Grimes/Claire Boucher thread

I get the sense that this is meant to be listened to on large speakers as loud as possible

Ok I'm listening to this now despite all my resolutions not to and it's not terrible sounding at all? Sounds like grimes. I'm about halfway through and really wish there were stronger hooks, but production-wise its Grimes doing what she does best. Five years on from Art Angels though, I think it confirms that I'm just not that into her anymore. Like, my interest in her style has definitely passed.

starting to think that while ol’ grimey has a skill for tunes and visual aesthetics she might not be the brightest bulb

hm pic.twitter.com/QxbAOUJmZc

— large sarah the size of a small sarah (@SarahNEmerson) February 21, 2020

She did a Q&A on twitch today as Ocarina_of_Grimes, it was pretty rough going.

This is almost impressively forgettable. Everything about it feels uninspired. Be cool if there were some hooks, not a lot to hold onto here besides some flimsy sounding production work that seems well below her talents. And I don’t really care if it’s an intentional Bold Aesthetic Decision if the result is this boring.

I’ve always dug We Appreciate Power but I guess that’s not even on the album proper.

People are complaining about the guitars but honestly so many people have been recoding guitars so badly for so long now that I dunno why you'd single Grimes out here?

That organ sound at the beginning of UDORU though fucking hell.

This does sound good in general on big speakers though. A lot of it sounds like it was made from reclaimed sounds from 1999 bargain bins though, made explicit when it lurches into drum and bass midway through, plus all those moody beats and processed guitars. I kinda like that about it though, and she's bringing enough new to the table that it's not just big Sneaker Pimps energy.

it's really just "delete forever" where the guitars stick out horribly, it's not just that they're badly recorded but they don't sonically fit with everything else which is worse than if everything is badly recorded but in a way that's at least cohesive. i tend to dislike her vocals and some of the drum and synth sounds more on other tracks, but there's also tracks that hold together well like "so heavy i felt through the earth".

the rest of the guitar sounds aren't that bad but aren't particularly good either (except "so heavy i fell through the earth" where they do their job). i think i'd like it more if the guitar sounds committed more to rocking i guess, like "we appreciate power" worked a lot better than most of these tracks while "my name is dark" and "you'll miss me when i'm not just around" just kinda plod along

Might start telling people that's Elon Musk playing the Wonderwall guitar on Delete Forever.

Odds of that are maybe 50/50. What drugs do you think they’re ripping? I think this is a drug album but I’m not sure which drug.

'Violence' and 'Idoru' are highlights, 'My Name Is Dark' as well maybe. The rest just kind of lazily drones on and doesn't leave much of an impression.

I thought "Flesh Without Blood" and "Kill V. Maim" were supreme jams, but nothing else I've heard from her has made any impression. Should I bother with the new one?

it’s a nootropics album

Lol brad touché what I meant was an ultimate stylistic dead end for the sort of highlighted artificiality aesthetic

it’s also interesting to think about some of the discourse here as a case study for how poptimism can force an artificial equivalency between corporate marketing and artistic intent

it’s a nootropics album

what does that mean, exactly? music for people who take nootropics?

-insert obvious spacemen 3 joke here-

it’s an album for people who post on nootropics message boards maybe lol

Album whips ass

does it?

But does it whip a camel’s ass?

sorry, llama’s

I’m suspecting that BNM was payola.

boy, the last few paragraphs of that review are really… something

I guess if Grimes is going to announce a big “concept,” she’s inviting that kind of discourse in response... but oof

I'm pretty happy to listen to this music without ever considering some goofy concept

Me too (well I haven’t listened to it yet), but apparently the net worth of the man she’s dating is relevant info for an album review!

I’m suspecting that BNM was payola.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Saturday, February 22, 2020 2:55 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the album is getting fairly widespread acclaim (accurately scored, because it's good) so idk...i mean ILM has been the one place i've seen more negative than positive comments. it sounds consistent w/her career trend and while at this point it's no art angels it's also pretty interesting and detailed in ways that i picked up more on vinyl than when i streamed it yesterday.

i think there were those who were disappointed w/her pop move a few years ago and this is moving back towards Visions but in a bleaker way which i find pretty compelling, so i'm not surprised it pleases a lot of those folks (at least several i've talked to IRL who maybe were slightly put off by AA).

They also named who King Krule is dating in that review.

the meandering Moodles mentioned is one of its pluses

I don't think BNM is worth paying for anymore

“It’s a lament about the ways in which women are domesticated through patriarchal forms of control. “Specifically how when a dude cums inside you, you become in their thrall,” she said in an April 2019 interview, alluding to her relationship with Musk, who is now thought to be the father of her expected child.”

