As you can read below, “REALiTi” is a lost Grimes track that’s no longer going to be on her new album. I assume it was recorded when she was making a more mainstream pop record before her single “Go” wasn’t received nearly as well as she’d hoped and she decided to go back to the drawing board. To be honest, I was glad when I heard that she wasn’t going to do mainstream pop after all because I wasn’t feeling “Go.” It wasn’t a bad song, but it felt like a true artist deciding she was more concerned with getting on the radio than making art anymore. That’s kind of how I feel about Charli XCX’s new album. Her previous album was undeniably art pop and had a very unique vibe. But now she’s like the next Avril Lavigne or something, going both punk and bubblegum pop at the same time. Two things that shouldn’t work well together, but she pulls it off. At least most people think so. I would have preferred it if she didn’t decide to write a bunch of hits and did something more in the vein of her previous album. Granted, artists have to grow and I don’t like it when artists try to remake the same album. I’m just saying I wish she’d done something in that ballpark, not a carbon copy. Anyway, this is about Grimes, so I digress. To that end, I think this is a really beautiful song. Because it’s unmixed and unmastered, it’s a bit hard to understand what she’s singing half the time, but her voice sounds precious nevertheless. Especially when she sings “oh baby.” It’s like Debbie Gibson 2015, syrupy sweet and swoon worthy, but with a wonderful electronic backbeat and gorgeous synth radiating behind that. If it was mixed and mastered, this probably could’ve been a radio hit. And I’d be fine with that. Because it doesn’t feel like she’s aiming for the radio so much as just being herself, albeit showing us a different side of herself than what we saw on her album Visions. And it turns out this bright side is just as enchanting as her dark side.
Youtube info:
▶ Grimes - REALiTi - YouTube
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