#Kim Shaw

[everybuddiewantssome]

a+ on the save there, Charlie

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have Did You Hear About the Morgans? 2009

[kwebtv]

Elisabeth Hower, Jordan Carlos, Kim Shaw and Peter Vack in "I Just Want My Pants Back"

[mejev]

okay 4 season was worth it because of them

[kevinvoncrastenburg]

Uberhood (121) - Cleveland, Contender & Contrary, Rick

Jason Cleveland celebrated his birthday and became an elder. Additionally I gave him a makeover that's more fitting to him. Now I just hope I'm able to find him a partner who he can enjoy the rest of his life with. He went through so much and deserves it.

Carlos Contender and Cynthia Kim deepened their affair even more and had their first woohoo with each other. Cynthia got pregnant. 😐

& Rick Contrary found love in a townie called Camryn Shaw. ❤

[bryqe]

my animal spirit & my dream man

[dustedmagazine]

Listening Pest: The albums that disappointed, bored and infuriated us in 2024

We’re lovers, not haters, here at Dusted.  We’ll go to the mat for records you never heard of, records that you probably couldn’t find even with the old, functional Google Search, and a few records that, maybe, technically, legally, don’t actually exist.  We celebrate what’s good and mostly ignore what’s bad or mediocre, at least we do for all but one feature out of a year of them.

Readers, you have arrived at this feature. 

Here, Dusted writers reflect on the music that pissed them off, the songs that, when they turned up on “best of” lists, made us clap our foreheads in consternation, the albums that should have been so much better.  We recognize that these are personal views, and we sincerely hope not to hurt the feelings of people who love and esteem these records.  But we also relish the chance to let loose, for once.  The writing in this feature is some of the best you’ll read all year.  It’s my favorite thing to edit—not sure what that says about me, but there you go. 

Not everyone participated (see paragraph one), but Jonathan Shaw, Patrick Masterson, Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes and Ian Mathers did.    

Blood Incantation — Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media)

A slab of maximalist prog and irritatingly supercilious “heavy” music, Absolute Elsewhere pulls off a notable trick. Blood Incantation has conjured (the better word here is likely “produced”) a variety of death metal that’s utterly bloodless, duller than dirt displaced from the grave. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so literal. Death metal doesn’t really have to be malodorous, moldy or mutilated — but it doesn’t hurt. But that suggests a more significant point: the best death metal hurts. It’s full of disgust, dreadful drama and rage at the human condition, which is always doomed to death. Blood Incantation seems to have zero interest in feelings of doom and diminishing concern with the fate of bodies and their meaty materiality. The band would rather get smoked out and gaze into the heavens, spinning Wish You Were Here (check out the near-quotations from “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” in “The Message [Tablet III]”) and paging through a pile of Orson Scott Card novels with sticky fingers. Whatever. You do you. But the concepts — a word the record’s arch sensibility just about insists on — are risible, and the music’s preening theatricals have all the charm of Rick Wakeman’s gold lamé cape ‘n’ cowl set. It’s death metal primed for an extended gig at the Las Vegas Sphere, and that might explain why Absolute Elsewhere has ended up on so many highly visible EOY lists: Pitchfork, The Needle Drop, NPR(yep, NPR…). It’s got spectacle, and there are a couple parts where it gets loud, but ultimately, it’s a safe bet.

Jonathan Shaw

Sabrina Carpenter — Short n’ Sweet (Island)

Truth be told, this should really go to Lake Street Dive for me, but I somehow managed to avoid actually listening to them for most of the year. Sabrina Carpenter, though, was much like Chappell Roan and Charli XCX in being unavoidable for several months during the summer. It didn’t matter what kind of place it was, if I stayed long enough, I’d inevitably hear “Espresso.” I couldn’t tell you when it first hit me because, unlike a good shot of the stuff, Carpenter’s sub-Ariana Grande pipes and the casual acoustic guitar plucks do anything but “hit,” the equivalent of aural wallpaper. I’m listening to this record again right now, repeatedly forgetting it’s on, and nothing has swayed my opinion — this is an album and a moment for people really going through it to the point that they can’t hear how boring the vindictiveness is. I’m not even talking about the “everyone except privileged white men” moment, either; I’m talking about your longtime girlfriend cheating on you with your barber and now you’re posting one-star Yelp reviews to get back at them. If that’s not you, if you’re just wallowing in the general malaise of being alive, you don’t count. Also, not for nothing, but I wrote all of this, and I still haven’t gotten to “Slim Pickins” yet. The longest 12 songs and 36 minutes of the year by a comfortable margin (and if Lake Street Dive put a record out, please don’t make me test that theory).

