i was in ottawa (which is eventually going to merge with montreal into a megacity) until a few years ago, and it seemed clear that grimes was trying very hard to market herself to an industrial-listening audience, which really made no sense to me. i remember hearing her last album and thinking "this sounds like madonna. it could be successful. but, why is it marketing itself to the underground? i'm never going to listen to this....".

i realize that this is going to confuse some people that bought her last record, but it really makes sense and isn't striking me as very surprising. she's made a career of watering down old ideas in a way that the younger generation can connect to, via the rose-tinted sunglasses of retro culture. this could easily be a ministry side project released c. 1989. but, realize that these ideas were released as side projects because they were failed tracks, despite becoming holy grails for record collectors.

she still has an opportunity to try and take her influences and mould them into something modern and forward thinking. and, she's still young. but, she's running out of time. and, by the standards of the genre she's ripping ideas out of, this is - predictably - trash.

i guarantee you that there's a stack of demos in the garage at wax trax! that never got listened to that are far more interesting than this.