MANCHESTER, England (AP) — New Manchester United goalkeeper Senne Lammens was in the starting lineup for the first time for the Premier League game against Sunderland on Saturday, while $84 million forward Matheus Cunha was dropped.
Following the loss to Brentford last week, coach Ruben Amorim's changes paid off when United won at Old Trafford 2-0 through goals from Mason Mount and Benjamin Sesko.
Lammens, a $24.7 million signing from Royal Antwerp on transfer deadline day, kept a clean sheet on debut and earned United's first shut out of the season.
Cunha, a summer signing from Wolves, was named only on the bench against Sunderland, while Amad Diallo and Mount were recalled. Mount responded by giving United an early lead with a goal in the eighth minute.
United's troubled start to the season has increased speculation over Amorim's position. United had lost three of its six league games and was knocked out of the English League Cup by fourth-tier Grimsby.
Victory helped to ease the pressure on Amorim ahead of the international break.
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Manchester United's goalkeeper Senne Lammens reacts during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Sunderland at Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, England, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)
Manchester United's goalkeeper Senne Lammens stands on the pitch prior to start of the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Chelsea at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, England, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)
NEW YORK (AP) — Ten years ago, Kim Gordon — a revolutionary force in the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, the ’80s New York no wave scene and the space between art and noise — debuted solo music. At the time, she was already decades into a celebrated, mixed-medium creative career.
The midtempo “Murdered Out” was her first single, where clangorous, overdubbed guitars met the unmistakable rasp of her deadpan intonations. It was a surprise from an experimentalist well-versed in the unexpected: The song took inspiration from Los Angeles car culture, and its main collaborator was the producer Justin Raisen, then best known for his pop work with Sky Ferreira and Charli XCX. Their partnership has continued in the decade since, and on March 13, Gordon will drop her third solo album, “Play Me,” announced Wednesday alongside the release of a hazy, transcendent single, “Not Today.”
“It was a happy accident,” she says of her continued work with Raisen. “In the beginning, I was somewhat skeptical of working with a producer and collaborator, really. But it’s turned out to be incredibly freeing.”
“Play Me” follows Gordon's critically lauded, beat-heavy 2024 album “The Collective,” a noisy body of work that featured oddball trap blasts. It earned her two Grammy nominations — a career first — for alternative music album and alternative music performance. Those were for the song “Bye Bye,” with its eerie, dissonant beat originally written for rapper Playboi Carti. For “Play Me,” Gordon reimagined the track for the closer, “Bye Bye 25!” She says it was the result of her thinking about the rap world, where revisiting and remixing is commonplace.
“I came up with the idea of using these words that Trump had sort of ‘banned’ in his mind,” she says of the new song's lyrics. (An example: “Injustice / Opportunity / Dietary guidelines / Housing for the future.” President Donald Trump’s administration associates the terms with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which it has vowed to root out across the government.) For Gordon, because it became “more conceptual … the remake doesn’t seem as anxiety-provoking as the original.”
There is a connective spirit between “The Collective” and “Play Me” — a shared confrontation, propulsive production and songs that possess a keen ability to process and reflect the world around Gordon. “It does feel kind of like an evolution,” she says of this album next to her last. “It’s sort of a more focused record, and immediate.” The songs are shorter and attentive.
Or, to put it more simply: “I like beats and that inspires me more than melodies,” she says. “Beats and space.”
That palette drives “Play Me,” a foundation in which staccato lyricism transforms and offers astute criticism. Consider the title track, which challenges passive listening and the devaluation of music in the age of streaming. She names Spotify playlist titles, imagined genres defined by mood rather than music. “Rich popular girl / Villain mode” she speak-sings, “Jazz and background / Chillin' after work.”
“It's just representative of, you know, this era we're in, this culture of convenience,” she says. “Music always represented a certain amount of freedom to me, and it feels like that’s kind of been blanketed over.”
Sonically, it is a message delivered atop a '70s groove, placing it in conversation with an era unshackled from these digital technologies.
The title, too, “is playing off the sort of passive nature of listening to music,” she says, “But also it could be seen as defiant. Like, I dare you to play me.”
There's also the blown-out “Subcon,” which examines the world's growing billionaire class and their fascination with space colonialization in a period of economic insecurity. In the song, Gordon's lyrical abstractions highlight the absurdity, taking aim at technocrats.
“I find reality inspirational, no matter how bad it is,” she says. Where some artists might veer away from the news, Gordon tackles truth. “I’m not sure what music is supposed to be. So, I’m just doing my version of it.”
In the end, she hopes listeners are “somewhat thrilled by” the album.
“'This is the music that I’ve wanted to hear,’ kind of feeling. Does that sound egotistical? I don’t know,” she laughs. If it is, it is earned.
1. “Play Me”
2. “Girl with a Look”
3. “No Hands”
4. “Black Out”
5. “Dirty Tech”
6. “Not Today”
7. “Busy Bee”
8. “Square Jaw”
9. “Subcon”
10. “Post Empire”
11. “Nail Bitter”
12. “Bye Bye 25!”
Kim Gordon poses for a portrait in New York on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)
Kim Gordon poses for a portrait in New York on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)
Kim Gordon poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, in New York (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)
