\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t have a desire to make a solo record,\u201d Gordon says. \u201cI did guitar-bass music for so<\/em> long. I had no plans on doing anything other than Body\/Head and making art when I moved back to L.A. It was Justin \u2014 he talked me into a solo record.\u201d But to her surprise, she enjoyed it. \u201cIt was kind of a happy accident that he\u2019s a good collaborator. He just keeps the engine going.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTheir chemistry blew up on the superb 2024 album The Collective<\/a><\/em>, her most startling \u2014 and fun \u2014 project in years. It was unmistakably a rock album, flashy and aggressive and bombastic, yet it all unfolded over trap beats, including one originally intended for Playboi Carti<\/a>. Even longtime fans were shook right down to their dirty boots.<\/p>\n \n\tPlay Me<\/em>, out this month, hits even harder, leaning on the electro-distorted rhythms and her power-sneer voice. It\u2019s full of savagely funny satire about modern American culture. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of humor in it,\u201d she says. \u201cA lot that\u2019s pissed off.\u201d In the title tune, she recites the names of mood-themed Spotify playlists, from \u201crich popular girl\u201d to \u201cjazz in the background\u201d to \u201cchilling after work.\u201d \u201cBusy Bee\u201d warps a snippet of dialogue between Gordon and her bandmate Julia Cafritz from the 1990s indie project Free Kitten, with Dave Grohl pounding the drums. The dialogue comes from an episode of MTV\u2019s Beach House<\/em> that she and Cafritz guest-hosted. \u201cI spent Justin that clip of us talking, and he sped it up,\u201d Gordon says. \u201cKennedy was the VJ. For some reason they asked us to host, so we were just sitting around talking about the decorations.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tGordon is a famously shy and private person \u2014 during the entire conversation with Rolling Stone,<\/em> she never removes her shades. As she describes in her 2015 memoir, Girl in a Band<\/a>,<\/em> she was always that way. Yet somehow she managed to scream her way into people\u2019s heads on Sonic Youth classics like \u201cFlower,\u201d<\/a> \u201cShadow of a Doubt,\u201d<\/a> \u201cBull in the Heather,\u201d<\/a> and \u201cThe Sprawl.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \n\tIn the Eighties, Gordon wrote an Artforum<\/em> essay with a famous line about rock performers: \u201cPeople pay to see others believe in themselves.\u201d Does she still feel that way? \u201cOh, yeah \u2014 definitely,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople love someone who has confidence. But strangely, also, the opposite is true. You could be somebody who\u2019s incredibly awkward onstage, and doesn\u2019t do the sort of typical \u2018I\u2019m in control\u2019 presence. I find that more<\/em> interesting in a way. Taking things that aren\u2019t working, but then you make them work.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tGordon was deeply influenced by the rock performers who had that kind of impact on her. She mentions Mark E. Smith of the U.K. post-punk band the Fall, \u201calthough he didn\u2019t really care,\u201d and Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power: \u201cI mean, she had such devoted fans that even when she was not able to finish a song, they always still came back. There\u2019s a certain things-falling-apart aspect to live performance that can make it interesting. Even Nirvana \u2014 although that was a pretty nihilistic part of the shows, but I kind of enjoyed that aspect\u2026. Something like that can break through the expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tOne of her weirdest gifts to rock & roll culture has turned out to be one of her most enduring \u2014 a T-shirt. In the Nineties, Gordon wore a shirt<\/a> with a provocative slogan that\u2019s taken on a life of its own: \u201cGirls Invented Punk Rock, Not England.\u201d Where did that come from? \u201cIt\u2019s funny \u2014 I said that in an interview, in England or something, and then someone made that T-shirt and threw it onstage. And I wore it.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tPlay Me<\/em> feels like punk rock, even in its industrial-strength beats. \u201cOne thing I like about working with Justin is that he likes to make trash,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m actually not using rock tropes in the traditional way. I\u2019m not using big power chords.\u201d The music brings out the hip-hop sensibility in her voice \u2014 which goes back to Sonic Youth\u2019s 1990 classic \u201cKool Thing,\u201d<\/a> where she debated Public Enemy on \u201cmale white corporate oppression.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t have the kind of voice to be a singer<\/em>-singer, and I get really inspired by rhythm and beats. Occasionally a melody will pop out of somewhere accidentally, but this kind of vocal just feels most natural for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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