"Art Angels" by Grimes

Claire Elise Boucher who goes by the stage name Grimes, was born in Vancouver, Canada. Grimes first started experimenting with music while she attended McGill University in Montreal.She first signed on to Arbutus Records and released two albums through them and later signed a secondary contract with 4AD and released her third studio album to critical acclaim, even winning a Juno award for electronic album of the year.She released her fourth album “Art Angels” to more acclaim and it is her highest charting album in the United States. Grimes music is a mesh together of many musical genres including synth-pop, ambient, and electro R&B. Grimes inspirations vary as well including Marilyn Manson, Mariah Carey, Lana Del Rey, and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.

“Art Angels” released in November of 2015 digitally and physically released in December. The album sold 11,000 copies within its first week of release and was Grimes highest charting album that she’s released. Grimes theme in her musical lyrics is usually darker but she pairs it with an upbeat tempo which gives it a fun and strangely sad feel to each song. The album is her most marketable album and yet her least personal, leading many critics to say she lost some of what made her sounds so alien in comparison to mainstream pop.

The second track on Grimes album is called “California” and it is a hate track towards the music website Pitchfork as they have made various misinterpretations of her words, stating that she hates a lot of her own songs and such. A lyric that best shows this is the line “The things they see in me, I cannot see myself, When you get bored of me, I’ll be back on the shelf” meaning the websites interpretation of her does not relate to her own interpretation of herself. Another song with notable meaning to it was a song she did with American recording artist Janelle Monáe called “Venus Fly”. The song is about Grimes dislike of being objectified, using lyrics such as “Wrap my curls all around the world, Throw my pearls all across the floor” she takes symbols of beauty like curly hair and pearls and uses them as weapons. The lyrics “Why you looking at me now? Why you looking at me again? What if I pulled my teeth?Cut my hair underneath my chin.” Ask if people would still look at her if she wasn’t society’s standard of beauty, or if they truly did view her as an object and look away.

Grimes had one music video paired with her album which was for the songs “Flesh Without Blood” and “Life in The Vivid Dream”. The music video starts off with Grimes showing off a bunch of characters while dancing to the funner and more upbeat song “Flesh Without Blood”. She is seen in various costumes portraying various personas of herself and showing how multifaceted people can be.The video is cut into two parts for each song and “Life in the Vivid Dream” is a much darker song and has a much darker video to go with it. In the second half of the video Grimes is shown to be killing off her other persona as if she was getting rid of a part of herself that contradicted with another more darker part.

Overall the album had a synth-pop feel with ethereal touches contributed by her use of layering vocal tracks. My personal favorites and recommendations to listen to would be “Art Angels”, “Venus Fly”, and “Butterfly”.