By: Jackie Lo

I’ve long admired Kim Gordon, from her days of Sonic Youth to Free Kitten, X-Girl, Body/Head, to showing me how you can successfully have a long career of playing music in a band with your partner, to doing your own things without them after they are gone even while your heart is broken and I’ve loved watching her solo career with these last three albums. We share a birthday, which I always claim makes us connected and I got to see her in Atlanta last year on her last album tour. Just being in the room with her is inspiring and I read a headline last week that said that  Kim Gordon was still the coolest girl in the room and it’s true.

Her third solo album Play Me just released March 13th on Matador Records, and like her last two albums there were songs that really resonated with me.  From the title track “Play Me” that opens the album with a catchy horn sample that’s as cool and laid back as her vocal delivery. You’ll be ready for summer after school “chill vibes” and find yourself nodding while singing along every time she says “Play Me”.

Through her trap vocals overlaid beats, she covers subject matters such as the U.S. Politics and the rise of AI with auto-tune vocal effects mixed in. There are even sound bites sped up from MTV Beach House from when she hosted it back in the 90s. Dave Grohl makes a guest appearance on drums for the track “Busy Bee” but the real stand out track is “NOT TODAY” with an accompanying video that is stunning. From the opening layered guitar solo to the first line of the chorus “There’s a hole in my heart” I was mesmerized. There’s beauty, pain, and the chaos of brokenness while finding strength that permeates through this entire song and I was here for it.  The album ends with the reworked “ByeBye25!” that was released as a single previous to the album, with proceeds benefitting Noise for Now, a non-profit benefiting reproductive health.

Always interesting, always pushing the limits, and always creating something I want to listen to, Kim Gordon’s Play Me is no exception.