In 2015 Grimes, or Claire Boucher, proved to non-believers that she was more than just Garageband bangers and beats with Art Angels. Her fifth and “last Earth album,” Miss Anthropocene (2020), sees the now thirty-one year-old artist reflecting on a journey from her 2000s Myspace beginnings to worldwide musical celebrity. Grimes has achieved an increasingly rare transition into the upper echelons of society. A big part of her new album deals with her ever-changing world, especially seeing as her social status, financial situation, and song crafting have changed so drastically over the course of her career. In addition, there are more changes on the horizon with a baby on the way and, probably, more public revelations of her romance with Elon Musk. There is a possible fear of losing herself on her ascent, but somehow that seems unlikely and, as the album suggests, not yet true.
Miss Anthropocene is solid. From the title’s wordplay to Grimes’ cover art, she is as sharp and witty as ever. There has been a trend recently of artists releasing albums that, being intentionally more laid back or “low-key,” have been received poorly by fans because they were not “game-changers” like preceding works. Grimes does not follow this trend. I heard this first when Gorillaz released The Now Now (2018), and more recently when discussing Tame Impala’s The Slow Rush (2020). The former was too lax, but in comparison with the bloated track list of the preceding Humanz (2017), I preferred the quiet reflections with more acoustic instruments and thoughtful features. So much music comes out all the time that it will probably be harder to age gracefully without being an outstanding record, so in a more cynical sense I may be too accepting of more relaxed albums. Grimes has certainly aged gracefully, as the more mature and less overtly pop songs on this album show an appreciable progression and successful shift that longtime fans will appreciate after not hearing much new material over the past five years.
Modern albums are formatted as such, without having to split the track list into two halves as artists had to do on vinyl records. However, when listening to this album I could not help but split the ten songs into two five-track halves. The first side is single heavy and musically indecisive. Here exists a barrier between the newer, conceptual darkness Grimes creates around the themes of the album, such as climate change, and the pop that broke her into the mainstream. The first half is a battle between these forces, and they meet in the frantic “4ÆM.” The mixture of the nice jungle beat and the frantic, dance track fighting to break out creates a tension and excitement that to me could be two things: the perspective of prey narrowly surviving a predator’s pursuit through the forest, or a late night run through a dangerous neighborhood. This break for a more upbeat vibe feels more subtle and natural than the acoustic guitar’s abrupt introduction on the overdose-addressing “Delete Forever.” The apparent lead single was written on the night emo rapper Lil Peep overdosed and draws the curtains on the pitch black of the first two tracks.
Whereas the first half of the album places barriers between pop and Grimes’s darker tendencies, by the second side these have ultimately broken down, which makes for a much more cohesive final half. This half is much lighter regarding singles, so Grimes probably worked on these more recently and with the album in mind. With five years in between albums, some of these songs were assuredly in the works longer than others. “New Gods” (the second DC comics reference on the album after “Darkseid”) and “My Name Is Dark” (originally called “That’s What The Drugs Are For”) return to the moody core of the record, struggling with Grimes’s new reality in celebrity and understanding herself. She has left the body she no longer loves, and maybe that is needed to “unfuck the world.” However, she does run the risk of getting lost in all the darkness, losing her individuality that has been her strength.
Speaking of which, if there is a chink in this album’s armor, it is the second track, “Darkseid.” Aristophanes, or Pan Wei-Ju, returns to feature in the song after her first Grimes feature on “Scream,” the third song on Art Angels. Lyrically, this is one of Grimes’ most coherent vocals. However, Pan Wei-Ju is less amazing here, with less control and less charm than her first appearance’s ecstatic, aggressive delivery. Not understanding the Taiwanese rapper, I can only judge how her voice and delivery affect the track, and whatever filters were put on her voice cannot supersede her hushed anger showcased on Grimes’ previous album.
If albums of the 2010s attempted to use music to create a safe space, such as Beck’s Hyperspace (2019), Miss Anthropocene finds them and drags them out of their delusion. “This is the sound of the end of the world” she realizes in “Before The Fever.” Confusingly though, the flowery closer “IDORU” sees Boucher accepting the demons who haunt the album as victors, letting herself slip away from both herself and her fight, and ending the album with a question mark. Lyrically Grimes has always been cryptic, and though many songs on the album deal with loss, whether to addiction on “Delete Forever” or suicide on “Darkseid,” the theme of climate change as an impending future destruction seems the most analogous to Grimes’ current state, and at album’s end she flutters away, though the author may be torn between continuing the fight or finally submitting.
The album is a solid product musically, as each song can stand on its own, evidenced by the fact almost half were released as singles. However, the album as a part of Grimes’ discography, part of her story, does raise some questions, and not new ones for rising musicians. Has she who fought the Man become the Man herself? With a sixth album already in the works, we may get a more definitive answer sooner rather than læter.
Article by Stanley Quiros