Best/worst part of that Pfork review.

pretty sure that’s weird MRA shit recycled ironically but.. not ironically? getting strong overtones of that Simpsons scene with the kids not knowing if they’re being ironic anymore

i like it more than AA overall tho best of AA are some of my fav songs of hers

i think there were those who were disappointed w/her pop move a few years ago and this is moving back towards Visions but in a bleaker way which i find pretty compelling, so i'm not surprised it pleases a lot of those folks (at least several i've talked to IRL who maybe were slightly put off by AA).

I am one of those folks but at least Art Angels achieved what it set out to do. Miss Anthropocene sounds unpleasantly awkward to my ears, barring the couple of tracks I singled out upthread, so while the aesthetic sidestep is welcome, the songwriting has gone downhill.

Album whips ass

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Saturday, February 22, 2020 3:39 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

finally someone is otm

otm

Songs are great, best vocals and treatments I think she's done yet, love love love the singles and IDORU, the production/mixing/compression is quite shit. Thought it would get fixed for the official release, but it wasn't. However, so the production from every single Tyler the Creater album is shit. Most every early to mid µ-ziq record has tons of analog distortion all over the place. So does Aphex Twin's I Care Because You Do. The compression and mixing of Kendrick Lamar/Mike Will's DNA is also jank. My point is that the album is still good, despite the shite mixing. I'll just refrain from listening to it on my nicer headphones and blast it in the car more instead.

there isn't anything on those records that sounds as awkward as the guitar & vocals on "delete forever" or the synths on "idoru" among many other things

art angels didn't have the most polished production in the world but the tracks still felt sonically cohesive enough and she largely made her vocal approach work. miss anthropocene feels shambolic in comparison

one track that hasn't gotten much discussion so far is "before the fever" which i think is actually pretty cool.

My biggest criticism is I wish it was longer

I can’t relate to anything ufo is saying, it’s like I read the words but they’re detached from any meaning I could readily apply to this album

Like, “shambolic”?? This is her most polished album

I am going to relisten w the mixing concerns in mind. I will admit it did share some feeling that the mix doesn’t feel quite as enveloping as it could. But not substantially difft than earlier stuff ... feel like better mixing would only increase ppl criticizing the “guitar sound” or whatever it is bc it reminds them of some distant pop song they were forced to hear

"idoru" and "delete forever" sound polished??? this album pretty universally has her worst-sounding vocals too

the guitar sound on "delete forever" doesn't particularly remind me of anything it just sounds bad. i get the "wonderwall" comparison but that's not about the way it's recorded or anything, if that's what you're referring to.

lol what's with the scare quotes around "guitar sound"

hello Mr. Guitar....if that is your real name

this album pretty universally has her worst-sounding vocals too

Wow, agree to massively disagree on this point. These are her best vocals I've heard on anything she's done. One of the things I disliked about her last was how she utilized her voice creatively and texturally and that it just wasn't to my subjective preferences.

Another thing - while we might be complaining about the mixing to death here, I mentioned those other records above because while some of them sound even worse than this record, like Tyler's last couple, and even Earl Sweatshirt's last one, they never got the scrutiny this is getting. It's like everyone's just trying to find something wrong with it so they can justify their dislike of Grimes now.

I'm kinda done with Earl but yeah sounds like shit

i did hate the way the last tyler album sounded (though i had no real problems with flower boy) but that at least felt like a deliberate stylistic choice rather than sounding as amateurish and unpolished as some of the tracks on this.

it's not all bad though, "so heavy", "4aem" and "before the fever" all sound fine.

based on what a lot of ppl itt who had heard it ahead of time were saying I was steeling myself for the possibility that maybe it was some sort of incompetent tuneless mess but I just don’t hear it at all, I hear it as a very accomplished and natural sounding follow up to her previous work and I think a lot of the negative discourse around the album (here but also elsewhere and in the twitterverse) really is related to extracurricular stuff. I’m not singling anyone specific out nor am I saying this is why everyone is criticizing it but the consensus in this thread does not jibe with this album whatsoever imo.

my disappointment really has nothing to do with the extracurricular stuff, i was really hoping it would be great despite all that but she didn't deliver. i wouldn't even say it's an incompetent tuneless mess, just disappointing and frustrating between the relative lack of hooks and jarring production.

I’ve been a pretty big fan of her stuff but I have yet to listen this. Been pretty apprehensive tbh. Right about now I’m well drunk and high enough that I’m about to give it a shot.