Art Angels

Art Angels
Studio album by Grimes
Released	November 6, 2015 (2015-11-06)
Recorded	2013–15
Genre	Art pop[1] synthpop[2] dance[3] chiptune
Length	49:37
Label	4AD
Producer	Claire Boucher
Grimes chronology
Visions (2012) Art Angels (2015)
Singles from Art Angels
"Flesh without Blood" Released: October 26, 2015 "Scream" Released: October 29, 2015

Art Angels is the fourth studio album by Canadian singer and songwriter Claire Boucher, professionally known as Grimes. It was digitally released on November 6, 2015 by 4AD, and in physical formats on December 11. Boucher began planning the record in 2013 as the follow-up to her third studio album Visions, however she scrapped most of the material from these sessions and began a new set of recordings in 2014. The track "Realiti", which came from the earlier recordings, was released as a demo in early 2015.

Art Angels has been described as being more accessible than Grimes' previous albums while retaining her experimental influences. The album features guest vocals from Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes and American recording artist Janelle Monáe. Two singles, "Flesh without Blood" and "Scream", were released ahead of the album and a single music video was made for the tracks "Flesh without Blood" and "Life in the Vivid Dream". Art Angels sold 11,000 copies in the first week of its release and became Boucher's highest charting album at the time. The album was released to widespread critical acclaim and was ranked by several publications as one of the best albums of 2015.

Background

Boucher's constant touring in 2013 for her 2012 album, Visions, almost led to a physical collapse by the end of the year, bringing her to a point where she recalled "putting a hand up and grabbing a piece of [her] hair, and [she] could just pull [her] hair out". She also became tired of how the music industry ignored her technical abilities, who would focus on her being a "female musician" and having a "girly voice"; she responded to these generalisations with "yeah, but I’m a producer and I spend all day looking at fucking graphs and EQs and doing really technical work".^[4] When media outlets began running her Tumblr posts as headlines, she wrote a post on her blog about her misrepresentation in the media and the sexism she had faced in the music industry, declaring "i dont want my words to be taken out of context. i dont want to be infantilized because i refuse to be sexualized [...] im tired of the weird insistence that i need a band or i need to work with outside producers [sic]".^[5] Being in an "unstable" and "beyond exhausted" state, along with her frustration toward the media, caused her to consider ending the Grimes project and solely writing songs for other artists, or at least putting her life in the public eye on hold. Her experiences, however, eventually began to strengthen her conviction in her being a solo artist. In a 2015 feature by The Fader, Boucher stated that while working in music studios "there [were] all these engineers [that didn't let her] touch the equipment [...] and then a male producer would come in, and he’d be allowed to do it". These incidents, which she described as sexist, left her "disillusioned with the music industry" and made her "realize what [she] was doing is important".^[4]

Recording and production

American singer Janelle Monáe contributed vocals to the track "Venus Fly".

"laughing and not being normal" "laughing and not being normal" epitomises Boucher's use of real instruments on Art Angels - including the violin - which she learned to play while recording the album. "SCREAM" "SCREAM" features lead vocals from Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes and additional screaming from Boucher.[6] "Flesh without Blood" One of the less experimental pop songs on Art Angels, "Flesh without Blood" is the album's lead single and highest-charting song.

Problems playing these files? See media help.

Boucher produced and engineered all of the tracks on the album alone. She began using Ableton Live^[7] after recording Visions entirely in GarageBand and also learned how to play the guitar, drums, keys, ukulele, and violin to explore new musical directions on Art Angels. The album was recorded by Boucher mostly at night in 12- to 16-hour shifts, and she would listen to her progress in the car while driving back home from the studio.

By 2014 Boucher had produced "hundreds of songs" for her next album, most of which were not included on Art Angels. She described the recording of these tracks as "this period where I had no way of dealing with anything, so I was writing these really depressing songs, and nothing was fun at all". Aside from the tracks being too gloomy, Boucher also rejected the tracks she had made during this time because they were not enough of a sonic departure from Visions. Boucher's 2014 single "Go", recorded during these sessions, was originally written for the Barbadian singer Rihanna, however after Rihanna turned down the track Boucher released it as a "surprise" under her Grimes alias. The negative response to the single from fans, who believed Boucher was "pandering to the radio", led media outlets to report that this was the reason she had started over the recording of her new album. Boucher stated this was false and commented that "Go" and the other tracks she had cut were not from a complete album; they were only songs which had not made it onto Art Angels. She later stated that she would consider releasing the archived material for free sometime in the future.^[4]

Release

Artwork for "Venus Fly" included in the vinyl edition of Art Angels. This print is one of the 14 individual artworks for each track on Art Angels.

