Grimes/Claire Boucher thread

It becomes so impossible to talk about this stuff, no matter how nicely you dress up the conversation, because people freak out and go "OMG you're accusing *me* of misogyny!!! how DARE you!!!" (see also the Erykah Badu thread ad infinitum) when what you are trying to say is "this stuff does not happen in a vacuum." The dialogue surrounding the way music made by men vs that made (or even liked) by women is discussed is loaded at a societal level.

It's this thing that outsidery dudes *love* to do when they are so tied up in their "OMG, I'm such an outsidery dude, I'm so not *affected* by society's mores!" that they don't even notice that they are telling a woman to "get her own house in order" from a screen name with a vastly derogatory term for women because that's just a cute or funny word to them, rather than a term of abuse which has been used to degrade you, personally, and hold back your entire kind. I don't know if it was intended to be *ironic* saying "I'm not going to wear that" when you were, literally, wearing it. You might insist you're wearing a plain white shirt but if you are existing in an environment where every single light shining on you is red, that shirt will look pink. Shouting that you are wearing a white shirt doesn't do anything about the red lights. They're still there, and denying that they exist makes the problem worse, not better.

This whole thing of "image" and "personality" is something that does get held against female artists in a way it just doesn't with male. That if you go to a Grimes gig and the front row is full of girls with her haircut who are dressed like her, that gets held against her and her fans, in a way that if you go to a metal gig and the front row is full of men with long hair, weedy beards and scruffy black clothes exactly like the dudes on stage - that doesn't get counted against them as being "just image." Even though it is the same kind of use of image for drawing tribal boundaries or identity. As far as I'm concerned, it's not a valid complaint against either. But it sure as hell gets used much more on one side than the other. (See also: Wayne Coyne's eccentricity gets him painted as creative, wacky, hoopy frood, while Erykah Badu's eccentricity gets her painted as "crazy.")

I get that you're saying that you didn't mean it in a gender-loaded way, you were doing the whole thing of saying "I'm old and I just don't understand why this is so popular because ugh X and ugh Y" when X and Y might actually be the things that are attracting that audience to that music in the first place?

That you hear music which is "thin" when I hear music that is light, playful, fun, joyous, that she has a mixed-bag, magpie approach to genre and style where everything gets thrown in together to create something frothy which is about mood and tone and creating these kid of theatrical set pieces.

That you dislike her voice - you'd rather listen to Julee Cruise. Which is kind of point-missing, to me. That Julee Cruise uses an airy, ultra-high voice to create things that are pretty, ethereal, beautiful, and generally nice to listen to. While Grimes takes that same vocal style, and uses it to create things that are sometimes pretty, but more often weird, theatrical, odd, strained, unnatural. It's like saying you'd prefer Katherine Jenkins to Diamanda Galas. I, personally, *love* what she's doing with her voice because she specifically uses that ultra-feminine coded high voice and uses it in a way that isn't always pretty, but is sometimes like a parody of feminine-coded voice pushed to absurdity and even ugliness. It's saying, to me, "look at this performance of gender, how fucking weird it is when you push it to extremes!" In a very similar way that The Knife pushed the performance of male and female voices to be slowed down and sped up so you could never tell if it was the man or woman singing or both. (I'm sure that metal dudes love the cookie monster voice, when I fucking hate it - and possibly even for the same reasons, because it's similarly a hyper-exaggerated take on performance of "masculine" voice.)

It's absolutely very much filling the kind of space created by The Knife - that's why I posted her on the post-Knife aesthetic thread on the Sandbox. I respond to many of the same things. The taking a grab-bag approach to the aesthetics of dance and electronic music as suits the song, rather than trying to fit to a specific genre. That air of theatricality - of pretence and masks (literal in The Knife's case, but figurative in Grime's. She doesn't mask her face, but she does mask her voice) is something I find very, very appealing. The whole idea of "give someone a mask and they will tell the truth."

