I certainly knew about Sonic Youth prior to "Goo", their 1990 major label release, but just through coincidence of timing this was the first LP of theirs that I bought and really embraced. "Kool Thing" was the first single off the LP and is certainly more accessible than their previous work. At the time I enjoyed it as a great song, but it wasn't until much later that I learned the back story that it is about a 1989 article in Spin Magazine where Kim interviewed LL Cool J and the resulting cultural chasm between them, part of which is attributable to not finding space for feminism in the machismo of LL's style of hip-hop (e.g., "The guy has to have control over his woman").
Of course, the video and song are filled with many clever LL "Kool" J references (e.g., "walking like a panther", "I don't think so", "let me play with your radio"), and even briefly features Chuck D (I always felt he was significantly underutilized in this song, but to be fair the story goes theirs was an unplanned, serendipitous collaboration resulting from Public Enemy being in a nearby studio).
Enough about the back story -- there's a good "official" video and many live versions available, but this 1993 live version is a good reminder of when and why Kim (and Thurston) were the queen (and king) of the scene...
"Fear of a female planet"
Sonic Youth - "Kool Thing": live 1993, official video
LL Cool J - "Going Back to Cali" (from which the official "Kool Thing" video borrows)
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