Grimes talks new album, hating 'Art Angels,' Elon Musk in new interview

Grimes recently announced the title to her long-awaited followup to 2015’s Art Angels, Miss_Anthropocene. She initially described the new album as “a concept album about the anthropomorphic Goddess of climate Change,” and in a new interview with Cultured she’s elaborated a little on that. “It’s anthropomorphizing climate change,” she told Cultured. “It’s sort of about this demon of the end of the world, this character that’s like the Voldemort of climate change. She’s relishing the end of the world, and it’s an album about how great fucking climate change is.”

Grimes goes on to discuss a few new songs, including “Shall I Compare Thee,” a new love song; “My Name is Dark,” a “narrative complement” to her 2018 single “We Appreciate Power;” and “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth,” which she says is about “specifically how when a dude comes inside you, you become in their thrall—how it’s an attack on your feminist freedom.” She also brings up the fallout from her relationship with Elon Musk:

“It’s sad how love can be this beautiful thing, but then love is the thing that’s fucking up my career,” she confesses. “The biggest change for me this year is losing my hardcore masculinity. I used to just be free—free of all this bullshit that it seemed like all the other girls were going through, and now I feel like I’m not.”

Grimes had some things to say about Art Angels, as well. “The last album was a piece of crap,” she says. “I feel like people really misread it and it feels like a stain on my life.”

Oh, and for the record, the artist formerly known as Claire Boucher has legally changed her name to “c,” the symbol for the speed of light. Her former name had been “plaguing” her, she said.

Read the full interview here.