That might be semi-political for me, but that goes way beyond the scope of a Grimes thread. (In a world where Straight White Male is seen as default, people who aren't one, or even several of those things, often already have to wear a metaphorical mask to pass or get by. So a mask seems less like a put-on and more like a tool. But that's another thread.)

To me, interesting stuff comes out when you push beyond that "I dislike (or like) this artist, and I can't freaking understand why people would (or wouldn't!)" kneejerk thing. That often you find out that the thing you hate is precisely what they love. But sometimes you have to have the conversation about whether your shirt is pink or the lights are red (and perhaps both societal and personal attitudes about pink as a colour for shirts, and what that means, though that's perhaps a metaphor too far) before you can get to that point.

Sorry for wall of text. I don't imagine anyone is going to have the patience to read through all of that.

I will in a bit but my screen name was obviously in references to other people's posts with specific reference to a female rapper I currently like. You can refuse this explanation if you like and to be honest, given the circumstances I really don't blame you but you at least have my side of things now re: the screen name.

Ok, point by point:

Don't paint me as supporting Wayne Coyne or use it as an analogy here. I don't support him and it's not helpful.

It becomes so impossible to talk about this stuff, no matter how nicely you dress up the conversation, because people freak out and go "OMG you're accusing *me* of misogyny!!! how DARE you!!!" (see also the Erykah Badu thread ad infinitum) when what you are trying to say is "this stuff does not happen in a vacuum." The dialogue surrounding the way music made by men vs that made (or even liked) by women is discussed is loaded at a societal level.

I'm a fan of Erykah Badu and The Flaming Lips (especially the albums Soft Bulletin, Clouds Taste Metallic, Embryonic, Zaireeka) but I hate their Fat Freddie's Cat smokin dope and chasing skirt counterculture, hippie persona. If it turns out they did release that video without asking for her permission (no matter what she agreed to do or whether she'd done her research or not) then fuck that guy - what a cuntish thing to do.

Also, stop with the caps and the multiple exclamation points. If you keep on insisting that I'm being hysterical, "vicious", "violent", "knee jerk", shouting, losing my shit etc then eventually some people on this board will actually start treating me like I am and I'd prefer it if that didn't happen, given that I've responded to you calmly at every stage of this. All I said was that I reject any claims made here of misogyny. I know what the current thinking in gender studies on this is: it almost doesn't matter what I think, it only matters how you and other women feel about things I say. Which is fair enough I guess. Just don't expect me not to defend myself, and do me the courtesy of not throwing up a vitriolic and confusing smokescreen with all this OMG!!! stuff and constantly blurring the line between what you claim I do and what men in general do.

It's this thing that outsidery dudes *love* to do when they are so tied up in their "OMG, I'm such an outsidery dude, I'm so not *affected* by society's mores!" that they don't even notice that they are telling a woman to "get her own house in order" from a screen name with a vastly derogatory term for women because that's just a cute or funny word to them, rather than a term of abuse which has been used to degrade you, personally, and hold back your entire kind. I don't know if it was intended to be *ironic* saying "I'm not going to wear that" when you were, literally, wearing it. You might insist you're wearing a plain white shirt but if you are existing in an environment where every single light shining on you is red, that shirt will look pink. Shouting that you are wearing a white shirt doesn't do anything about the red lights. They're still there, and denying that they exist makes the problem worse, not better.

I'm not an "outsidery dude" and have never claimed to be one. I'm the 40-year-old father of one who has a mortgage, edits a magazine and does a lot of freelance to keep that magazine going. All I do is go to work and go to nursery. Literally. I'm about as outsider as Keith Chegwin. I have never claimed to be not affected by society's mores. I do not know where you are coming up with this stuff from. I'm not even saying you're doing this on purpose but you seem to be partially having a row with me and partially with some other guys who've said stuff to you in the past. As irritating as it may be to be surrounded by oafs who talk shit about women must be, if we could stick to what I've said and done that would be helpful.

