The Collective by Kim Gordon | Album Review
The second solo record from the legendary Sonic Youth guitarist presents a surprisingly dark, noisy, and modern palette of experimental beats.
I wrote in my recent Judas Priest review that Guitar Hero introduced teenage me to an ungodly amount of classic rock and metal music. Well, another group that game series brought to my consciousness was New York alt-rock outfit Sonic Youth, a band deeply interwoven with the CBGBs/Danceteria days of the 1980s New York underground.
With connections to artists ranging from Swans to Madonna, Sonic Youth were important innovators in rock history, creating seminal records in the no-wave and alt-rock genres. Maybe their best-known member is guitarist and vocalist Kim Gordon, one of the most influential women in rock music, who can claim creatives from Courtney Love to Sofia Coppola as fans.
Unfortunately, the era of Sonic Youth came to an end with the band’s dissolution in 2011, after 30 years of breaking new ground in music. But Gordon continued on, working with new side projects like Free Kitten and Body/Head, collaborating with experimental artists including Loren Connors and Yoko Ono, and releasing a solo LP, No Home Record, under her own name.