On March 8, 2015, Boucher released a music video for the demo version of her song "Realiti" as a gift to her fans. "Realiti" was produced during the scrapped recording sessions for Art Angels and not intended to be included on the final version of her fourth album. Boucher stated that the demo version which she released was "not mixed or mastered" as she had "lost the [song's] Ableton file". Despite Boucher regarding the demo as "a bit of a mess", "Realiti" was well received by critics and fans, which led her to consider including a new version of the song on the final release of Art Angels.^[8][9] When the track listing for Art Angels was announced, a new version of "Realiti" appeared on the CD and digital release and the demo version was included as a bonus track on the CD edition only.^[10]

Boucher shared the title and cover artwork for Art Angels on social media networks on October 19, 2015 and announced that a new music video would be released the following week.^[11] On October 26, 2015, Boucher revealed that her new album would be available digitally on November 6, 2015, with releases in physical formats on December 11 in the same year. To accompany the announcement, Boucher released her "Flesh without Blood/Life in the Vivid Dream" music video, a digital single for "Flesh without Blood" and individual artwork for each track on Art Angels.^[12] "Scream" was released as the second single from Art Angels on October 29, 2015.^[13][14]

Art Angels debuted at number one on the Billboard Top Alternative Albums chart, sold 11,000 copies in the first week of its release and became Boucher's highest-charting album at the time.^[15] The album also peaked at numbers two and 36 on the Independent Albums and Billboard 200 charts, respectively.^[16][17]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	88/100[18]
Review scores
Source	Rating
The A.V. Club	A-[19]
Billboard	[20]
Clash	8/10[21]
Consequence of Sound	A-[22]
Exclaim!	10/10[23]
The Guardian	[24]
NME	4/5[25]
Now	[26]
Pitchfork Media	8.5/10[27]
Spin	8/10[28]

Art Angels received widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 88, which indicates "universal acclaim", based on 32 reviews.^[18] In a positive review, The A.V. Club called the album "slick and gritty, fun and funny, and horrifying and grotesque all at once" and said that "it will also make you shake your ass like nothing else". They also highlighted the track "Kill V. Maim" as holding "the full weight of Grimes’ abilities as both a producer and singer".^[19] While Billboard praised Art Angels as "a marvel of meticulous, even obsessive home-studio recording, uncompromised by bandmates or collaborators", they criticised Boucher's voice as "her least impressive, most commonplace tool".^[20] Clash stated that "this is the truest representation of Grimes we’ve heard yet: 'Art Angels' is boundary pushing, it’s listenable and it’s Boucher’s most ambitious and most consistent work to date" and commended the production of the album as the "one thing that does tie it all together".^[21] Although referring to Art Angels as "simultaneously [Boucher's] most accessible and her least personal body of work", Consequence of Sound called the album "pure Grimes — performative, maximalist, joyful, and broad".^[22]

DIY revered Art Angels and described it as "impossible to resist", possessing an "instant, limb-grabbing appeal".^[29] Exclaim! stated that "Art Angels was worth every second of the wait" and hailed the album as "a complete record that's everything pop should be in 2015: utterly uncompromising, imaginative and, somehow, universally accessible".^[23] NME dismissed notions that Boucher had "sacrificed some of what made her seem so alien when 4AD debut 'Visions' emerged" by "embracing the pop orthodoxy", and commented that "she's still laughing and not being normal, only this time, it's all the way to the bank".^[25] While giving Art Angels a "Best New Music" designation, Pitchfork Media wrote "these 14 tracks are evidence of Boucher's labor and an articulation of a pop vision that is incontrovertibly hers, inviting the wider world in" and labelled Boucher as "a human zeitgeist, redrawing all the binaries and boundaries by which we define pop music and forcing us to come along".^[27]

In a less positive review, The Guardian stated "packed as it is with all this goodness, Art Angels fails to comprehensively blow your mind" and "ultimately, Grimes has not reinvented the pop wheel, she’s just driven it off road a little".^[24] Similarly, The Line of Best Fit gave the album an average review and wrote that "on Art Angels, we hear that high art experimentation fall into mainstream territory with only fleeting moments of brilliance".^[30]

Year-end lists

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Claire Boucher unless otherwise stated. 

Personnel

• Claire Boucher – vocals, production, artwork
• Janelle Monáe – additional vocals (on "Venus Fly")
• Pan Wei-Ju – lead vocals (on "Scream")

Charts

Release history

References