Grimes/Claire Boucher thread

this thread has turned into a therapy sesh, sorta weird

lex you're an unsympathetic crybaby

man i just want to talk about grimes

but my two cents is who gives a shit what anyone else listens to

Well lex I've tried that approach before, and my sense is that it tends to make poeple dig in to their existing position out of defensiveness.

Perhaps mostly because people are only talking about something positively if they already like it, so if you claim that they've been blinded by false prophets you have to convince them that they're listening wrong.

And if there's one thing that is almost impossible to get people to admit to, it's that they're listening wrong.

Anyway I'm interested to know who (apart from gazelle twin, and again you started the thread one hour ago) you think people haven't picked up on. Nikkiya doesn't seem like a good example - the thread suggests that lots of people loved "When I Was High" and then found the mixtape a bit of a mixed bag or just less compelling throughout than the one song would imply. But I don't think you can claim that no-one followed your lead in listening to it. And concomitantly I don't think you can equate "people had a different reaction to this album" with "no one listens to me."

Versus the ILX poll threads where about every fourth post was "I found this tune through Lex. Thanks Lex!"

Both albums are good, the only reason they're being compared at all is because they both popped up in the Knifelike thread but they're really nothing like one another at all. I can see the Gazelle Twin/Fever Ray connection but Grimes doesn't remind me of anything else on that thread.

Hah also Tim I totally thought that one song reminded me of 'Tha' rather than 'Xtal' but there's definitely an Air France playing around with Selected Ambient Works 1 vibe to a lot of this.

The "Knifelike" thread was really just "recommend stuff that WCC would like" TBH I don't think there was much of a unifying theme at all in the end.

Anyway I'm interested to know who (apart from gazelle twin, and again you started the thread one hour ago) you think people haven't picked up on

no point if people are gonna avoid them if i say. i mean, it's stuff i've written about and posted about and tweeted about and linked to videos on facebook etc already anyway but i don't think there's any point in me starting threads really

there's definitely an Air France playing around with Selected Ambient Works 1 vibe to a lot of this.

This is a very neat description I think.

Grimes doesn't remind me of anything else on that thread.

I think my "in" with Grimes was when I realised that this is so different from any notion in my head of an emerging gothstep hegemony.

There's nothing wrong with that sound (if it can be called a "sound" at all) but there's a sense of a rising tide sinking all ships in terms of my enthusiasm levels for checking out Austra / Emika / Zola Jesus / Gazelle Twin etc. Which is unfair both in terms of the quality of some of those artists and their internal differences; I guess that's the tyranny of critical framing at work.

I think my "in" with Grimes was when I realised that this is so different from any notion in my head of an emerging gothstep hegemony.

otm, for me as well

this stuff is pretty cool

it's stuff i've written about and posted about and tweeted about and linked to videos on facebook etc already anyway but i don't think there's any point in me starting threads really

so there's this undefined "stuff" that you feel has not been taken up despite the fact that you've tweeted about it and linked to vides on facebook and made the odd post, and you have been so upset about this that you have first been motivated to lash out at people listening to the wrong music, and then subsequently sunk into a black pit of despondency over your inability to effectively communicate the greatness of music to others.

my god lex, if I applied this standard I would have slashed my wrists long ago. Heaps of my threads are automatic tumbleweed. But the fact that even some motivate other people to check out music I like seems more remarkable to me than the fact that others are ignored.

emika is nothing like the others?! she's far closer to, idk, subeena or someone, except with songs rather than tracks. but given the minimal attention she and gazelle twin got, i have no idea what you're talking about re: tyranny of critical framing. if only they'd been framed critically at all.

austra never transcended their knifelikeness for me (also released their album in the summer). i guess i like zola jesus when i happen to hear her but i can never remember to have a real opinion or indeed remember she exists when i'm not.

i get that grimes is trying to be more playful and more pop but could she at least write some hooks if that's gonna be the case and not just replace the "goth" affect with "twee". also, enunciate. goths can get away with not doing that but few others.

i enjoy (but don't love) the gazelle twin album. listening to "genesis" right now and, like most other grimes track i've heard, i feel like i could love this were it not for that voice

does grimes, like adele, win a lot of people over b/c she seems like a really cool girl? the wkiw effect?

adele seems like a really cool girl?

that is what a lot of people seem to think, i didn't say i agreed

iirc, lex hates adele because she is fat

emika is nothing like the others?! she's far closer to, idk, subeena or someone, except with songs rather than tracks. but given the minimal attention she and gazelle twin got, i have no idea what you're talking about re: tyranny of critical framing. if only they'd been framed critically at all.

Read my post again. The critical framing I was talking about was my own.

i would kick it w/ adele

There's nothing wrong with that sound (if it can be called a "sound" at all) but there's a sense of a rising tide sinking all ships in terms of my enthusiasm levels for checking out Austra / Emika / Zola Jesus / Gazelle Twin etc. Which is unfair both in terms of the quality of some of those artists and their internal differences; I guess that's the tyranny of critical framing at work.