Patrick Masterson

Kim Deal — Nobody Loves You More (4AD)               

Kim Deal is responsible for some of the most monumental—and at the same time minimal—of all rock bass lines, from the ominous pulse of the Pixies “Gigantic” to the anarchic bounce of The Breeders’ “Cannonball.” Her first-ever solo album is very much NOT like that. Instead, it swathes fragile melodies in full-to-overtipping arrangements, with orchestras of strings, Hawaiian slack key guitars, and mariachi bands worth of brass, a lushness that only highlights the ordinariness of her voice and songs. Let’s put some more whipped cream on that turd, how about it?

Jennifer Kelly

Fontaines DC — Romance (XL)

The Dublin five-some swings wide on this fourth full-length, appealing to the masses with pastel colored choruses and limp indie flourishes. It works on a commercial level — after all, this is the disc that got them Grammy nominations, endless “best of” love and a slot on Obama’s play list — but excises everything that made Fontaines DC exciting. What if we took out the dank broody bits and fell in love? What if we ditched the Irish-ness and took a stab at Coldplay? What if we chewed down Fontaines DC’s dark magic into pablum, something so soft and ingratiating that even the Spotify addled masses could get it down? Rarely have I been so excited to listen and so quickly, bitterly disillusioned. One good song comes right at the end in “Death Kink” but that is NOT enough.

Jennifer Kelly

Mercury Rev — Born Horses (Bella Union)

I was so looking forward to this record, the first Mercury Rev album after an almost ten-year gap. I love both the harried brilliance of the band’s early records and the lush psychedelia born of their marriage with David Fridmann. My synapses were short circuiting in anticipation of Born Horses. This fact amplifies my disappointment with the record. Between Jonathan Donahue’s spoken-word delivery, which comes across as a hushed ASMR-inducing purr, and the band’s milquetoast reading of their once-grandiose chamber-psychedelia, I feel the bile rising in the back of my throat and I get choked up whenever I try to play the record. I get it: Donahue and Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiak are looking for new directions to take their sound after decades of exploratory music making, and they’re lacking Fridmann’s guidance, but I’d rather experience another See You on the Other Side than this weak-limbed attempt at chamber-beat poetry. Let’s hope this is a mere meander away from the otherwise eclectic and intriguing trajectory traveled by these upstate New York weirdos.

Bryon Hayes

Jessica Pratt — Here in the Pitch (Mexican Summer)

In personal relationships, saying “it’s not you, it’s me” is commonly regarded as the mark of a cad and/or liar, a convenient excuse at best. But here, I swear I am being both sincere and (as far as I can tell) accurate. I know I first heard of Jessica Pratt around the time her second record, 2015’s On Your Own Love Again, came out and I’d been idly meaning to check out her work ever since then. She seemed to be having a real moment this year with Here in the Pitch, she seems like a cool person, and looking at her discography I deeply respect her commitment to the sub-32 minute LP (an underrated length). But after I hit play and quite enjoy the instrumental intro to “Life Is,” Pratt starts singing… and it just hits my ears wrong. I can’t explain it. I don’t at all think she has a bad voice (arguably I like several other singers that have various things in common with her, vocally). I realize, seeing Here in the Pitch show up on more and more year-end lists (including Dusted ones!), that I am in the minority here, and honestly, I think that’s good! But seeing comment after comment praising the singing here specifically is just a stark reminder that sometimes, people just hear things differently. I wish I did like Pratt’s voice; I suspect I’d enjoy this album quite a bit, maybe enough for it to make my own list. And to be clear, unlike some other acts I don’t enjoy, there’s no part of me that irrationally feels like everyone else is ‘wrong’; if anything, I feel frustratingly close to getting the appeal! But I just can’t seem to get past viscerally not getting her singing. I went back to the LP months after my first try, figuring maybe I just had to get used to it, but no. Really, truly: it’s not Pratt, it’s me.

