Grimes - Oblivion

Bad photoshop, or blatant eye trick? Grimes is mysterious like that.

Grimes is an eccentric in an age where the word means nothing. An age where a rapper can get an ice cream tattoo on his face or wear a kilt and a hoodie with blatant religious imagery on it to a hurricane Sandy concert. Where artists mask themselves, use dopplegangers for concerts they don't feel like going to, and hide from the public for a long time, Grimes is both totally open and wonderfully enigmatic. She looks like one of the Russian ballerinas with the striking features bordering on manly, but she's still very much a girl. She would blend in perfectly as a Japanese or Korean K-pop star with her outfits and general cute demeanor, but as quirky as she is, she also likes to keep it real. She's also pretty funny, and keeps the public updated on her general quirkiness through Twitter and her blog.

inside the ancient sacred hindu cave i went into today there was also a massive poster of justin bieber
— Grimes the elf (@Grimezsz) March 11, 2013

now that kim kardashian is carrying the spawn of god who will marry blue ivy to create of the Kwisatz Haderach, i kind of like her
— Grimes the elf (@Grimezsz) January 1, 2013

She also attempted to be Nicolas Cage on Twitter, which leads me to believe she's either in cahoots with 4 Chan or she knows how to cater to them. Either way, Grimes is all of the above, and also happens to make amazing electronic music. It's rare for an artists music to escape their persona, which is an unfortunate truth. People don't judge Chris Brown on his music, they judge him on his antics. Either way he's shitty, but at least if he was judged solely on his music we could have a legit reason to shun the art rather than the artist and the art together. It's the same with Kanye West. Most people, unless you're a soccer mom on Yahoo who only listens to Shania Twain, knows what Kanye has done, and continues to do for music. Yet, from Swfitgate to his impregnation of Kim Kardashian, so many stupid people judge the artist on his personal life rather than his music (or maybe I read too many comments by ignorant rednecks and soccer moms on Yahoo articles). That isn't to say an artists personal life doesn't affect their music, it definitely does a lot. But we must separate the noise form the sound.

She also loves Dune which is just cool in general.

That's whats cool about Grimes. Beyond all her strange style choices and quirky characteristics, she's mainly known for the music, and for the great songs. That's always an admirable trait for an artist, and rare enough too. Even legends like Michael Jackson, Elvis, and The Beatles have something else come to mind first before the music in many cases. With all that being said, I have spent the last 3 paragraphs speaking on everything but Grimes' music, so let's do just that. She has a lot of great songs to pick from, but for today's Track Genius, I'll focus on the track "Oblivion" off of the album Visions.

With her signature sampling and spacey synthesizers, Oblivion encapsulates everything that is good about Grimes' music. It's all at once complicated and nuanced, while still being very accessible and simply structured. It's the closest Grimes has gotten to the instantly appealing dream-pop aesthetics most associate with her strangeness, but her back-catalog is much deeper and more abstract. The video is all at once strange and comforting as Grimes dances around in 2 Canadian stadiums during a football game and a motocross rally. At once she is among shirtless frat boys who seem to be soaking up the attention of the camera . A candid moment occurs when an individual realizes he's about to walk past the camera and Grimes signals for him to move on, continuing to lip-sync. It's very organic and quite funny. She mentioned in a Pitchfork interview that the video was about "art giving me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can't be, and part of it was asserting this abstract female power in these male-dominated arenas—the video is somewhat about objectifying men. Not in a disrespectful way, though" and in an interview with Spin, she revealed that the song is about "going into this masculine world that is associated with sexual assault, but presented as something really welcoming and nice. The song's sort of about being—I was assaulted and I had a really hard time engaging in any types of relationship with men, because I was just so terrified of men for a while". Even when the message is clearly given by the artist, it still doesn't completely define the music, and in this case, leaves everything more to interpretation. The whole feel of the track and video is of innocence and nighttime adventures, while Grimes warns of the dangers of dark excursions in her airy falsetto. It's both ominous and equally comforting, as she lovingly says to the listener "see you on a dark night" as if she actually will timidly approach you under a single lamppost and tell you everything is alright. Maybe only in a dream, but its still a nice thought. The pop indulgences mixed with the characteristic style of Grimes makes this a wonderful, dream like song.

Grimes, shown here looking particularly clean.

For all that can be said about the quirkiness of Grimes, or of her future of her as an artist, there's one thing for sure. No one is making music like her, and if they are, they aren't making it anywhere near as well as she is. So Grimes, continue to be strange and enchant us all with your fairy-like persona. Continue to play great live shows and let everyone know that you are awesome. The influences of Mariah Carey, Kanye, Left-Eye, Akira, Dune, and Werner Herzog, all combine into something totally fresh and cool.

Obligatory Terry Richardson mention* (But seriously he hasn't done a photo shoot with her, it's amazing)

If she got one thing right, it's that Grimes is the Nicolas Cage of music. A singular voice that wants to make you happy, but ultimately gives 0 fucks about any opinion or tidbit of information that pervades their enclosed utopias. Doing everything their way, and letting people enjoy the art is an important facet of any genre of music or any medium really. Thankfully, Grimes blowing up on the internet lets her do that on her own terms. Let's just hope she doesn't go the way that ol' Nic Cage did.

As always, enjoy and spread the love. Peace.