Dude, you are sinking dangerously into "Women In Music Special!" with this post here, and if you were talking about the exact male equivalents of the music, you would be quite quick to assign them to different electronic music sub genres.

(sigh) read my post again!

http://i.imgur.com/EpHXx.gif

I liked this Grimes album! I give it five out of five fives.

TO BE VERY CLEAR:

My "in" with Grimes was realising how unfair it had been of me to equate her with all of these other artists who probably don't sound much alike except in terms of how I've framed them in my head!

LOL this always happens: any time I admit to having had a wrongheaded opinion and then try to self-critique it people feel the need to point out to me how wrong I was.

she at least ... enunciate

As far as I can tell, its just the "Oh baby I ..." refrains taken from 90s R&B that are in English. Most of vocals are pure glossolalia.

Can't find the mid-2011 Grimes interview where she pretty upfront about not caring about the lyrical content at all, as she just likes the sound that emerge.

^sorry bout the singular/plural errors there. I type correctly, then suffer dyslexia editing backwards.

where she pretty upfront about not caring about the lyrical content at all, as she just likes the sound that emerge.

2012 shockah

Grimes' vocal approach here reminds me of Heaven or Las Vegas, not ostentatious glossolalia but instead walking a borderline between lyrical sense and aural sensation.

I can't agree with the allegation of a lack of hooks, the more I listen the more hook-filled (even overloaded with hooks and melodic motifs) the songs seem.

iirc, lex hates adele because she is fat

when have i ever said anything even approaching this? i feel like people must literally imagine my posts instead of reading them sometimes

i'm pretty sure jon is just trolling you, which is funny cuz when people do it to him he "leaves" ilx in a huff

I distinctly remember some thread where there was discussion of an article in which Adele sort of defended her lifestyle and talked about being okay with her body and lex posted something about how she shouldn't be satisfied with being lazy or something to that effect. I can't find it now and I don't really feel like putting in the effort required to dig it up.

Not trolling, but probably overstating what lex said in that particular thread.

I guess this entire album really wants to be J-Pop by way of Sweden?

is anyone else doing this? because that sounds like a genre I could obsess over for a while.

pretty much every artist i rep for who isn't an actual megastar already gets zero traction

You were ranked number one in the ILX hivemind section of the EOY Trax poll iirc. fwiw I tend to give everything I see you rep for at least one go-through. I'm not going to absorb it all properly, but that's just life. I think a lot of people here respect your opinion about certain types of music. It's all good.

does grimes, like adele, win a lot of people over b/c she seems like a really cool girl? the wkiw effect?

i wnkiw her tbh. I read that she was kicked out of college for not attending classes for a year, which annoyed me for whatever reason when combined with her failed Mississippi River adventure. seems like the kind of person I would actively avoid.

stay in school if you want to kiw gukbe folks

I think the rhythm programming on this is excellent actually. A little bit rough-sounding but not actually rough in the sense of lacking nuance or finesse - basically this is just because Grimes is not observing the post-dubstep/minimal orthodoxy of hyper-clipped drum hits. I think she likes the slightly-degraded texture of fuller electronic drums.

dudes, there are garageband presets all over this record (synths too). not that that's inherently a bad thing - it's a tool like anything else, she's making choices, etc. but out of all the reasons to listen to this record (the vocals, the writing, personality), sound design is at the bottom of the list.

but out of all the reasons to listen to this record (the vocals, the writing, personality), sound design is at the bottom of the list.

i dunno about that. unique sound sources /= good sound design.

Having seen that Grimes video where she plays the black keys exclusively, I'm kinda curious whether most/all of her tunes are in C♭ major or A♭ minor (the black key diatonic scales).

using presets or garageband is fine, and you can make it your own, i just don't think the record sounds that interesting.

I don't really care about where the sounds come from.

It's not like most house beats or dubstep beats or etc sound unique.

Oh hey everyone what did I miss

ILX tearing itself apart over a 6/10 album

Unsurprising.

It's not like most house beats or dubstep beats or etc sound unique.

sure (except for the ones that do). i'd just be surprised if the beats & sounds were the reason someone was attracted to this record.

imo the reason to be attracted to this album is how she uses her voice as a background sound effect/adornment

otoh a reason to be repelled from this album is the interminable cooing babydoll voice she puts on seemingly through 500% of it

i love when she goes into that super-high deniece williams falsetto

the cooing babydoll shit didn't repel me as much as i thought it would but it's definitely a reason that i don't think she'll ever connect with me properly

her falsetto is astonishing, which really makes the cooing that much more irritating to me

it's like all of those Mariah singles with that fucking grating whisper voice where you're like "gtfo with that and start singing"