Since the release of her debut album in 2010, Grimes has set music journalists on a long-running tediously academic mission to define her sound. Is it pop? Alt pop? Electropop? Post pop? The dense and ethereal synth sounds and vocals are all over the map — some verging deep into experimental territory — but each of her four albums are coherent and compulsively listenable. Whatever it is, it’s made her a superstar.

The way Grimes made her first three albums, however, was more important to the music world than the category of her sound. Geidi Primes (2010), Halfaxa (2010) and Visions (2012) were all produced and engineered solo using GarageBand, Apple’s entry-level music production software that is free with iPhones and Macs. Self-taught in GarageBand, she did not even think of herself as a musical artist when these albums were released.

“What’s weird about what I do is that I started as a visual artist,” says Grimes, an illustrator who still draws her cover art. “Until recently I was a visual artist first, and music was still really new to me and something I was pretty uncomfortable with. But in the past year or two I’d say that music is primarily what I do.”

Recording and producing world-renowned albums in her bedroom was simply easier than the alternatives. “I’m not formally trained in music, so when I started translating thoughts to people it was basically impossible because I didn’t have the the vocabulary. I just started doing things myself."

The career of Grimes is an example of how raw talent, creative energy, and technology can come together to give a musical voice to someone before they’re even sure (and before the critics are sure) of what kind of musician they are. Her rise would have been almost impossible 15 years ago.