Ian Mathers

Vampire Weekend — Only God Was Above Us (Columbia)

The arguments over Vampire Weekend’s class tourism and cultural adventurisms are old and tired, but the band keeps making gestures that churn up the discourse. See the video for “Gen-X Cops,” which features Vampire Weekend riding a battered, tagged-up subway train, likely making the run to the Bronx — note the several moments at which the train rises into sunlight, onto Upper West Side elevated tracks. The graffitied car conjures a historical NYC, all grainy celluloid footage, lurid spray paint and flashes of urban spaces and experiences now lost to multiple forces: gentrification, trauma, mortality. The video rolls on, unbothered, and briefly Vampire Weekend’s three members sit facing us, having scored seats; the camera presents a further imaginary provocation, as Koenig (still baby faced, ever belying the impression that he should know better by now), Baio and Tomson suddenly wear NYC cop uniforms. The visual metaphor seems to ask: Who has the right to police culture? Whose cops work the history beat? Koenig sings, “It wasn’t built for me / It’s your academy.” The vaguely anti-institutional bent of the lyric is complicated by the video’s closing images: a crowd exiting the subway train in the density of a morning commute. It’s the masses. The camera shifts to a perspective that hovers over them as they make for the exits. One wonders if an additional metaphorical resonance were intended by that vantage: the band’s desire for a place above the press of humanity, observing its struggle but not in it. That’s on the nose for Vampire Weekend, a band that has never made music for those people, has never indicated any sort of an interest in them. Promo chatter about Only God Was Above Us talked up the record’s “grit,” but I can’t discern any. The songs provide the usual gloss and gleam, distractingly slick surfaces and irritatingly bright tones. It’s mostly blithe, here and there preciously mopey, full of snide winks at “Prep School Gangsters” and love letters to uber-hip Soho gallery owners. Whose academy is that? The best Koenig can do by way of answer is in the chorus to “Pravda”: “Your consciousness is not my problem.” OK. Then please stop cluttering it with your effete quietism and get off the A Train. It’s public space, in which everybody’s consciousness is everybody’s problem.

Jonathan Shaw

[everybuddiewantssome]

a fair question

[golddust-enby]

Since I've amassed some custom perfumes from Lovesick Witchery, particularly character-based ones, I'm going to make a post about that to consolidate info.

Anyone can re-order a custom that already exists as long as they know the name of it. I also want to disclose that the only person profiting is the perfumer, since none of this stuff is licensed and I don't make any money from orders. I'm just making info available because I like to share my brainrot.

To re-order a custom perfume, you just go to the re-order listing under Bespoke Items, choose your format (oil rollerball, perfume spray, or body mist; it also doesn't have to be the same format as the original order), and type in the name of the perfume you're making the re-order for. If you order an oil rollerball and don't want fractionated coconut oil, then you should probably also specify that. There's a list of available carrier oils over in the Bespoke Perfume Notes list. Also, international orders can't include a body mist, since those are alcohol-based, but the perfume spray can and will be swapped to a sweet almond oil base so that one can be shipped.

Anyway, I have a list of all of the custom perfumes I've managed to order so far under the Read More. Everything's categorized, so hopefully it's comprehensive. Basically, I have everything ordered by fandom in alphabetical order (aside from my OCs and some personal, non-character scents below those) and will update if there are any future orders.

A Seat at the Table:

Name: The Martyr

Inspiration: Martyr from A Seat at the Table. @quieteeks already had a pretty solid idea of what he smells like, so I mostly went with that.

Notes: Red currant, merlot, tonka bean, gilded amber, white musk, and incense accord.

How does it smell? A bit tart from the currant and wine. The incense accord gives it a little bit of a smoky vibe in there and I think maybe some frankincense or something. I feel like the other notes are coming out a bit more over time, since I feel like I smell more of the white musk in particular now.

My Sweet! Housemate:

Name: My Sweet Housemate

Inspiration: Seung-Min Kim from My Sweet! Housemate. @sourmiiiilk has said that he smells like clean laundry from having to wash off blood all the time, so I leaned into that along with adding vegetables and rice milk for his love of cooking. A couple of the other notes are to keep things in a clean and woodsy direction under that fabric softener. I'm sure you guys can guess what the copper is for.

Notes: Fabric softener, carrot, lettuce, rice milk, tonka, black linen, cashmere woods, and copper.

How does it smell? Smells like clean laundry and earthy vegetables. I don't really catch the copper, but I'd rather that be light anyway. This one is pretty good for being such a quirky concept.

