds and swaggers behind her. Ron Saint Germain and Nick Sansano produced it with the band; Sansano recorded it and Saint Germain did the mix.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.