When you grow up in the midwest, you almost exclusively experience music in cars. Especially in a state like Michigan, nearly half of your waking hours are dedicated to driving to school, driving to athletic practice, driving to dinner or the grocery store and driving to your girlfriend's house. It was in my dad's truck I first heard Seger's "Old Time Rock & Roll," Zeppelin's "Black Dog," the Stones' "19th Nervous Breakdown" and The Beatles' "Helter Skelter." All foundational music experiences, cars gave me
blisters on my ears.
Moving to New York meant losing my car, which also meant no more shouted sing-a-longs to
Minor Threat or
Killing Joke, no more putting Girl Talk or Lil Wayne on blast and no more first listens to bands I'd come to love. Rain, snow, or shine, I had a gluttony of CD cases ready to soundtrack wherever I was going, whoever I was with. What I never accounted for in the big city was its subway.
Sure, commutes to and from work are overly-congested, hardly a place to experience something like
For Emma, Forever Ago, but there are few things better than the isolation offered by 1 a.m. rides with a belly full of scotch. The way underground lights flicker and sway before giving way to the stars over the Manhattan bridge, the Hudson's reflection and Lady Liberty's spotlights--It's the closest I've come to matching my old Accord's stereo system.
For the past few months, I've seen the name
Grimes pop up everywhere. Friends on Twitter gave shout-outs, MP3s cropped up on Tumblr and music bloggers were abuzz, but for whatever reason, her music flopped onto the "I'll get to it later" stack on my harddrive. It wasn't until a recent night-owl trip on the Q train that "Oblivion" came on in my earbuds; the perfect backdrop for what I was hearing.
Equally parts pop-diva,
John Carpenter,
New Order and
GarageBand, the Canadian-born singer has this weird, etherial quality about her, something that's hard to put a finger on, but so rewarding when it flows over you.
She's all but rejected her earlier material in recent interviews. "They were just practice," Grimes explained. "I don't hate them, but instead of actually making what I wanted to make, I was making what I was able to make." It's easy to hear, comparing the newer "Oblivion" and "Vanessa" to older efforts like "Feyd Rautha Dark Heart" and "Devon." With the former, it's an artist finally finding her confidence, creative yolks solidified.
While those earlier tracks have their merits, it's for the better. With "Oblivion" and (presumably) her upcoming
Visions LP, she's managed to strike the perfect genre blending balance of pop, goth, dubstep, new wave and, of course, grime.
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Grimes - Oblivion
Grimes - Vanessa
Grimes - Feyd Rautha Dark Heart
Grimes - Devon
