“The Collective” – Kim Gordon

Album: The Collective

Artist: Kim Gordon

Year: 2024

Genre: Experimental Hip Hop, Industrial

Grade: A

Who would have guessed that Kim Gordon — the 70-year-old former frontwoman of legendary noise rock band Sonic Youth — would be responsible for making one of the greatest and most innovative experimental hip hop albums of the 2020s? Or that said album would be heavily indebted to trap and industrial à la Playboi Carti, Death Grips and Yeezus? Well, that’s exactly what The Collective is: a miracle of genre-mashing that is among the most cutting-edge LPs that Gordon has ever released, Sonic Youth or otherwise.

Of course, Gordon has always been at the forefront of the musical avant-garde ever since her career began. In case you’ve forgotten, Sonic Youth redefined what electric guitar (and therefore rock itself) was capable of, helping to pioneer the noise, no wave, alternative and indie rock movements in the process. More recently, Gordon’s debut solo album, 2019’s revelatory No Home Record, was a fresh confluence of electronic and drone pop that was completely different than anything she’d done before. It should in fact come as no surprise that The Collective pushes the envelope even further (especially when songs like “Paprika Pony” had already been pointing in this direction).

Right from the opening seconds, the album pulls no punches. “Bye Bye” kicks off the album with impossibly low sub-bass and sinister distorted synth melodies, not a far cry from Kanye West’s “On Sight” or Carti’s “Rockstar Made.” With the help of producer Justin Raisen (whose eclectic discography includes collabs with Drake, Yves Tumor, Charli XCX and Grace Ives), Gordon’s mechanical guitar sounds are blended into the short-circuiting electronic cacophony. The production is compelling in its head-bobbing heaviness, the perfect match for Gordon’s deadpan observational half-spoken-word lyrics, which are hilarious but also horrifying in their paranoiac boredom. All she’s doing is detailing her monotonous to-do list in a slightly seductive yet tortured vocal (“call the vet/call the groomer/call the dog sitter”), but the minimalism paints a dystopian vision of modern life. When combined with the apocalyptic music, “Bye Bye” becomes an eye-opening experience — no wave repackaged for a new genre and generation.

Every song on The Collective hits a surreal sweet spot that tickles the subconscious: the crunchy trap beats are never cheesy, the anti-vocals are never grating, the satirical lyrics provide an equal number of laughs and insight, and even the mumbled autotune rap in “The Candy House” is perfectly appropriate without going too far.

Favorites include the one-two anti-patriarchal punch of “I’m a Man” and “Trophies” (the former which perfectly shows the perceived oppressions faced by men, the latter which may be a metaphor for sexual power dynamics or just a goofy song about bowling); the heavy trap beats of “Psychedelic Orgasm”; the wall of overdriven guitars in “Tree House”; the Trent Reznor-influenced deconstruction that lasts for five hellish minutes in “The Believers.”

And, oh yes, the immortal proverb at the heart of the album: “They don’t teach clit in school,” which leads to a screwed sample of “pussy pussy pussy.”

The Collective is a record that must be heard to be believed, one that possesses such a menacing yet enthralling sound (in terms of radical reinvention, think Scott Walker’s Tilt or The Drift or, in terms of free-wheeling improvisation, maybe Sonic Youth’s own A Thousand Leaves). The album will still sound fresh and extreme for years and decades to come.

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