While the opening track to Grimes’ first record in five years (and fifth in her line of discography), Miss Anthropocene, might lull one into a false sense of ambient security, one oughtn’t let “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth” set the precedent for what the rest of the record embodies. Which is to say, a visceral moodiness from the perspective of a mythological villain–something Grimes has been painted out to be ever since she began dating Elon Musk and then decided, fuck it, let me have his spawn.
So it was that during the long-winded course of producing this record, Grimes’ resentment and pent up rage manifested most succinctly on “Darkseid” featuring 潘PAN, the sulkiest, most erratic track on the record. Originally created for Lil Uzi Vert, Grimes ended up using the skeleton of the beat for herself after she saw that he never opened the WeTransfer file she sent him for it. His loss, to be sure. Speaking to that notion Grimes inherently espouses about all of us eventually becoming nothing more than our avatars at some point in the near future (the one in which we finally reach “the end of art, human art”), she chants, “Unrest is in the soul/We don’t move our bodies anymore,” as though to iterate that we’ve all entered the k-hole that is a screen at this point and that all “moving” is more or less done virtually at this juncture (hence why so many people have potato bodies IRL, at least those who can’t afford body sculpting and/or don’t possess Grimes’ freakishly waifish physique).
Speaking to that malaise–that sort of filmy coating of general laziness that is only fortified by the numbing of oh so tantalizing opioids–“Delete Forever” is a resigned homage to friends and admired ones Grimes has lost, with the inspiration for the track coming the same night as Lil Peep’s overdose on a faux Xanax laced with fentanyl. Thus, the line: “Cannot comprehend, lost so many men/Lately, all their ghosts turn into reasons and excuses.” To keep using, to keep being depressed, to keep wallowing in the pain. And much of “Delete Forever” is an exploration of the artist’s perpetual need to tap into their darkest emotions in order to be creative–a kind of pressure that can make one morose enough on a regular basis to need drugs to cope. All in all, it’s a recipe for the anger, the internal “Violence” that can so often manifest physically after enough time. Maybe that’s why Grimes chose to put out the aforementioned song as her first official single (featuring i_o), though “We Appreciate Power” was surely a nice standalone amuse-bouche for establishing the larger themes of what Grimes’ post-2010s work would be about. Playing into the concept behind the record about Miss Anthropocene being a sort of god of climate change, the song feels as though it’s told from the perspective of Mother Earth herself as she sings of humans and their destruction, “You can’t see what I see/’Cause you, ha, ha, you feed off hurting me/Off hurting me, yeah.” It definitely seems to be the case as we ride this ghetto earth into burning oblivion.
On the subject of gods watching the foolish comportment of mortals, “4ÆM” commences with Grimes fancifully cooing, “Ooh Aphrodite, I wrote your constellation into the sky.” Taking into account that the lyrical inspiration for the song was sprung from the tragic love story rehashed in the 2015 Bollywood movie, Bajirao Mastani, it’s no surprise that the goddess of love should be name checked. And no doubt that minx Venus has been on Grimes’ mind ever since she became so hopelessly devoted to Elon. How else could such a love be explained other than via a celestial intervention? Even if the “New Gods” of the twenty-first century seem to be a little bit twisted, a little bit mutated–a mere projection of the humans they reign over. Distortions of the plastic and the pollution they seem to worship in the present. As such, Grimes in her Miss Anthropocene persona laments, “Broken glass that shines in northern lights/So I pray, but the world burns.” There’s no one powerful enough to pray to in order to save us from the ills of this epoch, alas. As one of the purest, most unprocessed songs on the album, Grimes’ vocals are prominent in ballad form (much the same way as they are on “Delete Forever”)–ethereal and choir-like as she rues, “Hands reaching out for new gods/You can’t give me what I want.” For the most part, it’s been essentially like reaching into the void upon trying to make a connection with any of these so-called “new gods” (as Grimes puts it, “…plastic surgery and social media. The new gods sound sick. They sound like… like the Sailor Scouts, like these sick demons.”).
On that note, it’s no wonder Grimes grapples with insomnia and restlessness on “My Name Is Dark” (presented as the “Art Mix” on the record and originally intended to be called “That’s What the Drugs Are For” before Grimes was told to change it). Written from the viewpoint of “the worst version of herself” as she watches the world fortify itself with these new post-technology gods, Grimes offers up a parody of a prayer to a modern god with, “And the angel of death, she said to God/’Un-fuck the world, un-fuck the world/You stupid girl, you stupid girl’.” Afraid that’s impossible, puppet.
As though to embody the vengeful spirit of earth once more, the following song, “You’ll miss me when I’m not around” is a guitar-tinged (in point of fact, the song has the most rock-infused flavor on Miss Anthropocene) warning that, “If you don’t bleed, then you don’t die/Cross my heart and hope to fly/If they could see me now, smiling six feet underground/I’ll tie my feet to rocks and drown/You’ll miss me when I’m not around.” Of course we will, but in the meantime, we’re all going to continue to spend most of our time literally shitting upon the face of the world.
Slowing down the pace is “Before the Fever,” a rather ominous name considering the current coronavirus plague and the just as rampant phobia about getting it. Yet it would appear that this particular song talks precisely of our present apocalyptic dystopia in which something like this type of virus reigns. Laden with irascible electric guitars as Grimes sings at a lower pitch than usual to soundtrack a scene for the end of the world, she declares, “This is the sound of the end of the world/Dance with me ’til end of the night, be my girl/By the strength of the light/Audacity through from the lack thereof/They will kill us all.” As for who the “they” is, well, take your pick: Republicans, Democrats, Russians, Syrians, gun-toting white supremacists–there are so many ways to be destroyed.
The contrastingly upbeat “Idoru” commences with chirping birds and other ambient jungle sounds as Grimes makes nondescript singing sounds in the vein of Snow White as she goes to get water from the well. At times another seeming ode to la natura, Grimes sings, “I wanna play a beautiful game/Even though we’re gonna lose/But I adore you/Adore you.” At others, however, it feels like a fatalistic love song to another human (one of the last of them, according to this record’s thesis). Yes, there are definitely some moments when it comes across as a love song to Elon, with the lines, “And you’re so cool ’cause you don’t think you’re cool/You cannot be sad/Because you made my all-time favorite music” (is she talking about the, um, EDM song he put out called “RIP Harambe”?). Which just goes to show that some of the best art is yielded from some of the shittiest muses, particularly in the permutation of female artists and male muses. Miss Anthropocene more than solidifies that trope.
