"And then, I was thinking of doing a record just like starting with voice, because I did this one song that was just kind of a cappella, and I did it for this art piece I did where people could come and play music to go with a voice"
About this Quote
Kim Gordon is describing an impulse that sounds almost casual but is actually a quiet manifesto: strip the song down to the most human, least brandable element, then rebuild it in public. Starting “with voice” isn’t just an aesthetic choice; it’s a way to dodge the overdetermined machinery of rock production and the expectations that trail a legendary name. Voice is raw material and proof of presence. It can’t hide behind pedals, mythology, or “the sound.”
The key detail is the setting: an art piece where “people could come and play music to go with a voice.” That flips the normal hierarchy. Instead of the singer being carried by a band, the band becomes a variable - a crowd-sourced accompaniment orbiting a fixed vocal core. Gordon’s language is almost disarmingly plain, but the subtext is radical: authorship gets loosened, control becomes porous, and the audience isn’t merely consuming; they’re completing the work.
It also lands inside Gordon’s long-running flirtation with the art world’s rules, where a “song” can behave like an installation and participation can be the point. Coming from someone shaped by punk and no-wave skepticism, this is less kumbaya collaboration than a productive kind of destabilization. Let the voice stand there, exposed, and watch what others build around it. The experiment isn’t only sonic; it’s social - a test of how music changes when ownership and arrangement are treated as open questions rather than settled facts.
The key detail is the setting: an art piece where “people could come and play music to go with a voice.” That flips the normal hierarchy. Instead of the singer being carried by a band, the band becomes a variable - a crowd-sourced accompaniment orbiting a fixed vocal core. Gordon’s language is almost disarmingly plain, but the subtext is radical: authorship gets loosened, control becomes porous, and the audience isn’t merely consuming; they’re completing the work.
It also lands inside Gordon’s long-running flirtation with the art world’s rules, where a “song” can behave like an installation and participation can be the point. Coming from someone shaped by punk and no-wave skepticism, this is less kumbaya collaboration than a productive kind of destabilization. Let the voice stand there, exposed, and watch what others build around it. The experiment isn’t only sonic; it’s social - a test of how music changes when ownership and arrangement are treated as open questions rather than settled facts.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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