Grimes/Claire Boucher thread

it just feels like too much of a departure from her past stuff, and feels so much more "pro," mostly in a way I don't like so far.

probably just a result of learning how to engineer better, taking the time to do it, and having the resources for better gear instead of 1 keyboard + GarageBand? also it's probably impossible not to write & produce differently after playing giant festivals for a few years.

xp

(i'm not really feeling it either so far, but want to give it some time)

The realiti thing is so weird to me, I thought her production on the "demo" version was genius, and I can't stand the album version.

Seems really really "ILX totally in character" to be hating on a really fun album because it's not the same as the last one?

(With a nasty side order of "I liked her so much better when she couldn't really play" no matter how ill-founded.)

cool

For the most part, I'm really enjoying the album, but while I always liked "Genesis" and "Oblivion," I've never really felt ~invested~ in Grimes, and I don't think I'd heard the "Realiti" demo until a few days ago. So, y'know.

tbf, I literally hate fun

Something about this record smells of ghost writing and production assistance to me, in spite of the deliberate "GRIMES/GRIMES/GRIMES" credit shot that was posted

this belongs in the comment section of youtube, not on ilx

uh I think it's weird that a critique of this record could be "she got better at engineering." this record sounds great and I'm really into that. (I think the title track is a great example—it sounds both crisp and dreamy)

of course I also think the degree of the "departure" here is being overstated. i recognize the songcraft of visions 100 percent here. there's just a lot more guitar

yeah i mean... if someone goes 3 and a half years between records and talks up learning new skills and acquiring new equipment and then you instantly attribute any leap in fidelity to ghostwriting that's pretty shitty

Yeah I guess. Mostly I just don't like the aesthetic choices on this one so far, but I'll give it more time.

Well, for me, the main (only ?) problem is that I don't find any great melodies and hooks on the new album while there were plenty on Visions.

Not saying "no way she could have gotten this much 'better'" -- I don't think it's better! I just think it sounds a lot closer to a lot of modern radio pop that IS largely produced/written/shaped by the same handful of people. If she wanted something closer to that sound, she achieved it. I don't like the sound.

Could just be my mood, but the perkiness of this is cutting right through me.

Visions conveyed that same sense of joy, but muted it, and that record's character came from how her enthusiasm fought its way to the surface of these sort of sad songs. It was like the songs had to fight their way out of their shell, and when they did it felt really satisfying and earned. But when her songs start at full-blast, level 10 giddiness, they lose that sense of accomplishment.

Obviously some great stand-out songs here, though. Just dunno how much I'll be able to take this in as an album

"this album sounds like pop music so it MUST have been written by a bunch of other people" is an incredible bit of logic

"I liked it better when she didn't quite know what she was doing" isn't a gendered observation afaic.

Some friends of mine are moving into self-production, and my comments on their mixes were always "quit trying to prove to me that you know what you're doing"

I think this record is OK on first couple listens and will vastly improve when there's video. There were def no ghost-writers or ghost-producers on this

i think that's a really good observation evan. this record does feel less dynamic than visions

the demo version of "realiti" is much much better than the album version and is just generally one of her best songs tho yeah

oh i'm also really bad at hearing autotune but i hear zero autotune on this record

"Kill V. Maim" reminds me of Gwen Stefani's "Bubble Pop Electric," haha.

I read in an earlier interview the she sampled a few obscure Japanese songs for some of the tracks on here. I'd be curious as to what they were.

I assume the beginning of Butterfly is one of the samples.

kill v maim (!!). I like the vox on this, quite a few of these songs will be great live

I'm only as far as Belly of the Beast but this album has hooks coming out of its arse wtf.

this feels like saturdays felt like when I was a kid

i think the highs on visions are a bit above the highest ones here, but this one seems more cohesive/of a piece

holy shit @ 'kill v. maim'

it was really bothering and theyre not actually that 1-for-1 but the riff @ the start of SCREAM sounds similar to gomez - 'shot shot' 2 me

First impressions are that this is a bit too long and somewhat heavily front loaded but that first half is such a rush.

i'm having such a hard time connecting with this album and it's breaking my heart since visions has become one of my favorite albums of all time. there's just not a lot on here i can immediately latch on to whereas visions was instant and took over all of 2012 for me.

realiti is not quite as different as i expected based on the comments here, its basically still the same song to the point where the familiarity of the version you heard first probably overrides the actual substance of the differences

So I ordered this from 4ad, thinking that I'd get access to a digital copy today, but it's not looking that way. Do I really get to* wait until December when they ship the CD to hear it.

*trying to stay positive =/

"Kill V. Maim" reminds me of Gwen Stefani's "Bubble Pop Electric," haha.

― jaymc,

Much of this album sounds more like Stefani than the last one.

also agree w/ holy shit @ 'kill v maim' thats a pretty huge highlight

i am....not feeling kill v. maim

it's the soundtrack to the industrial mega man level of my dreams

only at "kill v maim" so far but yeah this is remarkably...shiny and clean?

my sympathies to the disappointed but i can't believe no one is in raptures about how good this is. it's much brighter than I expected & so percussive with it, towards the end of the album especially. i always enjoyed grimes from a mumbler's perspective, and that's gone, but her vocals on this are righteous. i can't remember instantly loving an album this much. the melisma in "what do you me-an?" is just like the way arthur russell sings "leave it a-lone" on lucky cloud & just as perfect. she has nailed this.

also that bit of kill maim sounds so much like "gucci gucci"

i'm not quiiiiiiiite loving this as much as expected, but it might sound better in my car/over my stereo than these crappy headphones

listen to grimes in yr car, good plan

choreographing a dance to "kill v. maim" brb

Also just listened on rubbish headphones that just accented the trebliness of the record, but there are at least three great songs on here: "Flesh Without Blood", "Easily" and "Butterfly". Couldn't hear what was so amazing about "Kill V. Maim", my least favourite on first play.

(Full disclosure - I never really got into Visions.)

A few songs into this and I'm already liking it much, much more than Visions. There were a couple decent tracks on Visions, but it was a bit too incomplete and amateurish for me to truly enjoy it. I like how polished this sounds. It's more poppy but also more creative than Visions.

I adore this, it's honestly the happiest I've felt listening to an album since E•MO•TION.

The title track and "World Princess Part II" are the early highlights for me. I don't really think she improved "Realiti" from the demo but I'm not bothered by the new version, it sounds fine and more of a piece with the rest of the record

On first listen I'm standing by my true romance / sucker comparison tho I am liking this a lot more than sucker already.

the sucker comparison is v otm

Is true romance really comparable to visions? I never checked it out.

Not really, but the internal relation between each artist's respective albums feels similar.