Obscura:

Name: Humble Priest

Inspiration: Cirrus from Obscura. It's been pointed out by the dev team that he smells like incense, candlewax, and clean cotton, so that's where the frankincense, myrrh, beeswax, and clean cotton note choices came from. The other notes are inspired by his position presiding over the lunar temple and, in the case of the leather, his BDSM interests. I feel like the moonflower nectar has overlap as both a lunar thing and a reference to his poison-making hobby.

Notes: Beeswax, lavender, moonflower nectar, tonka bean, frankincense, myrrh, leather, clean cotton, and cocobolo wood.

How does it smell? Very churchy, honestly. It starts off sweet and floral when I wear it and later shifts into the more incense-y and woodsy notes (cocobolo is a type of rosewood, if that helps). Part of me is kind of surprised that it took me so long to make a custom that includes beeswax, since I like that sort of note when I've tried it from other perfumers.

Online Obsession:

Name: Adisorn

Inspiration: Adisorn Moore from Online Obsession. The strawberry and cream is for his choice to be a Strawberry Paws main in Star Blitz, the pandan leaves are for his Thai heritage, and most of the other stuff is atmospheric (I want to believe that man smells like a hug in the cold weather). The steel is for other reasons.

Notes: Strawberry, cream, pandan leaves, sweater accord, tobacco, night air, snow musk, and steel.

How does it smell? This one smells sweet and a bit foodie to me. I feel like the strawberry is becoming a bit stronger over time, but not overpoweringly. It smells very comforting.

The Eye's Embrace:

Name: Not a Bride

Inspiration: Dexter Jones from The Eye's Embrace. For now, my info on him is a bit more limited, but what I do have is that he's stuck as a vampiric "bride" to a pretentious vampire that's also a cult leader. Clearly, Dex chafes at the situation he's in, hence the name of the perfume. I ended up wanting something pretty and herbal, with some masculine notes in there for him. Specifically, I chose moonflower for a vampire vibe without the more stereotypical choices that Bram (said pretentious vampire and cult leader) would probably choose and hemlock for something green and poisonous.

Notes: Moonflower, lavender, hemlock, oakmoss, cedarwood, leather, spiced patchouli, and black vanilla.

How does it smell? It indeed smells herbal and has a masculine edge to it. Pretty man vibes, for sure. Justice for Dex!

My OCs:

Name: Oberon

Inspiration: Oberon Shaw, one of my original characters. His environment has major cyberpunk vibes: futuristic, advanced prosthetics and enhancements, unscrupulous techno-corporations (not so futuristic, but a staple), plus a certain degree of commercial space travel. I actually named him after one of Uranus' moons, since that's something significant (and so is my choice of hydrangea, since he has a tattoo design that incorporates those specific flowers). I don't want to give away everything about him so far, but I will say that I wanted something to reflect his playful nature, along with his difficult grip on his own stability.

Notes: Caramel cider, hydrangea, leather, motor oil, tonka, oud, thunderstorm, benzoin, and black musk.

How does it smell? I think this may be potentially the most peculiar custom I have because of that motor oil note, but I actually do like it. It's one of those sorts of perfumes where I find picking out the individual notes to be difficult (though I am less familiar with certain notes), but I feel like the caramel cider and hydrangea sometimes stick out to me. Overall, I like the vibe. There's some sweetness there while it's also a bit dark.

Name: Sacrificial Blade

Inspiration: This character has been shifting and morphing for years, but I think maybe I'm getting a handle on him and his name might be Rhys. Decided to focus on things that I feel go for him at this moment, though I'm still figuring him out.

Notes: Plum, black tea, belladonna, vanilla suede, white musk, coumarin, sandalwood, and a flash of icy metal.

How does it smell? Pastoral is the way I described it before and I think that does kind of work. The plum and belladonna seem most apparent to my nose, but I think it generally has a cozy vibe to me regardless of the subtle metal for that blade in the title.

Miscellaneous:

Name: Honey Bunny

Inspiration: This one was based on my feeling of betrayal when trying Kayali Yum Pistachio Gelato (it's not bad, but it's also not what I wanted). Apparently, I wasn't the only one who thought that and also made a custom based on Yum, but this post isn't about that. Basically, for my version, I replaced some notes that I thought weren't really working.