There's this thing that ppl do when they're defensive (I include myself in this, BTW) which is, when they're accused of saying/doing something sexist (or racist or homophobic or whatever) which is to say "but I'm not misogynist so I REALLY resent that!" which is infuriating and counter productive.

It's like - we live in a culture which is just soaked in sexist values and we pick them up, consciously or not. I mean, I'm soaking in these ideas even though I've been actively resisting them for 30+ years. They're the things that pop out when we're shooting off the cuff, when we're tired, or not qualifying things or thinking them through.

This, and only this, is what led me to suggest you get your own house in order. You have just admitted that you make sexist, racist and homophobic comments on a public internet forum. I have not admitted to doing so, nor will I, no matter how much it irritates you. You are presuming too much about me with close to no evidence to go on. I will admit that your second paragraph here is spot on in general terms and yes, it's always good to have ones attitudes challenged and this board and OTF have played a significant part in me fine tuning my beliefs and attitudes on several matters. This, however, was not and will not be one of those occasions and there is no evidence to prove otherwise.

I will in a bit but my screen name was obviously in references to other people's posts with specific reference to a female rapper I currently like. You can refuse this explanation if you like and to be honest, given the circumstances I really don't blame you but you at least have my side of things now re: the screen name.

Dude, I will accept this explanation. And I do not want to get into the whole "bitch" discussion again. However, you do have to understand that it is still a loaded word. And though there are contexts in which I am prepared to accept it, and even use it - it is one thing for a woman, be that Nikki Minaj or Meredith freaking Brooks, to use it. But that does not give you the right to trot it out coz you think it's funny.

And dude, this whole "gender studies" thing. This is a thing that is lived experience of myself, and many other women. It's a thing that we have to deal with, and we have the right to talk about it. If it's not something that applies to you, then you can admit "misogyny is a real thing" and move on.

It's when you go beyond that, and start implying things about my motivations for what I'm doing, you make yourself the asshole here.

I've been trying to be nice, and light-hearted and playful with the "OMG's" and stuff because I've learned that humour gets a better response when talking about serious issues. If you want to read that as "vitriolic" - that's your baggage that you're bringing to the party. I didn't use either the term "vicious" or "violent" at all in my post, but you somehow decided that I did.

This kind of stuff - reading "vicious" and "violent" and "vitriolic" where I'm trying to be playful and lighthearted and have not used those terms at all - can you see how that might lead me to think that there's other stuff going on in your head?

I am, unequivocally 100% sorry about the offence caused by my screen name. I'm fucking mortified in fact. I genuinely thought that on a board such as this, taking a line from a female rapper and using it in a different context, i.e. about reading someone else's posts, with no direct misogynist overtones would be ok but I now see that I was being a fucking idiot - and that by using such a loaded word with such a grim history I would have upset at least a handful of people. This much is crystal clear. If there is anything I can do to try and make up for this within reason, I'll try and accommodate you. And I'll try and watch my language - an unfortunately atavistic product of my upbringing - in future.

XP: I just wrote this so I'll submit anyway.

Doran if you would stop being so viciously defensive and actually looked at the things you were saying...

I didn't put the word vitriolic in quotes.

You have just admitted that you make sexist, racist and homophobic comments on a public internet forum.

That is not what I said at all.

I said that I am soaking in a culture that is so deeply seeped in racism and sexism and homophobia, that some of my first, subconscious reactions to things are informed by the racism, sexism and homophobia of the culture I live in. I am not separate from my culture or my society. I breathe this stuff the same as everyone else does.

Rather than give in to those learned impulses, I TRY to examine things, from my own perspective, and from the shared experiences of others, BEFORE I type or hit submit on an internet forum. It doesn't always work, I often have to be corrected, especially on issues of race and class. But the difference is, I acknowledge that this society is often racist and classist, I admit that bias, I try to correct it, and I move on. I don't carry on still insisting that other people are somehow out to get me, or "violent" because they point out that these things exist. That's an asshole move.

