BYE BYE 25!
Kim Gordon released “BYE BYE 25!,” a remake of “BYE BYE” from her critically acclaimed second
solo
album, The Collective. Proceeds from the sale of “BYE BYE 25!”, both song and t-shirt, will be
donated to NOISE
FOR NOW. Both
“BYE BYE” and The Collective were nominated for GRAMMYs at the 2025
ceremony.
Of “BYE BYE 25!,” Gordon says:
(Producer and collaborator) Justin Raisen had this idea to redo 'Bye Bye' starting at the end
of
the song. When I was thinking of lyric ideas, it occurred to me to use words taken from a
site
that had all the words that Trump has essentially banned, meaning any grant or piece of a
project or proposal for research that includes any of those words would be immediately
disregarded or “cancelled.” I guess Trump does believe in cancel culture because he is
literally
trying to cancel culture.
The song is accompanied by a video directed by Vice Cooler and Kim Gordon.
Trump has used the term “cancel culture” not only as a political talking point but also as a dog
whistle while weaponizing the term to signal support for white grievance politics, traditional
gender roles, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and hostility toward racial justice movements — without
always
saying those things outright.
Some of the words Gordon speaks in “BYE BYE 25!” that have begun to disappear under Trump's
agenda
include:
ADVOCATE
CLIMATE CHANGE
FEMALE
HISPANIC
IMMIGRANTS
INTERSEX
MALE-DOMINATED
MENTAL HEALTH
NON-CONFORMING
TRAUMA
UTERUS
VICTIM
WOMEN
Among the organizations that have been targeted by the Administration's policies include
Centers
for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office
of
Personnel Management (OPM), National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Defense (DoD),
Small
Business Administration, National Cryptologic Museum and NASA.
This year saw Kim Gordon release her highly acclaimed and envelope pushing second solo album, The Collective. The album garnered praise from fans and critics alike with New York Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, VOGUE, Vulture, and many more all already calling it one of the best albums of 2024. Today, the digital deluxe edition of The Collective has been released via Matador, along with the announcement of a physical deluxe edition set for release on December 13 via Matador. The limited edition, deluxe version of the vinyl record includes a 7” with the 2 bonus tracks housed in the LP sleeve and is pressed on silver vinyl.
Musician and visual artist Kim Gordon has released “Bangin' on the Freeway”, a bonus track
from the digital deluxe version of her
second solo album The Collective, which is out now on Matador.
Recorded in Gordon's native Los Angeles, The Collective follows her 2019 full-length debut No
Home Record and continues her collaboration with producer Justin Raisen (Lil Yachty,
John
Cale, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Charli XCX, Yves Tumor), with additional production from Anthony Paul
Lopez.
The album advances their joint world building, with Raisin's damaged, blown out dub and trap
constructions playing the foil to Gordon's intuitive word collages and hooky mantras, which
conjure
communication,
commercial sublimation and sensory overload.
A video for "Psychedelic Orgasm", directed by Kim Gordon and musician/filmmaker/producer Vice
Cooler is out now. With its quick cuts and upside down tableaus of desiccated pumpkins,
giant inflatables and shopping mall escalators, the Los Angeles-set clip is as disorienting as
“Psychedelic Orgasm” itself.
Gordon will play six live
shows around The Collective's arrival, beginning March 21st in Burlington, Vermont.
There was a space in Kim Gordon's No Home Record. It might not have been a
home and it might not have been a record, but I seem to recall there was a space.
Boulevards, bedrooms, instruments were played, recorded, the voice and its
utterances, straining a way through the rhythms and the chords, threaded in some
shared place, we met there, the guitar came too, there fell a peal of cymbals, driving
on the music. We listened, we turned our back to the walls, slithered through the city
at night. Kim Gordon's words in our ears, her eyes, she saw, she knew, she
remembered, she liked. We were moving somewhere. No home record. Moving.
Now I'm listening to The Collective. And I'm thinking, what has been done to this
space, how has she treated it, it's not here the same way, not quite. I mean, not at
all. On this evidence, it splintered, glittered, crashed and burned. It's dark here. Can I
love you with my eyes open? It's Dark Inside. Haunted by synthesised voices
bodiless. Planes of projections. Mirrors get your gun and the echo of a well-known
tune, comes in liminal, yet never not hanging around, part of the atmosphere, fading
in and out, like she says - Grinding at the edges. Grinding at us all, grinding us away.
Hurting, scraping. Sediments, layers, of recorded emissions, mined, twisted,
refracted. That makes the music. This shimmering, airless geology, agitated,
quarried, cries made in data, bounced down underground tunnels, reaching our ears.
We recalled it — but not as a memory, more like how you recall a product, when it's
flawed.
She sings “Shelf Warmer” so it sounds like shelf life, it sounds radioactive, inside our
relationships, juddering, the beats chattering, edgy, the pain of love in the gift shop,
assembled in hollow booms, in scratching claps. Non-reciprocal gift giving, there is a
return policy. But - novel idea — A hand and a kiss. How about that. Disruption.
I would say that Kim Gordon is thinking about how thinking is, now. Conceptual
artists do that, did that. “I Don't Miss My Mind.” The record opens with a list, but the list
is under the title “BYE BYE.” The list says milk thistle, dog sitter…. And much more.
e She's leaving. Why is the list anxious? How divisive is mascara? It's on the list. I am
packing, listening to the list. Is it mine, or hers.
She began seeking images from behind her closed eyes. Putting them to music. But
I need to keep my eyes open as I walk the streets, with noise cancelled by the
airbuds rammed in my ears. quiet, aware, quiet, aware, they chant at me. What
could be going through Kim's head as she goes through mine?
— Written by English artist Josephine Pryde
Photo by Danielle Neu
Photo by Danielle Neu