Image Source: Grimes Official Facebook
Original lyrics, creative beats and a confident performance are the criteria for a good album. Claire Boucher, also known as Grimes, released Art Angels on Nov. 6th, 2015. It is her fourth studio album and it communicates important messages with an upbeat tempo.
Spotify notified me that Art Angels was available and I was excited to have more Grime’s music to dance around to while getting ready in the morning. Her previous album was fun and playful, and while this album is also fun and upbeat, but is also meaningful. Art Angels gives us a peak into Grimes’ thoughts.
Each song on Art Angels has meaning ranging from ultimate girl power, Boucher’s deceased friend, to the Italian mob. There was a different emotion for each track on the album.
“Flesh Without blood”, “Pin”, and “Realiti” each had me thinking of relationships. However, Grimes did not intend for it to be a relationship necessarily with a person, instead a relationship with a person’s own thoughts or a toxic relationship with something. She even tweeted that she would not be writing about romance anymore. After finding out her intentions, I began to perceive the lyrics the way she intended.
Her other songs, such as “Life in the Vivid Dream”, “World Princess Part II”, and “Belly of the Beat” are about how fragile life is and the death of one of her friends. I began to think about my life, how I go about the things I do, and how unpredictable it all is.
Art Angels had a lot more bass than previous Grimes albums. “Venus Fly”, “Artangels”, “Kill v. Maim”, “Scream”, and “California” are the tracks that are more in your face and lighten up the tone of the album.
Scream is written in Chinese, which I was not expecting when it began to play. California was written about the media and what they think of her. Her response is that she will continue to be herself. Each song is paired with creative beats and eye-appealing Japanese influenced album art.
I give Art Angels a 5/5 rating. It is beautifully put together from the lyrics to the album art. Not to mention, Grimes is vocal about her opinions throughout the album. She worked hard to earn her title in music as more than just a pop artist. The beats, lyrics, and art work are all her own. What sets her album apart from other mainstream pop artists is that she risked being herself and emphasized that she does not write about love, but about other problems people go through. It is the feminist album that goes against pop norms; she’s doing things her way on her own terms.