Kurt Cobain

During her three decades in Sonic Youth, Kim Gordon helped redefine the possibilities of rock & roll, from her unsettling voice and subway-rumble bass playing to the way she integrated her feminism and art-school background into the band’s lyrics and philosophy. Today, Gordon is pondering another road ahead as she prepares to tour behind her second post-Sonic Youth solo album, The Collective (out March 8 on Matador). “The band is really great,” she says, “but the hardest thing is all the decisions you have to make…

The official title of the opera making its U.S. premiere next week is Last Days. But Matt Copson, who co-directed it and also wrote its libretto, knows everyone will call it something else: the Kurt Cobain opera. “That’s fine,” Copson says, “I’m up for that. It’s not about that, of course. But that’s an interesting entryway into the whole thing.” In a somber reminder of how time flies, this April marks the 30th anniversary of Cobain’s death. It’s too soon to say how that day will be commemorated, although…

Someday we’ll move past the point where you can spend half an hour pumping out an AI video and generate headlines. Sadly, we’re not there yet. The latest piece of refuse from the AI hype machine comes in the form of an unauthorized, “AI-generated” George Carlin comedy special—one that practically no one, not even people involved with it, seems to like. It was apparently made without permission from the late comedian’s family or any semblance of good taste, but here’s the best part: it’s not even clear how much of the…

If there’s one thing aging nu-metal rap-rockers Limp Bizkit are not, it’s subtle. Naturally, that applies to their recent foray into deep fake videos as well. Last month, the band responsible “Nookie,” “Break Stuff,” and the popularization of Dickies shorts released a video for their song song “Out of Style,” where each of the band members’ faces are replaced with a powerful world leader. Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kin Jung Un, Joe Biden, and Volodymyr Zelensky are, and a hot-dog-wielding Tom Cruise all featured in the…

Image: EXO-6, Cellutane, and BandaiWelcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of the coolest toys around on the internet. This week: Star Trek’s 1/6 figure line goes to Deep Space Nine, the hottest anime of the season gets a hot new figure, and sit back and relax Pokémon style. Check it out!Image: EXO-6EXO-6 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Quark Sixth-Scale FigureThe latest addition to EXO-6's Star Trek line tackles its first major alien addition to the series: Deep Space Nine’s beloved, irascible Ferengi bar manager,…