Grimes
photo via @grimes' Instagram

Grimes shares "ETHEREAL is a genre" playlist ft. Bjork, Rosalia, FKA twigs & more

Grimes has been sharing singles off her long-awaited new album, Miss_Anthropocene, which is due out in February. A few of them, “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth,” “Violence,” and “My Name is Dark,” appear (along with “Know the Way” from 2012’s Visions) on a new playlist she’s put together, “ETHEREAL is a genre.” Grimes has this to say about the playlist:

We petition that ethereal should be an official genre on streaming platforms! We are constantly told that Grimes doesn’t fit into any existing format or genre and therefore cannot be on playlists or radio. Conversely, when I make “genre excercise” music like Violence (a dance track) – I get way better playlisting. This discourages creativity.
We argue that there is a long lineage of auteur artists, often producing their own music and/ or directing their own music videos. Oft with a heavy visual component and fantasy, sci fi or literary elements… often very ethereal, otherworldly and futuristic in nature. (It fits nicely into subgenres: ethereal-techno, ethereal-rap, ethereal-metal etc?) Maybe it isn’t a genre but it might be! What do you think???? It would be cool if there was a home for ethereal music.___________
Post script / to be clear I actually quite disagree with the idea of genre – however in the modern age artists are required to choose a format on streaming services etc. they don’t currently recognize ethereal or anything like it haha, hence this vibe

Along with the Grimes tracks, “ETHEREAL is a genre” includes songs from Rosalía, Arca, Cocteau Twins, Enya, FKA twigs, Massive Attack, Nicole Dollanganger, Grimes’ collaborator HANA, Kate Bush, Caroline Polachek, Kelsey Lu, Purity Ring, Bjork, Travis Scott, and more. Listen to it below.

Grimes recently spoke to Lana Del Rey and Brit Marling about “outrage culture,” her new album, and more, shortly after making headlines for saying, “I think live music is going to be obsolete soon.”