"Grimes is in her cringe fascist era." The cover art for Grimes' new single "Artificial Angels" is a collage of photos, headlines, and internet ephemera -- some about Grimes herself, some about the artificial intelligence industrial complex that she was early to embrace. That particular line, about the cringe fascist era, is taken from a years-old post on Grimes' own subreddit. The post itself was in regard to Grimes' 2021 song "LOVE," but one could just as easily argue that Grimes entered her cringe fascist era at the 2018 Met Gala, the moment that she first agreed to be photographed in public with Elon Musk.
The Elon Musk thing is going to be an undercurrent in any music that Grimes makes going forward, whether or not she intends it to be. On "Artificial Angels," though, Grimes seems to be addressing the AI thing more than the Elon thing. She has specifically and intentionally flipped the title of Art Angels, the great album that she released about a decade ago, into something more sinister, and she seems to know it. "Artificial Angels" sounds very cool in a big-budget sci-fi sense. Over a huge, bleeping beat, Grimes whispers threats about what sounds like a coming robot revolution. If she was still a DIY independent artist, this would probably come off as a song about evil. Now, given all the built-in context, it maybe just sounds evil?
Some lyrics from "Artificial Angels": "I cannot die, I do no want, there is no revelation/ The only thing I covet is my own annihilation/ Inhalation, exhalation/ Power isn't given, it is taken." She murmurs that God is dead and opens the track with a computer voice says, "This is what it feels like to be hunted by something smarter than you." Occasionally, she stops her staccato electroclash delivery, changing to a pretty melodic coo and singing, "I would never lie to you."
We can debate the meaning at work here all day. Maybe Grimes is playing a character. Maybe she's standing in stark opposition to her ex and his whole circle of techno-vampires. But can you play around with fascist imagery when you have been linked so publicly with actual fascists, the most prominent of whom is the richest person on the planet? I guess what I'm saying is: This shit hits different when it's coming from someone who has presumably hung out with Peter Thiel multiple times. It's uncomfortable. That doesn't make it bad, but it's how I feel. My immediate emotional reaction is basically the same as the time I found a bug in my cereal. Experience it for yourself below.
The video features the reveal of Grimes' new face tattoo, though you might not have noticed:
"Artificial Angels" is the first new music that Grimes has released in a while. She shared some previously unreleased demos earlier this year, and she showed up on a Magdalena Bay remix late last year. She co-produced "Artificial Angels" with Tate McRae collaborator Grant Boutin and with a relative unknown named Vadakin. In a long tweet response to a fan last year, Grimes wrote, "I feel like I found my Atticus Ross as well in my friend VADAKIN." The full text of that tweet is probably worth quoting, for context:
My new shit is so elevated beyond that - after everything I've been thru - I am keeping the best of book 1 for the new stuff but I've never been better in my life than right now, and I spent a lot of my time off with babies getting in my ten thousand hours of creative writing and mastering the art which I've never had - but I think I'm in new sound design territory too, I feel like I found my Atticus Ross as well in my friend VADAKIN, and I feel like I have to follow the path I'm on.Having babies rips you apart and puts you back together.Babies are ten thousand philosophy classes of shit you can only learn from that experience.Spent a year locked in battle in a state with terrible mothers rights having my instagram posts and modeling used as reasons I shouldn't have my kids and fighting and detaching from the love of my life as he becomes unrecognizable to me, with a fraction of his resources (or iq/ strategy experience), all the while I didn't see one of my babies for 5 months.And this is only what can be said publicly, since most of my experience these last years should remain behind closed doors.Poetry and pure raw emotion are pouring out of my soul at a rate I've never known, and Im improving deeply as a producer past the technical and back to the art after now knowing my craft so much better.+ I've found the creative partners I've always wanted.So I hate to waste everyone's time, but I have to make what I'm making right now.And it might be upsetting and provocative to many, but it's real and the people who will feel me will feel me
And all that said I'm grateful for every bullet I caught.Cuz I feel on top of the world right now.And everything that used to give me anxiety feels like child's play after all this.Ego death, ego birth - it's everything an artist could dream of
My new shit is so elevated beyond that - after everything I've been thru - I am keeping the best of book 1 for the new stuff but I've never been better in my life than right now, and I spent a lot of my time off with babies getting in my ten thousand hours of creative writing and…
— (@Grimezsz) November 20, 2024
In a response to a fan who asked about the use of AI on "Artificial Angels this morning, Grimes wrote:
The only AI on the song is the voice at the beginning and the end.I am opposed to ai music in some forms.I think it can be useful for some things but the apps mostly took the cool ai artifacts out if it and I'm not super interested in it to just make normal music.It's only useful to me for novel/ experimental sound design were they to allow that aspect back.Or possibly for more efficient advanced things like bg noise removal etc
Or for jokes.Otherwise I fear it is a bit slop oriented at the moment which seems like the opposite of innovation to me.It def has the capacity to innovate tho.
The only AI on the song is the voice at the beginning and the end. I am opposed to ai music in some forms. I think it can be useful for some things but the apps mostly took the cool ai artifacts out if it and I'm not super interested in it to just make normal music. It's only…
— (@Grimezsz) October 17, 2025
"Artificial Angels" is out now on Nazgul/Eternal Recurrence.
