Rich popular girl
Villain mode
Jazz in the background
Chillin’ after work
Kim Gordon has spent so many decades sounding cooler than the rest of us ever will that by now it feels less like a career and more like a permanent weather system. On her latest single, PLAY ME, she strolls in again with that dry-eyed stare, lights a cigarette somewhere in the listener’s imagination, and lets the room rearrange itself around the beat. The track rides in on heavy bass, 70s-style horn stabs, and an early 90s trip-hop drag that feels loose in the hips and sharp in the teeth.
The title track from the upcoming album understands something a lot of pop music has forgotten while busy polishing its manicure: rhythm can carry attitude better than a thousand guitar heroics. Gordon has always known how to lean into a line until it starts giving off heat, and here her signature sprechstimme glides over the groove with sly control. The lyrics set up a whole little cinema of suggestion and style, full of dim rooms, spring fever, roleplay cool, and the kind of girl who sounds like she’d break your heart, borrow your leather jacket, and leave you feeling strangely grateful for the experience.
That’s where the fun lives. PLAY ME has a pulse shaped for movement, but it also smirks at the whole business of desire, image, youth, and pose. There’s wit in the way it tosses around its references, from hippie ease to after-school daydreams to jazz-on-in-the-background nonchalance, like Gordon is thumbing through American-style debris and finding fresh lipstick marks on all of it. Even the title feels like a dare, a pickup line, and a mild threat.
Directed by Barney Clay, the video unfolds as a series of surveillance-style vignettes set inside a shopping mall, moving from Gordon playing her own version of Where’s Waldo to everyday shoppers drifting up and down escalators, dutifully carrying on with their routines.
Watch PLAY ME below:
The larger record sounds promising for the same reason this track lands so cleanly. Gordon says, “We wanted the songs to be short. We wanted to do it really fast. It’s more focused, and maybe more confident. I always kind of work off of rhythms, and I knew I wanted it to be even more beat-oriented than the last one. Justin really gets my voice and my lyrics and he understands how I work—that came forth even more on this record.” Good. That speed shows. So does the nerve.
If PLAY ME is about the billionaire death-rattle, algorithmic culture slop, and the slow public humiliation of modern civilization, Gordon has chosen the funniest possible way to deliver the news: with a beat you can move to while the empire fumbles for its car keys.
Listen to PLAY ME below. You can pre-order the album here.
Tour Dates:
April 2 – Sid The Cat – Los Angeles, CA
April 11 – Rewire Festival – Den Haag, NL
April 12 – Variations Festival – Nantes, France
April 14 – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire – London, UK
April 15 – Ancienne Belgique – Bruxelles, Belgium
April 17 – Le Trianon – Paris, France
April 19 – Huxley’s Neue Welt – Berlin, Germany
April 20 – A2 – Wroclaw, Poland
April 21 – Progesja – Warsaw, Poland
June 23 – Metro – Chicago, IL
June 24 – First Avenue – Minneapolis, MN
June 25 – Summerfest – Milwaukee, WI
July 23 – Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO
July 25 – Neptune Theatre – Seattle, WA
July 26 – Revolution Hall – Portland, OR
July 27 – Hollywood Theatre – Vancouver, BC
July 29 – The Castro Theatre – San Francisco, CA
Follow Kim Gordon:
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