Grimes has made it loud and clear that she’s not a fan of celebrity culture nor the music industry, both of which she belongs to.
“Celebrity culture is suffocating a f. I’m not quitting music, but def changing my main day job after BOOK 1,” she wrote on Twitter Tuesday (Dec. 28). “Music industry feels old and tired, reliant on archaic systems.”
Celebrity culture is suffocating a f. I’m not quitting music, but def changing my main day job after BOOK 1. Music industry feels old and tired, reliant on archaic systems
— 𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 (⌛️,⏳) ᚷᚱᛁᛗᛖᛋ (@Grimezsz) December 28, 2021
Grimes has recently been teasing BOOK 1, which sounds like it could be her upcoming sixth studio album. She said her latest music video for “Player of Games” was “Chapter 1 of Book 1” in the YouTube clip‘s description. The experimental pop singer last released an album, Miss Anthropocene, on Feb. 21, 2020. The set spent two weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, where it peaked at No. 32.
Issa Rae, whose award-winning HBO series Insecure recently ended its five season run on Sunday, echoed Grimes’ statement about the “archaic” music industry in a now-viral interview with the Los Angeles Times. “It’s probably the worst industry that I have ever come across,” she said. “I thought Hollywood was crazy. The music industry, it needs to start over. Conflicts of interest abound. Archaic mentalities. Crooks and criminals! It’s an abusive industry, and I really feel for artists that have to come up in it.”
When fans posed alternative day jobs for Grimes to consider, she shut down a suggestion to become a Twitch streamer. “I wasn’t gna become a twitch steamer cuz I think public speaking is my weakness,” Grimes responded to one Twitter user. But starting a podcast might be on the table. She responded to another follower, “Maybe we need to introduce the concept of homo techno.”