Death Grips / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation: It is unclear how much of the band's image is genuine or not.
Awesome Music: See here.
Broken Base:
- Death Grips — forerunners of an up and coming unique take on hip-hop, or talentless hobos that just make pure noise, fueled by white backpacker snobs who don't actually like rap? Not helped by BLKHRTS (a rap group with similar distortion and death metal/rock/industrial influences, often compared to DG) being vocal about how they believe Death Grips is a white-fueled psuedo-indie capitalist insult to rap, and a review by a professor of music who had much the same criticism, albeit leaning toward B L A C K I E.
- Are Death Grips unique, or ripoffs of acts like dälek, B L A C K I E, clipping., et cetera? Not helped by B L A C K I E (very possibly lightly) calling Death Grips "mainstream" during their falsified label breakup and jokingly comparing MC Ride to a kid wearing a cape.
Contested Sequel:
- Government Plates seems to be eliciting this reaction. On one side, you have those who appreciate the cryptic feel of the album, and feel like it was a necessary follow-up to No Love Deep Web. On the other side, you have those who feel like the album was a disappointment compared to its predecessors.
- Fashion Week as well. Then again, a group very famous for its vicious screaming frontman releasing an entirely instrumental album will elicit this reaction.
Creepy Awesome: MC Ride. Probably best demonstrated with his absolutely batshit performance in the "You Might Think" music video.
Cry for the Devil: Make no mistake, MC Ride’s persona is a violent, Social Darwinist lunatic, but it’s become clear just how utterly he’s been driven to the brink by his lifestyle, to the point where his existence is essentially And I Must Scream by “Centuries of Damn.”
Ensemble Dark Horse: Andy Morin is becoming one, probably due to the fact that he's such an enigma. Government Plates is all about Andy's production, with much less of an emphasis on MC Ride and Hill than their past works.
Epic Riff:
- The guitar-like synth throughout "I've Seen Footage".
- The chilled out guitar riff in "Birds", played by none other than Robert Pattinson.
- The unique, unorthodox drum riff in "Klink" has gained some popularity by itself.
- The guitar riffs in "Beyond Alive" and "Centuries of Damn" are also very memorable.
- To say nothing of Reinhart's guitar work on "Ring a Bell."
- "Black Paint" is home to another one of Death Grips' best riffs with background chanting of "AYE AYE AYE" to make it even better
Epileptic Trees:
- Their ARGs spawn a lot of them, as well as Andy Morin's whereabouts. For instance, a sizable amount of people believe that Andy was in Korea for SXSW, and that Hill and Ride were playing over a pre-recording of Hill's drums. (Though this is not beyond reason, Skype calls have a lag to them that would've made playing live over Skype extremely difficult and impractical, along with Andy's website changing to pictures from Korea around the same time.)
- A much weirder theory regarding Andy's absence is he and BLANK BANSHEE, a known vaporwave/trapwave artist, were the same guy.
Even Better Sequel: Exmilitary compared to the debut EP, and in turn The Money Store compared to Exmilitary.
Fan Nickname: Noided, a word that's been around since the 90s to mean "annoyed", but has been repurposed in the lyrics of "I've Seen Footage" to mean "paranoid". In practice, most Death Grips fans use it in the context of "excited" or "psyched".
Fountain of Memes: Not just a fountain, but a bottomless pit of memes. It's probably easier to list the albums of theirs that haven't inspired any significant amounts of memery.
Fridge Brilliance: "You Might Think..." opens with the sound of breaking glass. Broken mirrors (or other reflective surfaces) are one of the most common signs of possession.
Friendly Fandoms:
- The Venn diagram of Death Grips fans and Anthony Fantano fans is nearly a circle.
- Death Grips fans have a close relationship with Kero Kero Bonito of all things, thanks to the cover of "I've Seen Footage" during the Sacramento tour, as seen here. Many fans have asked for a collab between the two of them, either ironically or unironically. It helps that they have some similarities in things like vocals while having a much Lighter and Softer theme in Kero's part, to the point where some fans call Kero Kero Bonito "Life Grips".
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- "Deep Web" has the line "don't make me take my face off". In the Twin Peaks revival, there's a scene where Sarah Palmer removes her face in front of an aggressive bar patron trying to make a move on her, revealing a void behind it that causes his throat to burst open.
- Some comments on Charles Manson's "I make the money, I roll the nickels" rant joke that he summed up every rap song ever. Said rant was later sampled in "Beware".
Hype Aversion: Thanks to Pitchfork and /mu/.
I Am Not Shazam: It’s a common misconception that Andy Morin goes by the stagename “Flatlander,” when in actuality the name refers to both Andy and Zach together (the two of them making up the production side of Death Grips).
Jerkass Woobie: MC Ride’s stage persona is a violent, deranged criminal, but his sheer degree of increasing madness, depression and existential despair are tragic, to the point where he’s openly begging for death in “Come Up and Get Me”.
Memetic Mutation: See here.
Narm:
- "Deep Web" has some, as noted by The Needle Drop in his review of NO LOVE DEEP WEB.
- The line about the taxi from "Hunger Games".
- "Fuck That" dedicates several lines to the threat of hitting the listener so hard that their face ends up on their scalp, as well as what would befall the listener as a result. It would be disturbing were the mental image not outright hilarious.
- Ride shouting "BIATCH" at the top of his lungs in "I Want It I Need It"
- Ride's constant barrages of "AAAAH OOOOH OOOH WAH OOOOOH WAAAAH" in "Blood Creepin'" can sound pretty silly to some listeners.
- Ride's constant shoutings of "BLOBLOBLOBLOBLO" in "Hot Head" is silly.
- From "Come Up and Get Me": "FUCK A NAZI!"
- Ride screaming "MY MAN!" in "Turned Off", mainly because it sounds like he's saying "MOMMY!"
Narm Charm:
- The music videos.
- MC Ride's deranged and extreme delivery, for some.
- Andy Morin's hyperactive, animated stage persona—More often than not, it seems he's outright euphoric just to be playing.
- "Inanimate Sensation" is a completely ridiculous song on paper, what with its production that has been compared to "A chorus of screaming Peter Griffins" and the weird funhouse effects MC Ride puts on his voice throughout the song, but the band manages to make it an awesome banger when it could have been an unlistenable mess.
Older Than They Think: Industrial rap. While the band is far and away the most well-known example, other industrial/rap-fusion projects have existed for decades.
Questionable Casting: Collaborators that worked alongside the band for Year of the Snitch include Lucas Abela, Justin Chancellor, and, of all people, Andrew Adamson. Robert Pattinson's appearance on "Birds" could also count as this.
Sampled Up: Good luck watching anything on YouTube that has Arthur Brown's "Fire" in it without the inevitable "Lord of the Game" reference in the comment section.
Signature Song: "Guillotine", "I've Seen Footage", "Hacker", or "The Fever (Aye Aye)", depending on who you ask.
Squick:
- In the "Spread Eagle Cross the Block" video, we get to see a skater's hand with skin peeled back after he has a nasty wipeout.
- "Pss Pss", a song about pissing on people.
Tear Jerker: You might not expect this from them, but they have enough for their own page.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: See Contested Sequel.
Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The Björk samples on Niggas on the Moon, which are twisted and looped in a way that makes them sound creepily inhuman.
The Un-Twist: It wasn't really a big surprise when the band made a less-than-subtle implication on Facebook that they'd continue making music.

YMMV / Death Grips

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