Notes: Toasted pistachio, vanilla ice-cream, rum, cardamom, oatmeal, milk, honey, tonka bean, and sandalwood.

How does it smell? Not as sweet as you might think, but I went more for cozy than candy (and occasionally will give my pajama shirt a little spray with it). The pistachio has a little saltiness to it and there's warmth from the rum, cardamom, tonka, and oatmeal notes in particular. If I want this sweeter, then I spray it over Sweet Cream (listed farther down), since I bought this one as a body mist.

Name: Seascape

Inspiration: This one is partially based on Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa '62, but a bit more beachy and I swapped out the pistachio in it for pear gelato.

Notes: Pear gelato, french vanilla, sea salt caramels, heliotrope, plumeria, seashore accord, driftwood, and sandalwood.

How does it smell? So good! It's like sweet summer in a rollerball and I'm not even a summer person, or even really a beach person. Still, this turned out great. Think of what I wrote in the inspiration section and that's what this smells like.

Name: Sweet Cream

Inspiration: This one isn't a custom of mine, since it was something that the perfumer mixed up with some leftovers as a freebie. It is available for re-orders, though. Since I occasionally use it in conjunction with Honey Bunny when I want that to be particularly sweet and it's not a listing in the general catalogue, I felt that it was worth mentioning in my list.

Notes: Cold heavy cream, vanilla, smoked vanilla, powdered sugar, and tonka bean.

How does it smell? Like dessert, and I notice that I can always pick out the powdered sugar in particular (powdered sugar has a very distinct smell). I feel like Sweet Cream helps to amp up the vanilla ice-cream note in Honey Bunny.

[kwebtv]

I Just Want My Pants Back - MTV - August 28, 2011 - April 5, 2012

Comedy / Drama (12 episodes)

Running Time: 30 minutes

Stars:

Peter Vack as Jason Strider

Kim Shaw as Tina

Elisabeth Hower as Stacey

Jordan Carlos as Eric

Sunkrish Bala as Bobby

Recurring cast

Chris Parnell as J.B.

Nick Kocher as Lench

Kelli Barrett as Jane

Steve Talley as Brett

Stephanie Brait as Ness

[neverscreens]

— IF.

Part One, 387 Screencaps.

Part Two, 387 Screencaps.

Like or reblog if it was useful, every interaction shows us that we should keep making screencaps for y'all ♡

[wearevillaneve]

I'm done for 2023, so Merry Christmas y'all from WeAreVillanelle. Thanks for stopping by and see you in 2024. Unless you don't.

[raurquiz]

#happybirthday @ToddStashwick #ToddStashwick #actor #writer #Captain #LiamShaw #startrekpicard #talok #Enterprise #12monkeys #theriches #lawandorder #CouragetheCowardlyDog #StillStanding #heroes #PhineasandFerb #TheOriginals #Mockingbird #TheWayBack #KimPossible #LoveWeddingsandotherdisasters

[nerds-yearbook]

The last issue of the first vol of Manhunter was printed with a cover date of April 1990. The series ran for 24 issues. The last issue tied up most of the plot lines. The cover was an homage to the famous picture of Peter Parker walking away from his costume in a garbage can in Amazing Spider-Man 50. ("The Long Goodbye: A Saints and Sinners Epilogue" Manhunter 24, DC Comic Event)

[samixayn]

Canada's greatest exports

[dustedmagazine]

Listening Post: Kim Gordon

Kim Gordon has long been one of rock’s female icons, one of a tiny handful of women to get much play in Michael Azzerad’s underground-defining Our Band Could Be Your Life and a mainstay in the noise-rock monolith Sonic Youth. It’s hard to imagine that quintessential dude rock band without Gordon in front, dwarfed by her bass or spitting tranced out, pissed off verses over the storm of feedback.

Yet Gordon’s trajectory has been, if anything, even more fascinating since Sonic Youth’s demise in 2011. A visual artist first — she studied art at the Otis College of Art and Design before joining the band — she continues to paint and sculpt and create. She’s had solo art shows at established galleries in London and New York, most recently at the 303 Gallery in New York City. A veteran of indie films including Gus van Zant’s Last Days and Todd Haynes I’m Not There, she has also continued to act sporadically, appearing in the HBO series Girls and on an episode of Portlandia. Her memoir, Girl in a Band, came out in 2015.

