YMMV / Grimes

• Awesome Art: Grimes is a visual artist as well as a musician, and her illustrations are cartoony, ornate, and surreal. You can see some of her works from 2009-2014 here, and more on this fan account.
• Broken Base:
  • Since two different versions were officially released, the fans are often split on which version of "Realiti" is better — the scrappy but emotionally potent demo, or the brighter, more polished album version.
  • The contributions of Taiwanese rapper 潘PAN (formerly known as Aristophanes) to her songs are often contended. Those that dislike her rapping style believe that "Scream" and "Darkseid" are the worst songs on their respective albums, while those who enjoy her vehemently defend both songs.
  • Which version of the Miss Anthropocene cover is the best? There's FOUR OF THEM.
  • Fans are mixed on her most recent output with producer Illangelo and collaborations with Anyma and Sevdaliza. Some find the shift into EDM, dance-pop, and techno to be trite and lifeless and want her to go back to making lo-fi indie pop like she did in the 2010s, while others who enjoy the songs believe she should be allowed to make whatever music she wants and shouldn't have to be beholden to what fans want from her.
• Friendly Fandoms: Grimes' fandom has a big overlap with other indie-electropop artists such as Charli XCX, Lana Del Rey, and Sky Ferreira, who all started out their careers as Tumblr darlings.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Some have pointed out the Cassandra Truth-ness of Grimes releasing an album about the world ending, with lyrics such as "you're gonna get sick, you don't know when" and performing in face masks, right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the majority of the Western world.
• LGBT Fanbase: Has a sizable amount of queer fans. Grimes has never put an exact label on her sexuality, though she has said that she's "gay" unless her boyfriend is smarter than her.
• Nightmare Fuel: Both Geidi Primes and especially Halfaxa are filled with dark and eerie moments:
  • Geidi Primes is mostly subdued and soothing, but has a rather eerie feel to it too. "Shadout Mapes" is very weird and unsettling, while "Venus In Furs" is similar with its distorted yet folksy waltz. Additionally, sadder songs like "Rosa" and "Avi" are very haunting and "Beast Infection" has some weird vocal distortion not to mention a disturbing title.
  • Halfaxa heavily evokes dark fantasy and castles; Grimes herself was apparently inspired by medieval music for it. Particularly dark tracks include "Weregild", "Rasik", "Dream Fortress" (which begins slightly eerie but mostly soothing and dreamy until an abrupt change into freakiness, then goes back to the first part...), "River" and most certainly the lengthy "Hallways".
• Mainstream Obscurity: While Grimes herself is fairly well known and her music has rather quickly been remarkably influential on modern mainstream pop, you'd be hard-pressed to find a sampling of casual music fans or Top 40 listeners who would be able to name any of her songs or albums... even if they may be able to recognize certain beats and sounds (though "Flesh Without Blood" and her Suicide Squad (2016) soundtrack contribution "Medieval Warfare" have gotten modest Rock Radio airplay). Most people only know her for being Elon Musk's ex rather than her music.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Was often compared appearance-wise to Helga Pataki early on in her career.
  • The internet basically flipped its shit when it was revealed she was dating Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk. Jokes abounded at their general Odd Couple match-up.
  • The jokes came back tenfold once they had a son named... well...
  • Her interview with Harper's Bazaar about her eating habits went viral due to a clip where she talks about how, while on tour, she would only eat spaghetti and eventually became malnourished and sick from it. See: the Charli XCX green screen video.
  • Her tweet about her new tattoos got memed a lot, with people taking her caption and using it for bad/silly tattoos.
• Signature Song: "Oblivion," though "Genesis," "Flesh Without Blood," and "Realiti" are definite contenders.
  • "We Appreciate Power" and "Shinigami Eyes" have also become quite popular.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: Many songs on Halfaxa and Visions are dreamy, ethereal, and soothing. "Know the Way" even contains water rushing sounds, even more fitting to fall asleep to.
• Tear Jerker: All over her music.
  • "Rosa" is extremely saddening and gloomy and "Avi" is similar. There is a somewhat sensitive/introverted feel to the whole album with the simple, lonely vocals.
  • Very frequent all over Halfaxa, "Devon", "World Princess," "Swan Song," and "Favriel" in particular.
  • Many songs on Visions, like "Oblivion", "Vowels" and "Skin."
  • "Realiti", especially the original demo version, which was from a supposedly scrapped album that Grimes hinted at being an album full of this.
  • "David" an unreleased song that was performed live multiple times that was written about her friend who committed suicide.
  • "Delete Forever" is a sobering song about addiction.

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