To fill my time with permanent blue
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list...
#20 : Miss Anthropocene - Grimes
Claire Boucher – AKA Grimes – intended Miss Anthropocene as a concept album about a personified, demonic climate crisis. But in execution, her fifth record seemed consumed by the spectre of another scapegoated woman: Boucher herself, following another year of high-drama headlines. The polar opposite of her hyper-saturated album Art Angels (2015), it sailed a Stygian tide as Boucher navigated the possibility of redemption and destruction, the latter embodied by mockingly catchy choruses that seethed through the murk, contrasting her muted, forlorn verses. It was bleak, touching on addiction and death, yet carried a sense of triumph. The often bad-faith assaults on Boucher’s personal life couldn’t touch her art – the calling that may have been her real-life salvation.
Grimes (or c, as she's known in her personal life or little X Æ A-XII's mum, as I like to refer to her) has been a bit of a favourite of mine for some time now (when I saw her live I REALLY didn't fit in with the rest of the audience) and I've listened to this album a few times, so I knew what I was getting. And yeah, I still like it - although I don't think it's my favourite of her albums (which I'd say is Visions, but I also like Art Angels ).
Despite my general grumps about long tracks, I think the six minute long opener "So Heavy I Fell Through The Earth" is probably my favourite (and six minutes isn't too long really!) but I like "We Appreciate Power" as well. I should warn you though that some bits of the album are utter nonsense - I just shrug and go "arty types, eh?!?" but I can understand there will be other less accepting reactions. My main gripe about this album is that it's just not possible to get Alexa to play it because I haven't worked out how to pronounce Anthropocene in such a way that she'll recognise it.
"Customers also listened to" Crystal Castles who have a very similar sound to some of this album and Sky Ferreira who's come up before so I might have to check out. The Wikipedia page for both her and the album are amusingly full of themselves if you're in the mood for such nonsense - sometimes it's just best not to go there though and just enjoy the music
#19 : Chromatica - Lady Gaga
If there were ever a year for Gaga to get back to basics, this was it. The concept of Chromatica was unusually light for her: a planet of kindness punks? Sure! Plus it quickly fulfilled its promise by offering escape when it arrived in the darkest days of the pandemic. The dominant mode was strafing house. Towering choruses burst with relief for the simple fact of survival. And after the unconvincing authenticity of her album Joanne (2016), Gaga was at her most potent, roaring about being “LUVAHS even just tonight”, and concluding the defiant chorus of Free Woman with a tart finger-wagging “uh-uh”.
Talking of ridiculous arty types - heeeeerrrrrre's Gaga! Whilst I enjoyed her early singles, I'd totally lost touch with her through all the reinventions - whilst I think a bit of change is fine, when you have to spend time working out whether you still like a particular artist after they've gone through their umpteenth 180 degree change, it does get somewhat tiresome. So I wasn't even aware of this album's existence - my expectations were to mostly tolerate it, with some high highs and some lows lows.
But actually, this album is a lot more consistent than I was expecting. No particular track jumped out at me but they're all very bearable if you're in the mood for some classic Gaga (or classic Madonna on some of the tracks - particularly "Babylon"). There's also an argument that Gaga & Elton duetting is peak Gaga - it's amazing it hasn't happened before.
Wikipedia is unsurprisingly full all sorts of pretentious rubbish which I couldn't be bothered trawling through but it's there if you need it! "Customers also listened to" Dua Lipa and Katy Perry who I'd say have overtaken Gaga in doing this sort of thing well, but this album is perfectly serviceable if you're in the mood for it.
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