But Gordon has remained surprisingly entrenched in indie music over the last decade. Many critics, including a few at Dusted, consider her Body Head, collaboration with Bill Nace the best of the post-Sonic Youth musical projects. The ensemble has now produced two EPs and three full-lengths. Gordon has also released two solo albums, which push her iconic voice into noisier, more hip hop influenced directions. We’re centering this listening post around The Collective, Gordon’s second and more recent solo effort, which comes out on Matador on March 8th, but we’ll likely also be talking about her other projects as well.

Intro by Jennifer Kelly

Jennifer Kelly: I missed No Home in 2019, so I was somewhat surprised by The Collective’s abrasive, beat-driven sound though I guess you could make connections to Sonic Youth’s Cypress Hill collaboration?

The more I listen to it, though, the more it makes sense to me. I’ve always liked the way Gordon plays with gender stereotypes, and “I’m a Man” certainly follows that trajectory. What are you guys hearing in The Collective?

Jonathan Shaw: I have only listened through the entire record once, but I am also struck by its intensities. Sort of silly to be surprised by that, given so many of the places she has taken us in the past: noisy, dangerous, dark. But there's an undercurrent of violence to these sounds that couples onto the more confrontational invocations and dramatizations of sex. It's a strong set of gestures. I like the record quite a bit.

Bill Meyer: I'm one of those who hold Body/Head to be the best effort of the post-Sonic Youth projects, but I'll also say that it's very much a band that creates a context for Gordon to do something great, not a solo effort. I was not so taken with No Home, which I played halfway through once upon its release and did not return to until we agreed to have this discussion. I've played both albums through once now, and my first impression is that No Home feels scattered in a classic post-band-breakup project fashion — “let's do a bit of this and that and see what sticks.” The Collective feels much more cohesive sonically, in a purposeful, “I'm going to do THIS” kind of way.

Jonathan Shaw: RE Jennifer's comment about “I'm a Man”: Agreed. The sonics are very noise-adjacent, reminding me of what the Body has been up to lately, or deeper underground acts like 8 Hour Animal or Kontravoid's less dancy stuff. Those acts skew masculine (though the Body has taken pains recently to problematize the semiotics of those photos of them with lots of guns and big dogs...). Gordon's voice and lyrics make things so much more explicit without ever tipping over into the didactic. And somehow her energy is in tune with the abrasive textures of the music, but still activates an ironic distance from it. In the next song, “Trophies,” I love it when she asks, “Will you go bowling with me?” The sexed-up antics that follow are simultaneously compelling and sort of funny. Rarely has bowling felt so eroticized.

Jennifer Kelly: I got interested in the beats and did a YouTube dive on some of the other music that Justin Raisen has been involved with. He's in an interesting place, working for hip hop artists (Lil Yachty, Drake), pop stars (Charli XCX) and punk or at least punk adjacent artists (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Viagra Boys), but nothing I've found is as raw and walloping as these cuts.

“The Candy House” is apparently inspired by Jennifer Egan's The Candy House, which is about a technology that enables people to share memories... Gordon is pretty interested in phones and communications tech and how that's changing art and human interaction.

Andrew Forell: My immediate reaction to the beats was oh, The Bug and JK Flesh, in particular the MachineEPs by the former and Sewer Bait by the latter. Unsurprisingly, as Jonathan says, she sounds right at home within that kind of dirty noise but is never subsumed by it

Jennifer Kelly: I don't have a deep reference pool in electronics, but it reminded me of Shackleton and some of the first wave dub steppers. Also, a certain kind of late 1990s/early aughts underground hip hop like Cannibal Ox and Dalek.

Bryon Hayes: Yeah, I hear some Dalek in there, too. Also, the first Death Grips mixtape, Ex-Military.

It's funny, I saw the track title “I'm a Man,” and my mind immediately went to Bo Diddley for some reason, I should have known that Kim would flip the script, and do it in such a humorous way. I love how she sends up both the macho country-lovin’ bros and the sensitive metrosexual guys. It's brilliant!

This has me thinking about “Kool Thing”, and how Chuck D acts as the ‘hype man’ to Kim Gordon in that song. I'm pretty sure that was unusual for hip hop at the time. Kim's got a long history of messing with gender stereotypes.

