Though the premise behind Grimes’ first official single, “We Appreciate Power,” from her much dangled upcoming album is intended to be told from the perspective of a worshipful pro-AI girl group (inspired by The Moranbong Band, seemingly North Korea’s only pop cultural offering), there is something about the moody electroguitar sounds that feel very inspired by too much time with the ultimate caricature of an 80s douche, Elon Musk. Not just any 80s douche, but the one who attempts to pretend he isn’t an exact replica of Steff from Pretty in Pink, instead feigning to be in touch with “edgier” “fringe” elements. Hair band sound aside, it isn’t just the cock rock influence that makes it stand out, but the very title of the song that would seem to suggest where Grimes’ headspace is at with regard to what she values in what’s left of being a human being. Particularly a male one (and yes, we all know that AI is decidedly more male in that its creators were so).
With the tongue-in-cheek statement, “Simply by listening to this song, the future General AI overlords will see that you’ve supported their message and be less likely to delete your offspring,” numerous references are made to only being a complete “person” when your mind is essentially downloaded to the quintessential matrix. Because “you’re not even alive if you’re not backed up on a drive” and “if you long to never die baby, plug in, upload your mind.” To be sure, most of us already have whether we’re aware of it/want to admit it or not–the bulk of our lives saved on an imaginary cloud that we’re supposed to have complete faith in (Black Mirror has, of course, somewhat addressed this in the episode, “Be Right Back“). Very General AI overlord indeed. Which is just how Musk sees himself/who he wants to be, no doubt affecting Grimes’ lyrics in her own secret quest to be the princess to the overlord who now doesn’t even need a penis since he’s running things as an entity detached from a body.
That Musk’s business ideas are frequently drawn from sci-fi narratives (e.g. Iain M. Banks) likely only further compelled Grimes to explore the AI matter in her first major release denoting that we might get her fifth album by the end of the year (so far she’s just been a featured artist throughout 2018, including on Janelle Monáe’s single, “PYNK,” from the equally respectful of AI in title, Dirty Computer). With frequent collaborator HANA adding her conjuring chants and harmonies to the mix, there is something decidedly sinister about “We Appreciate Power,” as though it could be used in a Marvel movie centered specifically on a villain, or, say, at one of Trump’s political rallies. But then, this would seem to be the entire point behind the song. To galvanize naive analog humans who will soon be as irrelevant as the neanderthal to adapt or die (with no trace of themselves left without having uploaded their minds as an offering to the AI gods). And yes, there’s literally a line in which Grimes warns, “Neanderthal to human being/Evolution, kill the gene/Biology is superficial/Intelligence is artificial,” referencing the fact that the most lo-tech form of man was eventually stamped out by what exists in the present, soon to be stamped out by what will exist in the future: complete artificiality.
Yet for someone claiming that “simulation is the future,” there is certainly nothing forward-thinking about resuscitating use of the catsuit to get people’s minds to associate it with the Barbarella/Britney Spears on Mars prototype that makes proverbial dweebs like Musk salivate. Honestly, isn’t there any other sartorial shtick to help people better imagine a world in which we are all the very best versions of what we can buy for our pre-packaged bodies and mild personalities? Simulacrum of an identity, if you will.
Regardless of how much this is a secret love letter to Musk and his huge bank account (though not D, as Azealia Banks pointed out in a text exchange citing that she probably only thought Musk was well-hung because of her tiny white pussy), there is something undeniably hypnotic about the song, which, sonically, sounds ever less like the Grimes we once came to know on her critical breakout, Visions. With a moody, raucous beat that simply has to have an underlying subliminal call to action (like in Josie and the Pussycats) to make us all “capitulate” to the inevitable singularity, all we can do is bang our heads back and forth in homage to this neo-1980s cock rock beat.
