The worst part of the new Grimes album is every review of Grimes’ new album Sarah Phillips Follow Mar 8 · 3 min read

My friend Mike Kovacs is an awesome guy and a total music nerd. He wrote a piece about Grimes latest album that makes a great International Women’s Day read. He doesn’t have Medium so I’m posting here for him. :)

Grimes’ fifth new album, Miss Anthropocene, dropped at the end of last month. The album engages with big, front-burning issues of today–primarily technology and its influence on the way people relate to each other–but no one wants to talk about that.

Every single article I’ve read about Grimes’s latest album, diverges from the music to weave in commentary about about her romantic partner and future baby-daddy, Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk, until the reviews ultimately cease to be music journalism of any kind and instead become pop culture think-pieces on the influence of Musk.

The music outlets I’ve turned to for years for meaningful commentary on well, music — websites like Pitchfork, Vice and Exclaim — have descended into gossip columns about the Canadian musician’s relationship. My issue is not with the gossip. It’s with the hypocrisy. It would be great if an article about a woman’s music could be about just that: the music.

When reviewers do comment on her musical talents, Grimes is often given less praise than male musicians with similar approaches. Around the same time Miss Anthropocene was released, Tame Impala (Kevin Parker) put out his fourth album, Slow Rush. Though both of these artists write, sing and play all the instruments on their albums, you’d only know it about one of them. Jillian Makes, Pitchfork reviewer, could barely contain her excitement about Parker’s solitary music genius, “I have to marvel that all this sound and history comes from Parker alone, picking every string and twisting every knob.” And for Grimes? “…a thoroughly DIY artist,” wrote Emilie Friedlander in Vice. So Parker is talented and Grimes is what, scrappy, at best?

Descriptions of Grimes typically triangulate her identity in relation to the moneyed people who surround her, “[a] childhood ballerina, daughter of a former banker and former Crown prosecutor-turned-journalist, and in a relationship with a man whose real-time net worth literally jumped from $41 billion to $44.2 billion between drafts of this review,” wrote Anupa Mistry in Pitchfork. Is this an Elon Musk review? Tell me about the goddamn album already!

Admittedly, Grimes’s new album does deal with Silicon Valley themes: the growing influence of AI, space, and technology as a potential saviour. But artists have always created work that reflects and refracts the themes of the day and their own personal lives. In this case, the way reviewers have focused on her relationship with this powerful man undermines the reason we’re all on these websites in the first place: for the music.

If you don’t believe the focus on her relationship and its influence on her art is because Grimes is a woman dating a much richer man, consider a reverse scenario: Kanye West’s work also draws on popular and personal themes, and while his partner, Kim Kardashian’s net worth overshadows his own (Kim is estimated to be worth $370 million, Kanye: $240 million), I have yet to encounter an album review pondering the Kardashian family’s undue influence on Kanye’s albums, artistry and genius.

I think Grimes made a fantastic album with Miss Anthropocene. It’s provocative and captivating; a rewarding experience for the listener who chooses to engage. The subject matter is heavy, maybe at times, depressing, portraying our not-so-distant future as a bleak clash of people and religion, represented by a group of new gods. The album also sounds amazing. Grimes masterfully ties pop and dark electronic techniques together into a beautiful layered frenzy that rewards the listener on each subsequent listen. “We Appreciate Power” is sung from the perspective of an all-girl, all-AI, pop group who encourage us to submit. Amazing. Listen for yourself. You might disagree with me and I’m okay with that. Because at least then we’d be talking about her music, and not her boyfriend.

It’s 2020, people. A credible album was made by a talented artist and no one is focusing on that. Can we now just get back to talking about the music?

By Mike Kovacs, awesome guy, music nerd.