The new Grimes album is a breath of fresh air
Three years following the release of her 2012 breakout LP, Visions, Grimes has finally dropped a few juicy details on her forthcoming album.
In her revealing new cover story for The Fader, Grimes AKA Claire Boucher discusses everything from the stigma she faces as a female in the music industry to her new found independence — two experiences that have informed the direction of her new album.
“I want people to feel, if they’re buying something, like I put my heart and soul into it and I improved myself as a person and a writer,” she told The Fader. It was this mentality that led the songstress to famously postponing the release of the album last year. “I was like, ‘You know, my life is getting a lot better. I’m going to put all this stuff on a hard drive and start again. There were just hundreds of songs — on this album that I’m making now, there’s at least a hundred songs that won’t make it onto this. I think all musicians have songs that don’t make it onto records.”
Boucher has, without a doubt, put all of her blood, sweat, and tears into this LP. For starters, she learned to play every single instrument on the album including the guitar, the drums, the keys, the ukulele, and the violin.
Her fiercely independent, take-charge mentality also helped to inform the direction of the new album. “I think all my other albums were, like, sad. And this time it’s more happy and angry,” she told The Fader.
This time around, Boucher is addressing more pressing topics, including the stigmatized role of women in the music industry. She even hinted at calling out dismissive male producers on the album. “They’re not all diss tracks, but there’s a lot of diss tracks,” she said. One song, in particular, “is about a guy who acts like he knows everything and then comes back crawling on his knees, which has happened to me so many times.” And we thought Drake was the only person with a big diss track this year.
Aside from speaking out against sexism in the music industry, Grimes is using this album to support fellow female artists. Though she’s been rather secretive about who these female collaborators are, we do know that she will be featuring the Taiwan-based female MC, Aristophanes. In addition to Aristophanes, the album will also include a track featuring three female MCs who rap about being “too scary to be objectified”. A fiery departure from Visions, indeed.
Aside from her music, Claire Boucher wants Grimes to be a visible representation of her mission: breaking the boundaries of women in the music industry. “I’m trying to represent something politically…That women can do technical work…That I can be a producer and a pop star and also very experimental.”
You can read the full cover story here.
The new Grimes album is expected to be released sometime in October. In the meantime, join us while we dance our butts off to “REALiTi” below.
(Image via YouTube)
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