This year, a 2010 documentary by Canadian filmmaker Emily Kai Bock, Human Heart, resurfaced on youtube. Its subject is Claire Boucher (Grimes), then a gawky astrophysics flunker trying to chip a sideline for herself in the music industry. She appeared a character adjunct from society; buffeted by dreams and blissfully unaware of the shape of things. Ten years have passed since then—and Boucher and the world’s relationship has grown more complicated.
The Grimes of Human Heart is unrecognisable, replaced by a pop-star ice queen who wears Iris Van Herpen gowns in her music videos and tags Balenciaga in her sponsored Instagram posts. Boucher never aimed to be a relatable or socially-conscious artist—instead aiming for pixie/juggalo cross-breed—but she wasn’t a superficial one either. So this flouncing around in exclusive designer wear still feels oddly like a betrayal of principles.
In fact, Boucher has pretty much become a walking principle-betrayer. “I don’t want to be infantalised because I refuse to be sexualised” is a commendable statement—one that looks really good as the headline of a news article. But it feels rich coming from a performer who deliberately babies up her voice when she sings and had a camera rotate around her PVC-clad arse in the ‘We Appreciate Power’ video.
The obvious counterpoint is that Boucher was making a critical and much more specific statement about the music industry’s treatment of female artists. The elephant in the room: multi-billionaire Elon Musk—Boucher’s partner and modern-day Howard Hughes. When Musk was publicly called out on refusing to let his workers unionise, Boucher swept in to deflect the tweet-storm and defend him. It seems, for Boucher, the only imbalances worth correcting are those which affect her industry gal-pals and the surrounding cultural elite.
On Miss Anthropocene, Grimes presents a mass-appeal repackaging of Nick Land’s accelerationist philosophy, arguing that we should welcome the advent of climate change. In some way, it’s the same aloof, playful Grimes of ten years ago—but one who is directly addressing some rather more serious topics. “Wouldn’t it be fun if Dune was real”, the starry-eyed Grimes of Halfaxa, is a lot more palatable of a sci-fi conceit to accept than “we are all about to be annihilated in an ecological apocalypse haha”. It might not be so bad if Boucher wasn’t under the same roof as someone who could make a fucking difference.
I’m sure most positive criticism around Miss Anthropocene will focus on its production. But that’s really easy to get right when you have a thousand times the budget as everyone else.
Miss Anthropocene feels like a compromised product—something which has no concern for people, but still waters itself down for their approval. And Boucher herself has become harder to market as she has become more famous; a contradictory, nonsensical person who has been saddled with celebrity, and is now expected to take stances on things. But which is she feigning: indifference or sincerity?
You can find a download/streaming link for this one yourselves—she doesn’t need our help.
Words by Andrew O’Keefe