Grimes

About

Grimes is the stage name of Canadian singer-songwriter Claire Boucher, who has gained a large following and critical acclaim online for her eclectic and experimental style of music that draws influences from a variety of musical genres, including electronica, pop, hip hop, R&B and noise rock.

Online History

In 2007, Boucher created a Myspace^[8] page for her music titled "Grimes," which was named after the popular British music genre. In January 2010, she released her debut studio album Geidi Primes. In September, her second studio album Halfaxa was released. In January 2012, Grimes was signed on the label 4AD Records and released her album Visions to critical acclaim. On March 2nd, the music video for her track "Oblivion" was posted to the GrimesVEVO YouTube channel, gaining over 15 million views and 13,000 comments in the next four years (shown below, left). On August 22nd, the music video for her single "Genesis" was released, garnering upwards of 26 million views and 34,000 comments within three years (shown below, right). In 2013, Grimes was named "Artist of the Year"^[10] at the annual Webby Awards ceremony.

Social Media Presence

As of March 2015, several official Grimes social media accounts have been created, including a Facebook^[3] page with more than 720,000 likes, a Twitter^[4] feed with over 273,000 followers and the Actually Grimes Tumblr.^[2]

Name Change

On March 20th, 2019, The Wall Street Journal published an interview with Boucher where she stated she would be "killing off" the stage name Grimes and would be going by "c."^[11] She also announced her new album to Instagram that day, called Miss_Anthropocene, a concept album in which Grimes will "play an anthropomorphic goddess of climate change” (shown below). In the Wall Street Journal interview, Grimes stated her intent was "to make climate change fun" and "beautiful."

The news about Grimes led to jokes about her on Twitter. User @molotovcokecan wrote, "Grimes is what happens when u don't bully art kids enough," gaining over 80 retweets and 590 likes (shown below, left). User @islacharlatan posted a Nobody: joke, gaining over 370 retweets and 2,500 likes (shown below, right).

Related Memes

Grimeth

"Grimeth" is an alternate spelling of Grimes, which is often used by 4chan users on the /mu/ (music) board to mock the artist's lisp.^[6][7]

Grimes Love Mayonnaise

"Grimes Loves Mayonnaise" is an expression used to poke fun at Boucher's habit of eating mayonnaise, despite claiming that she eats a predominately vegan diet.

Close-Up Photograph

Critics of Grimes often post an unflattering close-up photo of the artist in order to troll her fans on various imageboards and discussion forums.

Personal Life

Claire Boucher was born in Vancouver on March 17th, 1988 and is of Québécois, Ukrainian and Russian descent.

Search Interest

External References