Grimes Discusses The Idea Of Retiring From Making Albums And Touring
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Grimes is making a new album. It’s called Miss_Anthropocene. She announced it on Instagram last month. It’ll be her first since 2015’s Art Angels, which was a great album, even if Grimes herself doesn’t think so. But lately, Grimes has been doing a lot of things that don’t seem to have anything to do with the album. She’s shared a demo of a non-album track. She’s hidden a song on SoundCloud. She’s teamed up with Bring Me The Horizon. And now Grimes herself says that she’d really rather not make albums. For that matter, she’d rather not perform live, either.
Grimes is a subject of a new cover story in Flaunt, and includes a lot of thoughts about Miss_Anthropocene. But it also includes a few musings on a future where Grimes might not release albums or tour. In the interview, Grimes says that Miss_Anthropocene is the last album that she owes her label, and she’ll be free of her contract when it’s out:
I’ll never sign with another label. I’ll never have to put out another album… If I didn’t have this whole requirement to release an “album,” I would have just dropped a bunch of music ages ago… Albums are trash unless you sit down and make a really good album. I’m not really that consistent. I feel like I would work better in like EP-ish formats.
And on touring, Grimes says this:
I wanna retire from touring. I wanna do a hologram tour. Why do we keep doing them for dead artists instead of living ones who have stage fright?
When writer Sid Feddema asks if she has stage fright, she responds with this:
Oh my god, yes. It’s nightmarish. Apocalyptic. Terrifying, horrible. I can’t hear clapping or cheers — I just hear an echo chamber of death. I black out. Dissociation — I can’t tell what’s happening. After a show I’m always thinking, What happened? And people are like “It’s OK!” I know people like the authenticity of live performance, and I do too. But I’m not a good performer. I’m a director who accidentally fell into this position, and now it’s too late to change. So I need to Gorillaz it — I need to find a way to not have to do the Beyoncé thing as much.
Thus far, the only thing Grimes has shared from Miss_Anthropocene is the 2018 single “We Appreciate Power.” In the interview, Grimes says that song is “sort of the end of the old music I was making. This era of super-produced and perfected sound — it’s sort of a thesis on that, a bookend.”
When Feddema says that he’s heard four of her new songs, Grimes says this:
I hate all these songs now. I might even replace them all. I’m supposed to be finishing the album this month or whatever, but I’ve been making a shit ton of new music instead. Which is a really bad idea. But I’ll probably put out the songs that I said I’ll put out… I think the fans want me to stop making metal, nu-metal. Which I will! I have, I have stopped making metal!
When announcing the new album, Grimes wrote, “my goal is to make climate change fun.” In the interview, she elaborates a bit on that:
All the media about climate change is like one big guilt trip. It’s super depressing, like, here are some facts that make you wanna go home and kill yourself. It sucks and it sucks to look at, so people just kind of look away from it. I want to change that. In ancient Greek culture, you have these gods that represent abstract, terrifying concepts. Like a God of Death. So I wanted to make Miss_Anthropocene this idea of, like, the God of Climate Change. She wants the world to end and she wants to bring about the end of humanity, but she’s fun. She’s fucking fun and evil! Also, climate change is beautiful, even if it’s terrifying. It’s so nice to look at. The sunsets are brighter and more beautiful. Volcanoes, oil rainbows, hurricanes… Destruction is gorgeous — people are drawn to it.
Here are a few of the photos attached to the story:
You can read the Flaunt story here.
