After the release of her LP, “Art Angels,” last month, I have read and heard a lot of flack from Grimes listeners who claim it is an instance of her selling out.
This is because the album is, in some part, a pop album. Claire Boucher, the woman behind Grimes, includes a number of tracks that share similar aspects to more mainstream radio pop music: spirited, fast-paced melodies, an upbeat tempo, etc.
But the LP also contains some of what more traditional sound Grimes fans know and love: the darker, more scratchy electronic tracks. Those tracks, reminiscent of those on her previous album “Visions,” might be considered more creative, specialized or possessing more merit on the basis that they are a bit less accessible — at least to the untrained ear. Some tracks contain a mixture of new and old.
Let’s get something clear: Boucher’s decision to make a foray into pop music is nothing to sneeze at. It is still her music, and it is still her much-admired soul that is creating it. She’s stated repeatedly that Grimes is a “genreless” endeavor. It just so happens this album contains many pop elements.
Let’s get something else clear: the album is wonderful.
The poppy songs on the LP completely break through the thick stereotypes surrounding the genre.
“California,” “Kill V. Maim” and “Pin” are all songs to shake a tail feather to, no doubt, but they are more than that.
They bring a one-of-a-kind, witchy darkness that only an artist like Boucher could conjure. The songs capture Boucher’s individual voice, while still being reminiscent of the more popular top-40 artists we all know and pretend to hate while adding them to our party playlists.
“Art Angels” is a beautiful bridge between what music is well-known and what music is not yet well-known.
For so long, pop as a genre has been associated with teenaged girls or 20-something women masquerading as such, in sequined mini skirts, trilling into a microphone about hopeless crushes or high school heartbreak.
But we made it that way. Pop has been entirely constructed by us. “Pop” music is just short for “popular” music. We, as a media consuming society, have decided what is and is not popular. We consume it or don’t, buy it or don’t.
With Boucher’s addition to the genre, those pop expectations are, at least in part, diminished. Boucher is not that girl, she is a 27-year-old woman and does not pretend that she is not. She sings about strength as well as vulnerability.
“I’ll never be your dream girl,” she admits in the final song, “Butterfly.”
“Art Angels” makes Boucher’s voice and ideas more accessible to a wider audience, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. Any fan of Grimes, I’m sure, would love if more people listened to her.
She might not produce the stereotypical pop music we are used to, but Grimes produces pop music that will help evolve the genre beyond our shallow expectations.