Bill Meyer: Gordon did a couple videos for this record, and she starred her daughter Coco in both of them. The one for “I'm A Man” teases out elements of gender fluidity, how that might be expressed through clothing, and different kinds of watching. I found the video for “Bye Bye” more interesting. All the merchandise that's listed in the video turns out to be a survival kit, one that I imagine that Gordon would know that she has to have to get by. The protagonist of the video doesn't know that, and their unspoken moment in a car before Coco runs again was poignant in a way that I don't associate with her work. And of messing with hip hop!

Tim Clarke: “Bye Bye” feels like a companion to The Fall’s “Dr Buck’s Letter.”

Bill Meyer: From The Unutterable? I'll have to a-b them.

Tim Clarke: That’s the one.

Jonathan Shaw: All of these comments make me think of the record’s title, and the repeated line in “The Candy House”: “I want to join the collective.” Which one? The phone on the record’s cover nods toward our various digital collectives — spaces for communication and expression, and spaces for commerce, all of which seem to be harder and harder to tell apart. A candy house, indeed. Why is it pink? Does she have a feminine collective in mind? A feminine collective unconscious? The various voices and lyric modes on the record suggest that's a possibility. For certain women, and for certain men working hard to understand women, Gordon has been a key member of that collective for decades.

Jennifer Kelly: The title is also the title of a painting from her last show in New York.

The holes are cell phone sized.

You can read about the show here, but here's a representative quote: “The iPhone promises freedom, and control over communication,” she says. “It’s an outlet of self-expression, and an escape and a distraction from the bigger picture of what’s going on in the world. It’s also useful for making paintings.”

Gordon is a woman, and a woman over 70 at that — by any measure an underrepresented perspective in popular culture. However, I’d caution against reading The Collective solely as a feminist statement. “I'm a Man,” for instance, is told from the perspective of an incel male, an act of storytelling and empathy not propaganda. My sense is that Gordon is pretty sick of being asked, “What's it like to be a girl in a band?” (per “Sacred Trickster”) and would like, maybe, to be considered as an artist.

It's partly a generational thing. I'm a little younger than she is, but we both grew up in the patriarchy and mostly encountered gender as an external restriction.

As an aside, one of my proudest moments was when Lucas Jensen interviewed me about what it was like to be a freelance music writer, anonymously, and Robert Christgau wrote an elaborate critique of the piece that absolutely assumed I was a guy. If you're not on a date or getting married or booking reproductive care, whose business is it what gender you are?

There, that's a can of worms, isn't it?

Jonathan Shaw: Feminine isn't feminist. I haven't listened nearly closely enough to the record to hazard an opinion about that. More important, it seems to me the masculine must be in the feminine unconsciousness, and the other way around, too. Precisely because femininity has been used as a political weapon, it needs imagining in artistic spaces. Guess I also think those terms more discursively than otherwise: there are male authors who have demonstrated enormous facility with representing femininity. James, Joyce, Kleist, and so on. Gordon has always spoken and sung in ways that transcend a second-wave sort of feminine essence. “Shaking Hell,” “PCH,” the way she sings “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

Jennifer Kelly: Sure, she has always been shape-shifter artistically.

The lyrics are super interesting, but almost obliterated by noise. I’m seeing a connection to our hyperconnected digital society where everything is said but it’s hard to listen and focus.

Bill Meyer: Concrete guy that I am, I’ve found myself wishing I had a lyric sheet even though her voice is typically the loudest instrument in the mix.

Andrew Forell: Yes, that sense of being subsumed in the white noise of (dis)information and opinion feels like the utopian ideal of democratizing access has become a cause and conduit of alienation in which the notion of authentic voices has been rendered moot. It feels integral to the album as a metaphor

Christian Carey: How much of the blurring of vocals (good lyrics — mind you) might involve Kim’s personal biography, I wonder? From her memoirs, we know how much she wished for a deflection of a number of things, most having to do with Thurston and the disbandment of SY.

Thurston was interviewed recently and said that he felt SY would regroup and be able to be professional about things. He remarked that it better be soon: SY at eighty wouldn’t be a good look!

Andrew Forell: And therein lies something essential about why that could never happen

Ian Mathers: I know I’m far in the minority here (and elsewhere) because I’ve just never found Sonic Youth that compelling, despite several attempts over the years to give them another chance. And for specifically finding Thurston Moore to be an annoying vocal presence (long before I knew anything about his personal life, for what it's worth). So, I’m in no hurry to see them reunite, although I do think it would be both funny and good if everyone except Moore got back together.

