Grimes released her followup to the groundbreaking Visions with, “Go”, just today. But our two avant-pop writers have vastly different opinions on the single. Check out both and decide who you agree with. Can Kavit Sumud (who loves it) shove his opinion up his piehole or can Saam (who was, uh, less than enthused) just stay on his side of the pond and sip some damn tea instead of grousing Grimes? Or do you love them both with their strong opinions and shiz?

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Saam Idelji: 
Fantasy-pop princess Claire Boucher a.k.a Grimes had a lot to live up to.

Visions, Boucher’s 2012 breakthrough success was always going to be a tough act to follow. It fused the mythicality with which Boucher operates with incredibly strong pop hooks and melodies, and in return brought her great critical acclaim and an ever-expanding fan-base. It even bore fruit to one of the great music videos of this millennium so far with the video for ‘Oblivion’. But this is all now in the past and truly great artists are the ones who can harness the positive energy from such a success like Visions into furthering their art. Therefore, the pertinent question is: “Has Grimes been able to deliver a killer first single from her forthcoming record?” The answer is an underwhelming maybe. ‘Go’, having just premiered on Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1 show (26/06/2014), is the song that Grimes wrote for Rihanna and was subsequently rejected. And ‘Go’ sees Grimes moving away from the subtle, experimental pop music, which Visions had in abundance and trades it for a mindless, bludgeoning bassline. To see Grimes, move into the realm of ‘EDM’ is disappointing. Yes the track can be called a ‘banger’ and may prove to be a great crossover success, but is devoid of everything that made Grimes interesting. Boucher’s vocals are still super sweet and on ‘Go’ are super clean but over the faux-dubstep/trap drums, there is something not quite inherently right here.

The next step will be interesting…Grimes has confirmed her album will be out in 2015, not late 2014 – sorry Grimes fans.

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Kavit Sumud:

Ah, to use a Britishism familiar to my colleague across the pond: oh, pish posh.  Visions was as much a byproduct of the limitations of DIY ethic label Arbutus where Grimes was first signed as it was the vision of Ms. Claire Boucher.  Grimes admitted as much when she discussed ‘Go’ at The Governor’s Ball and said that she redid the tracks on and that they sound ‘much better’.   Signing to Roc Nation was always going to make Grimes louder. And there’s no indication of quality by Rihanna rejecting it, she routinely shies away from experimental producers and decisions and has thus been awarded with a laughable number of #1s for it. But pushing all that aside, all you have to do is take a look at the live performance to see what this track is trying to accomplish:

“Go” is Grimes unmasking the emotions and punching them into your throat.  As much as Vision‘s ethereal nature has artistic elements of great merit, it also hid and masked whole swaths of Grimes. “Go”, and I hope most of the new album, is all about busting down the barriers to one’s humanity that 50+ layers of vocals will do to a track. Visions felt much like a recovery from some pretty horrific trauma–Oblivion at least being about the victim blaming of sexual assault–and that will leave you muted in the outright loudness of your emotional intensity.  But, “Go” is Grimes breaking the fuck free. The live performance of “Go” at The Governor’s Ball brought down the roof. I dare anyone to be in that room and not lose their shit. That mindless, bludgeoning drop , as  you asked me to defend it (haha) is so indicative of getting one’s voice back after trauma: it’s never one loud scream and then I’m fine. It’s punctuated with periods of intensity and out right bombastically guttural howls followed by retreats, which  that drop does to me damn well.

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Who do you agree with? Saam, Kavit, maybe a little bit of both? Decide for yourself by checking out the link below and you can get ‘Go’ as a free download here: 

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