Grimes/Claire Boucher thread

speaking of Kate Bush, The Dreaming is the album i keep thinking of. an incredible female artist wresting control away from fan and music industry expectations after breaking through, and coming out with something intricate and personal and reflective on the creative process itself.

Artangels, the track, reminded me of Annie

Broke into a Lorde-esque dinosaur dance walking down the street yesterday following the drop in "World Princess, Pt II".

On a few more listens I like it more but don't love it. I find all the chipmunked vocals to be an odd choice (although so heavily used that she obviously has something in mind with them), and I miss the breathier, almost slipping away from you sound of her earlier vocals (which were still present on the demo Realiti but not the album Realiti). I actually do like the album Realiti more than I did at first, but still prefer the demo -- the album version is squarer, like a club remix.

So, I'm thinking after a few listens, that this is less consistent than Visions, but the highlights are better than those on Visions.

I also think the vocals are what made it hardest for me to accept at first, because her singing -- the part of the music we probably most identify with most artists -- just sounds so DIFFERENT than it did on the last record.

this album has a really obnoxious title but it's pretty good yeah

Had a series of dreams just now where she released the album a capella for fans to remix as a sort of contest — never found out what the prize was. In any case, I was able to hear 'Realiti' a capella in bits and pieces and it was just heaven.

Still haven't had a complete listen but I'm liking it more after hearing it a friend's car and in piecemeal at home. It definitely feels made to play at festivals, can't get that image out of my head during most of the tracks.

Venus Fly is a jam btw.

attempted to lisen to this on my commute but i downloaded a copy with awful dj drops and had to stop halfway :-[

but based on that limited shitty experience, worried this album won't be all that i was hoping it would be

this kinda sounds like good pc music in a hyperrealised pop by outsider way

albeit more emotive + less depersonalised

the chipmunk thing is less obnoxious here at least

I bet this whole album is good, but I just keep restarting the flesh without blood through artangels run of songs

yeah i'm having a hard time getting through this for the same reason. i did jump ahead and listen to the new version of realiti.

for me the biggest highs are on Pin and Butterfly. Pin is one of the shorter songs on the album, but it is just so intricately layered, emotive, and most of all cathartic. I agree that there is definitely a big PC music influence on this, kind of combined with Ray of Light era Madonna, and everything in between.

where the fuck did this "PC music influence" come from and can we please excise that from any future discussion regarding this album tyvm

^^^

yeah, i don't hear PC music in this

So... Is this the first time pitchfork has ever apologized to an artist for being an asshole?

it comes off more as a hasty aside than an explicit statement so i demand more

I think I can hear some PC music in this, the way she sounds like some sort of demented cheerleader sometimes and the saturated arrangements here and there but this album isn't really parodying bubblegum pop it seems like there's some genuine admiration for it, hence it's quite the opposite of PC music.

Pitchfork's like "sorry we mocked you, but this album isn't better than your debut"

"demented cheerleader" is some kind of backhanded compliment isn't it

"demented cheerleader" is some kind of backhanded compliment isn't it

― j. winters (josh)

No, didn't meant it as an insult!

Regarding the Pitchfork review: odd they didn't mention the lyrics of California at all since it's a hate track dedicated to them.

Grimes has talked at length about absorbing aa load ofJ-pop (and K-pop) in the run up to this and I think this is one of those moments when we can probably take the artist at their word rather than reaching for the first reference point at hand. Most of the things this album sounds like existed before PC Music and any similarities between the two are likely to be because PC Music is almost entirely built out of self-conscious reference points.

Classic young person's "let us compare the thing that came before to the thing that came after" move.

Kill V Maim sounds like Daphne and Celeste if they were actually allowed to commit extreme anime violence on people instead of just playground taunts.

But now I want to live in an alternate universe where Grimes produces Daphne & Celeste's comeback album, instead of Max Tundra.

It's pretty hard to get pfork editors to agree to an 8.5 so I don't think that should be taken as a relative diss or anything.

"Easily" getting all the feels here right now. Weightless reverie, that gleaming Kraftwerk vibe I loved in Visions.

The song is Boucher eating the lunch that Miley packed, may it be #blessed with infinite stadium-EDM remixes.

What the fuck does this sentence even mean

It's a little hard to get excited about a celebrity's media resentment as a theme.

Funnily enough, I really relate (and I suspect a whole bunch of women will relate, too) to lyrics themes of: "Hey, you've been expressing your ~opinions~ on me for a couple of years now. Well, now. Here's my opinion: I don't particularly like you much, either."

I don't think it matters if she's talking about Pitchfork in particular or the Male Gaze in general. It's just a super-relatable sentiment and I love the way she's expressed it.

fair point and seems OTM. A line that bothers me a little though is "it's nice that you like me/but only conditionally" -- fan/media love is by nature conditional. That's the beast.

Did pfork actually call her a "human tumblr"? I can't find that in any article/review.

Although tbf the sentiment fits into a line of capital A Artists in pop/rock/folk that probably goes back at least to the 70s, where part of the fan experience is rejecting that (consumerist?) conditional love paradigm, because the artist represents something about selfhood and individuality and we reaffirm that by accepting even changes in the artist that may not initially suit our taste at the moment.

It's pretty hard to get pfork editors to agree to an 8.5 so I don't think that should be taken as a relative diss or anything.

― Tim F, Tuesday, November 10, 2015 4:03 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah an 8.5 def codes as a dissapointment given the hype for this album. two weeks ago i was sure it wouldve been AOTY

still sounds like a 7.8 to me :'-(

xxp Dylan was Judas in '66 iirc. and that narrative is pretty old and boring, but it's a narrative that's part of good tunes in this case.

I definitely didn't expect a score lower than 9.0 from pfork, just because of how they hyped it up.

Not that I care that much what they rate it; just find it interesting.

8.5 is also what Pitchfork gave Joanna Newsom's latest.

It's also the same score they gave that fucking Tobias Jesso Jr. album.

how many 9.0s or higher do they give out? I can't recall seeing many for new music in 2015

Looks like Deafheaven got one. Tame Impala got a 9.3 lol gtfo.

They've given a few 9's this year.
9.0 to Deafheaven.
9.3 to Kendrick Lamar, Sufjan Stevens, Tame Impala, and Jamie XX.

This is literally the most boring conversation it is possible to have about this album.

Heard it got three and a half carp in Angling Times this month as well. Backlash?

But anyway, back to the music. . .

they dinged it for not having enough critic bait xp

Sod pfork. I want to live inside this album.

Whenever I have a look two dozen more comparisons have been made, this album is all and no pop. And I love how badass and defiant she is throughout. Visions was great but this album just makes me so HAPPY