Date of Release: March 8th 2024
Matador Records
Yo pop fans. Fantastic news….last week, when I procured Kim Gordon’s ‘The Collective’ album, at the best record store in the world, I was given a poster with it. It has an arty album piccy on one side and the 70-year-old (yes, she really is) KG on the other, and very nice it is too. Good result, you might think. …. but even better, I was kindly entered into a draw for a signed Kim Gordon mini-poster! Actually signed by the musical guitaroo genius herself. And guess what? Despite a highly competitive field, encompassing an impressive 7 other entrants, who necessarily had also bought the album,….. I won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Winnas r grinnas. Spot number one teenage son in the background1…😎
Haven’t won anything since I was seven, for entering the local grocers (Malcolm Campbells) competition about Le Crunch golden delicious apples. I came up with the natty phrase ‘is it because of the great munch that you ate my le crunch?’ Good innit. Won me a garingly green plastic lunch box with an apple sticker mispositioned on top, and a free apple. Happy days. I suppose a win every 47 years means I’ll be 101 when I pick up my next. Hmmmm.
Dog eating my apple in 19772
Right, now for the album itself. Wellllllll, it’s a bit weird and deffo not for anyone who hasn’t heard the ex-Sonic Youth supremo before. This is most certainly not easy listening. Hank Willams fans please leave the area. It’s sort of futuristic arty stuff, with rap style lyrics, backed up by overlayered synth, guitar, and drums in broken beats, smashing glass and general chaotic noise. Aye, it’s indescribabubble, weird n noisy stuff, which might earn a direct entry to the gash bucket.
My The Collective collection – good innit?3
Never heard anything like it, which I guess might be the point. Gordon’ s most excellent voice prevails throughout, oozing coolness and almost a junky-cold-turkey shakiness. After 4 plays, it’s still a bit of a struggle, but a couple of tracks are coming to the fore like ‘Bye Bye’ and ‘I don’t miss my mind’. It’s very easy to dismiss this record as it’s like nothing you’ve heard before and possibly never will. For that, it should be hugely credited. Let’s face it, KG could easily have stayed in the comfort zone of sing-along lyrics and hooky guitars, and who would blame her.
This album makes Evol, Death Valley ’69 and Brother James seem like happy singalong consumable pop for Wham fans. This is several, and I mean several, levels above that. It’s non-conformist angst and arty. You either get it or you don’t and who cares if you do or don’t. KG is saying it as she sees it, and that’s more than good enough for me.
Two of Sonic Youth’s popular country classics – Evol4 & Death Valley ’695
Track 1, ‘Bye Bye’, provides a useful list of things to pack in your suitcase and arrange before going on holiday, like ‘…black jeans, blue jeans, cardigan’, and most importantly, your passport. Best not forget your vibrator too. All sound advice, depending on who you are, and the type of holiday you’re planning, I guess. Most importantly, Kim advises you buy a suitcase. Not sure how this all works but it sort of does. Helpful, as I always forget something. A good start.
‘The Candy House’ is a bit weird, but I like the rebellious two fingers to you, expressed as ‘I won’t join the collective’. Kim G never has, and no doubt never will. Get it up ye! I like it.
‘I don’t miss my mind’ follows, with an absorbing screeching riff throughout which appears in the closing track too. She’s gone back to holiday mode advising ’pack it up’ but then enters rudeness mode with ‘*uck it up, suck it up and let’s be lazy’. Ends with ‘don’t *uck it up, don’t *uck it up.’ Wish she’d make up her mind. Can always pack that case tomorrow, I guess. Good tune. You’ll wake up to with that riff in the form of a well peed off earworm looking for a fight.
Next up is ‘I’m a man’. ‘Dropped out of college don’t have a degree; I’m not bringing home the bacon, It’s not my fault. Shave your beard and wear a skirt.’ Anything goes these days, I guess. Not sure what to make of that. But KG is calling it out. Bit more obtuse than ‘Kool Thing’ from the Goo album, which directly refers to ‘male white corporate oppression’; continuation of a theme maybe?. Nae idea, but Kim’s vocals give it credibility. Again, not a singalong karaoke TOTP tune but fine arty stuff, nonetheless.
