Grimes/Claire Boucher thread

'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.

i wasn't huge on "we appreciate power" at the time and still think the lyrics are terrible but it's ended up being one of the strongest things from this album. i think "my name is dark" and "you'll miss me" would be much better if the guitars had that sort of crunch to them

I can't make sense of these opinions yet, which I appreciate.

I really want to like it but I just can’t get too far with it. I still can’t get behind the way it sounds. I’ll revisit it around june/july to see if I’m in a different mindset and with a better soundsystem.

It “lacks hooks”?? Words have no meaning for you lol

Maybe it would come across as more confidently itself to skeptics if it were longer. I’d like it to be ... more. Literally the only thing I can find to complain abt

only relatively, i'm not saying it's tuneless or anything but it's not really as densely packed with hooks as art angels or even visions. even ignoring all the issues i have with the production i'm just not that into this batch of songs. here's how id classify my feelings about them:

decent but i don't really feel strongly about:
so heavy i fell through the earth
4aem
before the fever
you'll miss me when i'm not around

would be pretty good with better mixing/production:
delete forever
idoru

meh:
darkseid
new gods
my name is dark
violence

My name is dark is my fav song on the album 🥴

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Darkseid is great and putting it so early in the tracklisting is evidence that the album is going out of its way to stick out at awkward angles.

Her voice remains paper thin but there's something really interesting about the vocal melodies on this album, then again I think Grimes is at her least interesting when she making more or less conventional pop hooks (cf Realiti do not @ me).