Is Grimes Too Punk to be a Pop Star?She started as an experimental electronic musician and drew a devoted online following. Now she wants to infiltrate the mainstream.
I’ve been writing a lot of music lately, so the New Yorkers have fallen by the wayside. But I did manage to read this article about Grimes. It always strikes me that in musician profiles, there’s so little written about the music itself. Sure, you get the usual “so-and-so likes this-or-that obscure band, which makes them cool,” but not a whole lot about musical decision-making, which is essentially how music is made. I’ve always been curious about this, because before I started writing, I wanted to find out how other people made music, so I wouldn’t make it, y’know, wrong. I mean, you need a method before you can begin the madness. In the standard musician profile, you find out what they had for lunch, what people say about them, what they say about themselves, a bit of personal history and the various quirks and idiosyncrasies that make them an individual, but you very rarely get a glimpse at the musician or their process. Sometimes, though, there is coded editorializing that courses through an article. That might be the case here. I don’t know, but to my musician’s ear, the author seems to be suggesting that Grimes is:
– not much of a songwriter
– not much of a lyricist
– not much of a performer
– not much of a DJ
Yet thanks to a big boost from social media, she’s poised on the verge of pop stardom. I’ve seen some of her videos and live performances and I’m completely neutral. I was a bit surprised that her tune “Oblivion” (below) was the top-rated song of the decade by Pitchfork. Funny thing, the vocal line is very similar to an Echo and the Bunnymen tune that I have yet to locate. Otherwise, it just sounds like DIY bedroom techno to me: noise drums, thin synths, breathy vox, lots of reverb, nursery-rhyme melodies, etc. I guess if you want to put a finer point on it, her stuff sounds kind of like half of the Cocteau Twins, but a little faster.
As the article went on, there was some talk about “sound” – not car horns or waves lapping on the shore, but how the music is processed into its final version. This is another dog whistle to my musician’s ear. I have always thought that musicians talk music and hipsters talk “sound.” There’s a lot of “sound” in this article. Don’t get me wrong, music needs to sound like something, but if it isn’t well crafted, it doesn’t matter what it sounds like. To me, an overemphasis on “sound” points toward an inferior product. That’s just me, maybe. But these are things that popped out at me when I was reading this. It’s difficult to write about music because words are generally insufficient. I wish Grimes, Claire or whoever today’s angst makes her the best of luck. Maybe pop stardom will come her way, maybe not.
Anyhow, back to posting squirrels.
UPDATE: The similar song in question is “Feeling” by the Las, not Echo & the Bunnymen. Wrong band, wrong era, wrong-ish region, just plain wrong I was. Anyhow, though the songs are quite different, there is some pretty parallel stuff going on in the melody. Sure, nothing’s completely original, but it is worth noting. Ahhh, now my feverish mind can rest…
– Igor Keller is Seattle’s finest musician. In his spare time he is also a squirrel photographer and the proprietor of the Hideous Belltown blog.