In Kim’s words, this person should shave their beard and wear a skirt.6 Who’s to argue?
‘Trophies’ unexpectedly takes us to extreme rudeness. Opening with ‘you wanna bowl with me?’ which seems harmless enough. But, before I can answer ‘yes, please Kim, that sounds great, maybe we could grab a beer and burger too’, it abruptly dispels foreplay and advances to ‘put your fingers in the holes…it’s slippery’. Ooooooooh errrrr missus! There was none of that at Drumchapel bowling club, I can tell ye.
Things get more explicit in ‘It’s dark inside’, making Kissability, from the most excellent Daydream Nation, sound like a nursery rhyme. ‘They don’t’ teach *lit in school’, explains Kim. ‘Like they do like *ussy like (*ussy galore)’ advances the philosophy. Insightful and probably true, as there would be many more teachers in prison if this was on the national curriculum. ‘Breathing down my neck and grinding down the edges’, continues with the oooooor err missus theme. Clearly, Kim feels highly virile and not afraid to embarrass the younger generations, including her 30 year old daughter Coco. All tuneful enough and interesting, despite the extreeeeme rudeness. All in all, a top effort to conclude a very decent wacky side 1!
Kim’s daughter, Coco, learned early to wear headphones when mum is around.7
Somewhat thankfully, track 1, side 2 avoids *ussy-licking, finger holing bowling lyrical style and opts for good old fashioned drug-referencing lyrics instead, in ‘Psychedelic orgasm’. It’s not all about shagging and finger insertions, there are drug abuse options too, pop kids, although you might be tempted to ‘open your legs’, amidst ‘LSD’ and ‘magic mushrooms’. Strange track.
Next up is ‘Tree house’, which, on the surface is a whole lot more, err, wholesome. Talk of ‘corduroy bell bottoms’ and ‘riding in a sports car whilst hitching up the coast’ all seems coolio West Coast sunny fun stuff. The background music reminds me of a slowed down, less sinister, Death Valley ’69. But before long, they come across some dangerous geezer: ‘a man was looking at me his eyes ablaze…it sent a chill up my back’. Scary!
‘Shelf warmer’ is a lot easier on the psyche and refers to not having a receipt to return an unwanted present. Relatively happy safe days. Nice enough tune and nowhere near scary or pervy as the last few tracks. Kim asks for a kiss several times and to hold her hand, which is all fine and dandy, happy days tune, played at a slow low beat, giving a feeling that there’s been a death in the room.
‘The believers’ seems like a filler between all the horror and innuendo of most of the previous tracks, making me wonder what lies ahead in the next one. All dark and clangy background music with Kim’s vocals skimming over quiet, fast, loud, slow.
The last tune is tame – no bowling, no shagging, no drugs, no packing advice, or scary men about to murder you. It’s just dreams, cement and dollars. Breathe out, we made it.
A scary arty innuendo-ridden feminist coolio album, not for the fainthearted. It’s 20 years ahead of its time and does not fit into anything now…despite calling out some societal flaws, which are very relevant. One for the purist. Keep it up KG and don’t forget your passport!
Rated an impressive 3/10 on the Gashometer, and ta for the signed poster!
Bye bye. Bye bye.
Sources
- Photo courtesy of Nick, Vinylstore Jr., March 2024.
- Dog eating apple: Michelson Found Animals https://www.foundanimals.org/can-dogs-eat-apples/
- Ally Grant photo, March 2024.
- Evol image, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evol_(Sonic_Youth_album)
- Death Valley ’69 image, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_%2769
- Bearded lady (Missouri Historical Museum): Sean Trainor, The Atlantic, December 5th 2015 https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/12/lessons-of-the-bearded-lady/418038/
- Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Coco – The Best Hiding Spot, Tumblr https://thebesthidingspot.tumblr.com/post/112684361823/thurston-moore-kim-gordon-and-their-daughter-coco/amp