Sonic Youth, Raymond Pettibon | (Over) Kill Yr Idols

Sonic Youth [Raymond Pettibon]

(Over) Kill Yr Idols

Newtonville, USA: Forced Exposure, 1985

17.8 × 18.4 cm.

Edition of 1246

An early 7" single recorded live in Berlin in 1983 and released alongside the Forced Exposure magazine #7/8, and made available to Forced Exposure subscribers. The A-side features "Making a Nature Scene” and it is backed with "I Killed Christgau with My Big Fuckin' Dick."

The latter song name-checks Village Voice music critic Robert Christgau, who gave the band’s debut record a C rating, and wrote: 

"You may not think Glenn Branca's proteges are a rock and roll band, but after all, why else would they essay a lyric like "Fucking youth/Working youth"? At their worst they sound like Polyrock mainlining metronome, at their best like one of Branca's early drafts. The best never last long enough. Not for nothing is the sonic grown-up so attached to phony grandeur.”

The band responded with Kill Yr Idols, and the lyrics "I don't know why/You want to impress Christgau/Ah, let that shit die/And find a new goal”.

The critic responded in his next review: "Idolization is for rock stars, even rock stars manqué like these impotent bohos–critics just want a little respect. So if it’s not too hypersensitive of me, I wasn’t flattered to hear my name pronounced right, not on this particular title track…"

Sonic Youth replied by renaming the track “I Killed Christgau with My Big Fuckin' Dick” on this seven inch. He came around with his later reviews, giving virtually every album that followed an A: Starpower, Sister, Daydream Nation, Goo, Dirty, Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, Screaming Fields of Sonic Love, Washing Machine, A Thousand Leaves, NYC Ghosts and Flowers, Sonic Nurse, Rather Ripped, and The Eternal.

The cover illustration is by Raymond Pettibon, whose work would later grace the cover of the band’s major label debut, Goo. The cover text reads "I was on acid when I drew this."

Between ten and twenty test pressing copies have covers fully hand-coloured by Thurston Moore and a significant proportion of all copies feature some hand colouring.