The Singles Jukebox

We’re calling it Veterans’ Monday, but this is kinda a debut…

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[6.60]

Megan Harrington: Kim Gordon reminds me of my junior year of college when I started properly partying with the art school kids and how the tiny little edge I’d always had on my peers immediately evaporated when I tried to share air with the freshman girls who’d come from Chicago. I was not as cool as them; wherever they are now I’m still not as cool as them. I could meditate on coolness for the rest of my life and never come close to what they exuded — naturally or effortlessly or by excellent circumstance. This is what Kim Gordon has, an ineffable surfeit of cool. I don’t totally get “Murdered Out” but I get out of its way. 
[7]

Alfred Soto: “Secondhand smoke never goes away,” Kim Gordon coughs, over — apologies to Steve Shelley — the swinging-est beat of her life. The guitars howl with all the rancor they can muster while Gordon maintains an equipoise so thorough that she makes Sarah Cracknell sound like Janis Joplin. Don’t cross her: her thousand-yard stare is the real Death Valley ’69.
[7]

Tim de Reuse: The centerpiece of this song — nah, the entire point of this song — is the way Gordon’s voice strains in and out of key on the chorus like she’s running a marathon with every note. The tone in her voice jigsaw-clicks perfectly into the crackly mess of guitars underneath her, and my god, it’s something gorgeous; frankly, it’s somehow more powerful than I remember her being back when she was doing that whole Sonic Youth thing. The limp, plodding bassline and the bored, lazy drumming barely deserve to be there, but I guess it just wouldn’t be post-punkish enough without ’em, huh?
[8]

Thomas Inskeep: Rock goddess Kim Gordon has finally released her debut solo single at the age of 63. I love the production on this, courtesy of Justin Raisen, mostly known for work with Sky Ferreira and Charli XCX; it sounds kind of synthetic even though the instrumentation here is simply guitar, bass, and drums. Gordon sings about “black matte spray,” as a state of being. Even after reading her explanation, I’m not sure what she means, but this sounds kinda trashy-great. 
[7]

Olivia Rafferty: Gordon talked about the concept of “black matte spray,” using it as a symbol of corporate rejection, or personal annihilation. But she wants to go further than darkness — it’s getting “murdered out” of someone’s heart, to not just be evicted, but literally destroyed to the point of oblivion. The refrain swirls around like a galactic anomaly, terrifying when “turn me on” fluctuates by the semitone, as if it’s about to be sucked down a black hole.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: The metaphor that’s written is spray paint, but the metaphor I hear is more like sandblasting: the nozzle aimed directly at the wound, steady and blank, until you decide you’ve suffered enough.
[8]

Jonathan Bradley: *Extremely 1996 voice* The future of rock music is ELECTRONICA!
[5]

Claire Biddles: So you’re telling me that after years of quietly tolerating indie dudes droning on about the dullest band of the ’90s, there’s now a possibility that I’ll have to quietly tolerate indie dudes droning on about the solo projects of the dullest band of the ’90s?
[1]

Jibril Yassin: Kim Gordon is by no means a conventional vocalist and her best moments in Sonic Youth and Body/Head gleefully took advantage of that. It’s an approach that has not changed on her first solo single, but “Murdered Out” sounds so tuneful; the vertigo and noise recall Sonic Youth in their prime but industrial meets L.A. garage too.
[8]

Anthony Easton: An aesthetic proposal, and one where the lyric conceit (black matte spray as a metaphor for all that is made deliberately invisible, that which refuses to be seen, an anti flash) and the musical effort (those guitars which make the lyrics impossible) have a grinding sameness. Not her best work, but clever and beautiful, and it made me go back and listen to Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star.
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