Having not kept up with Gordon much post-SY beyond reading and enjoying her book, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this record. After a couple of listens, I’m almost surprised how much I like it. Even though I’m lukewarm on SY’s music, she’s always been a commanding vocal presence and lyricist and that hasn’t changed here (I can echo all the praise for “I’m a Man,” and also “I was supposed to save you/but you got a job” is so bathetically funny) and I like the noisier, thornier backing she has here. I also think the parts where the record gets a bit more sparse (“Shelf Warmer”) or diffuse (“Psychic Orgasm”) still work. I've enjoyed seeing all the comparisons here, none of which I thought of myself and all of which makes sense to me. But the record that popped into my head as I listened was Dead Rider’s Chills on Glass. Similar beat focus, “thick”/distorted/noisy/smeared production, declamatory vocals. I like that record a lot, so it's not too surprising I'm digging this one.

Jennifer Kelly: I loved Sonic Youth but have zero appetite for the kind of nostalgia trip, just the hits reunion tour that getting back together would entail.

Jonathan Shaw: Yeah, no thanks to that.

RE Christian's comment: Not sure I see deflection so much as the impossibility of integration. We are all many, many selves, always have been. Digital communications interfaces and social media have just lifted it to another level of experience. Gordon sez, “I don't miss my mind.” Not so much a question of missing it in the emotional/longing sense, more so acknowledging that phrases like “my mind” have always been meaningless. Now we partition experience and identity into all of these different places, and we sign those pieces of ourselves over, to Zuck and the algorithms. We know it. We do it anyways, because it's the candy house, full of sweets and pleasures that aren't so good for us, but are really hard to resist. “Come on, sweets, take my hand...”

Bill Meyer: I would not mind hearing all of those SY songs I like again, can’t lie, although I don’t think that I’d spend Love Earth Tour prices to hear them. But given the water that has passed under the bridge personally, and the length of time since anyone in the band has collaborated creatively (as opposed to managing the ongoing business of Sonic Youth, which seems to be going pretty well), a SY reunion could only be a professionally presented piece of entertainment made by people who have agreed to put aside their personal differences and pause their artistic advancement in order to make some coin. There may be good reasons to prioritize finances. Maybe Thurston and/or Kim wants to make sure that they don’t show up on Coco’s front door, demanding to move their record or art collection into her basement, in their dotage. And Lee’s a man in his late 60s with progeny who are of an age to likely have substantial student loan debt. But The Community is just the kind of thing they’d have to pause. It feels like the work of someone who is still curious, questioning, commenting. It's not just trying to do the right commercial thing.

Justin Cober-Lake: I’m finding this one to be a sort of statement album. I’d stop short of calling it a concept album, but there seems to be a thematic center. I think a key element of the album is the way that it looks for... if not signal and noise, at least a sense of order and comprehensibility in a chaotic world. Gordon isn’t even passing judgment on the world — phones are bad, phones are good, phones make art, etc. But there’s a sense that our world is increasingly brutal, and we hear that not just in the guitars, but in the beats, and the production. “BYE BYE” really introduces the concept. Gordon’s leaving (and we can imagine this is autobiographical), but she’s organizing everything she needs for a new life. “Cigarettes for Keller” is a heartbreaking line, but she moves on, everything that makes up a life neatly ordered next to each other, iBook and medications in the same line. It reminds me of a Hemingway character locking into the moment to find some semblance of control in the chaos.

Getting back to gender, there’s a funny line at the end: one of the last things she packs is a vibrator. I'm not sure if we're to read this as a joke, a comment on the necessity of sexuality in a life full of transitory moments, as a foreshadowing of the concepts we’ve discussed, or something else. The next item (if it’s something different) is a teaser, which could be a hair care product or something sexual (playing off — or with — the vibrator). Everything's called into question: the seriousness of the track, the gender/sexuality ideas, what really matters in life. Modern gadgets, life-sustaining medicines, and sex toys all get equal rank. That tension really adds force to the song.

Coming out of “BYE BYE,” it's easy to see a disordered world that sounds extremely noisy, but still has elements we can comprehend within the noise. I don’t want to read the album reductively and I don't think it's all about this idea, but it's something that, early on in my listening, I find to be a compelling aspect of it.