As a supreme compliment of American culture, cool is rarely conferred upon individual women – except for Kim Gordon, the bassist and co-creator of Sonic Youth. Producer, avant-garde artist, designer of a fashion line for "Cool Moms" – Gordon remains the indie ideal. In reviews of her new memoir, Girl in a Band, writers testify to her cool – "I wanted Kim Gordon's bad-assitude," notes one writer – and then seem disappointed by the book and her life. "We idolized the person we wanted her to be," Ann Friedman reflects yet acknowledges that Gordon "is still really cool, though more like a world-weary older friend." What more can you ask from the cool avatar of your youth? So when Questlove reviews the memoir, he concludes: "She stays cool because she is cool, even when she's not."