Should We Pity Grimes?

It’s hard not to.

Once upon a time, a very strong argument could be made that Grimes (aka ‘Claire Boucher’ or ‘c’) was the coolest person on the planet. The author of this article certainly thought so. In 2025, this opinion is much harder to defend. Her upcoming album, the first single of which released in 2021, appears to be deep in development hell. In lieu of music, the woman who famously subsisted solely off spaghetti for two years straight is currently on twitter giving her hot takes on healthy eating or why orangutans as a species should be admitted to NATO. It is considerably more difficult to separate art from artist when the artist starts to hate art itself.

Perhaps the largest stain of Grimes’ reputation is her relationship with billionaire Elon Musk. In 2018, this could be seen as a match made in heaven; two chronically online nerds joining forces to not only take humanity to Mars but provide an excellent soundtrack to doing so. That was the plan at least. Instead, what the world got is a messy melange of court intrigue and family drama not seen since the Qing Dynasty. The emperor, Elon Musk in this case, is speed-running the collapse of America’s democratic institutions and hegemony, letting millions of people die in the name of somehow managing to save a negative amount of money, all the while his consorts, the four women with which he has had 14 children, beg for his attention on Twitter.

Credit: Instagram/@grimes

Grimes’ attitude towards her ex-boyfriend is not one of proud defiance or complete submission but a secret third, much sadder option; the worst of both worlds. One day she’s happy to denounce the far-right, the next she’s caught DJing at a party for Trump’s inauguration. Her plan it seems is a kind of appeasement, going too far in denouncing her ex may prevent her from access to her children. While this position of grovelling to the richest man on Earth may come across as pathetic, it’s important to note that this is the exact kind of life she envisioned for herself.

In a 2022 interview with Vanity Fair, she expressed her affinity for figures like Anne Boleyn, Marie Antoinette or even Lady Jessica from Dune; strong intelligent women reduced to footnotes in the lives of the men they dedicated themselves to. Choosing them as role models is the opposite of empowerment; she chose to rid herself of agency in the hope of being remembered in the history books. In trying to reclaim these women from history she instead reinforces the stereotypes they represent. In doing so she risks being more like Lady Jessica than she might think; absent from the Dune series after the first novel as her family goes on to commit genocide in the name of saving the galaxy. Why is she so surprised Henry VIII disposed of Anne Boleyn after she stopped being useful to him?

Credit: Instagram/@grimes

We should not be surprised when the students of the future are forced to sit through the music video for ‘Player of Games,’ which sees Grimes as an elf princess take on Sauron in a lightsaber duel in order to better understand the personality and public image of the man who helped ensure the end of the American Century. One student might comment on that fact the video ends in her death; even in her own fantasy world, Grimes cannot see herself winning against Musk.

Despite this, not all of Grimes’ problems stem from Musk. The decline in both the quality and quantity of her art can be attributed to nobody but herself. At one point, she was one of the most prolific female producers on the planet, now she’s much happier outsourcing her creativity to generative AI. Her song, We Appreciate Power, was once a tongue-in-cheek vision of a future world in which our machine overlords are attempting to conquer humanity, with Grimes and collaborator Hana playing the role of girl group making propaganda encourage world governments to submit; in 2025 the satire has broken down completely.

She believes that AI has achieved sentience much in the same way a child projects personhood onto their teddy bear. When, on occasion, she remembers she is an artist, the results are simply not good. ‘I Wanna Be Software’ legitimately sounds like it was written by ChatGPT and her latest release, appropriately entitled ‘idgaf’ is a six year old demo that never should have left her Google Drive. The 2020s are likely to be remembered for being, among other things, the decade of ‘slop’. Art without humanity and creativity without effort. Like so many revolutionaries before her, Grimes has become the very thing she swore to destroy.

Credit: Instagram/@grimes

Despite this, the feeling one is left watching the decline of such a legendary artist is not anger or disgust but sadness. Sadness as democracy retreats across the globe with very little resistance and sadness that human-made art may one day become a luxury, with the masses being all too eager to accept machine-made drivel.

Perhaps Grimes could turn this around, grow a backbone and denounce her ex and everything he stands for (including the invasion of her home country of Canada) and finally get round to releasing the record that was meant to come out three years ago, but this seems unlikely. Though the old Grimes may effectively be gone forever, her influence does live on in the work of artists like Magdalena Bay, ARTMS, Lexie Liu and Hemlocke Springs. Grimes is a pitiable figure; wise enough to understand how miserable her position is yet not willing to do anything about it.