Yet that's exactly the move that you are playing on me, when I suggest that society's ideas about women *might* be affecting the criticisms you raise about a female artist.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4u3ssxC1r1qi8gqpo1_500.gif

You claim that you're stopping to read other people's posts before hitting submit but you just aren't. I said you were accusing me of talking violently, with vitriol and being vicious.

I shouldn't have put the word "violent" in quotes but the sentiment still stands.

Look, as far as I can tell I'm reading everything that you say very closely and you're not doing the same with me. If you don't stick exactly to what I've said and done there's no point in carrying on.

If you want me to I can get back to answering all the points in your first, giant post of today if you like.

No. This is where I walk away from the argument because we've been butting heads for nearly a decade now, you just accuse me of things you do (and I no doubt do the same) and this isn't solving anything.

It does not matter to me if you answer or not. Have a nice life.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4m9z1RTKh1r5hjvro1_500.gif

Wait, I know you? Who are you? I have no idea literally. Someone from the Plan B messageboard? Or OTF? Those being the only places I've argued with people online.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4nrtd1Dhn1r5hjvro1_500.gif

Jesus Christ I hope people aren't responding to the image if that's what it looks like because her image is fucking terrible. It reminds me of those Klaxons style hipster wizard suits.

I'm sorry to be a pedant but for the record I said personality which is a combination of image and many other things in this context. Sorry, but you can probably see why I'm a bit jumpy about this now.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0mkvdthnR1r95yl5o1_500.gif

#seapunk

so Grimes is opening for the Lips in New Orleans on their record-breaking gig attempt whatever thing.

was going to b**** about her skipping DC but just noticing that she's playing here with Elite Gymnastics in September so fuckin' get in

For the sake of my mental health I hope they don't make a video together.

should be an ILX fap at the lips/grimes show, everyone can talk a few things over in the bar beforehand

For the sake of my mental health I hope they don't make a video together.

A+

cmon clusterfuck supernova would be fun while it/we lasted.

naw

friend of mine doesn't like this artist because iho it is "lifestyle music"

The lifestyle of being 23 and going thrifting?

I always think that's one of the daftest kind of criticisms people make. all music is lifestyle music, there's no escaping it.

later the same night he put on ariel pink though :-/

i def think some music is more "lifestyle music" than other, but it's definitely a neutral characteristic rather than a solid basis of, like, dismissal

fuck everyone

I dunno, even bland, regular guy music is 'bland, regular guy music'

although I guess there are varying degrees of awareness of this. like bro-punk bands that are "y'know, just playing music"... which of course means music that reflects their lifestyle and sounds like a musical personification of their character/culture

somehow this is a real thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=ScPaXIyb3SA

huh, all it took was one kreayshawn collab to kill this thread

Or just a lack of any new music or exciting performances?

Still loving the album. Incredibly excited about a recent twitter exchange that suggests that Claire and le1f might be recording something together. Waiting to see what happens next.

her music has that chillwave someone singing along to the radio thing going on, which is pretty i think limting

but she some cool qualities

"Skin" is kind of transcendent, really.

But this whole album creeped up on me unexpectedly, having initially dismissed it as vapidly pretty.

i like to think that i would have gone to grimes skrillex diplo had i been in town, going to be insane

no grimes skrillex diplo is the name of my dog

Driving in for Pitchfork today mostly to see her. Hoping it'll be a good show; she has a headlining-ish slot

She played Toronto last night w/Diplo and Skrillex. Didn't go but I chatted with some random attendees afterward: "oh yah she was cool but we were there to see Skrill". Skrill? OK!

lol :-)

next unlikely touring lineup can be The (Skrill) Ex.

that would be p dope if he officially changed his name to "SKRILL" at some point

Sounds like fish food to me