Grimes

Claire Elise Boucher (born March 17, 1988), known professionally as Grimes, is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer.

Her early work has been described as extending from "lo-fi R&B" to Futuristic dance-pop, and has incorporated influences from electronic music, hip hop, and rock.

Her lyrics often touch on science fiction themes.

She has released five studio albums.

Grimes was born Claire Elise Boucher in Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 17, 1988, the eldest child of Sandy Garossino, a former Crown prosecutor and arts advocate, and Maurice Boucher, a former banker who works "in the business side of biotech."

She is of French Canadian (including Québécois), Ukrainian, and Italian descent.

Grimes and her younger brother, Mac, were raised Roman Catholic, and attended Catholic school in Vancouver.

She later commented that her religious upbringing had a significant impact on her: "It totally influences everything I do. I think I have serious latent Catholic guilt issues."

Her parents divorced when she was 11 years old, after which her mother remarried.

Through her mother's remarriage, she has two stepbrothers, one of whom is a member of the hip hop duo LNDN DRGS and performs under the name Jay Worthy.

Born and raised in Vancouver, Grimes began releasing music independently after moving to Montreal in 2006.

In 2006, Grimes graduated from Lord Byng Secondary School and relocated from Vancouver to Montreal to attend McGill University's joint Bachelor of Arts and Science program, double-majoring in philosophy and neuroscience and minoring in Russian, though she was expelled in December 2010 before completing her degree due to missing class for her concert tours.

During this time, she also studied electro-acoustics.

According to the timestamps on her original Myspace page, she began writing music under the name Grimes in 2007.

Her performer name was chosen because at the time, MySpace allowed artists to list three musical genres.

She listed "grime" for all three, without knowing what the grime music genre was.

Grimes was self-taught in music and visual art.

She then released two albums, Geidi Primes and Halfaxa, in 2010 on Arbutus Records and subsequently signed with 4AD and rose to prominence with the release of her 2012 studio album, Visions.

Visions includes the singles "Genesis" and "Oblivion" and received the Canadian music industry Juno Award for Electronic Album of the Year.

In January 2010, Grimes released her debut album, Geidi Primes, a concept album inspired by the Dune series, followed by her second album, Halfaxa, in October of the same year.

After the release of Halfaxa, she began to publicly promote her music and tour beyond Montreal.

In 2011 Grimes released five songs on her side of the split 12" with d'Eon, Darkbloom (through both Arbutus and Hippos in Tanks). Beginning in May 2011, Grimes opened for Lykke Li on her North American Tour, and the following August her debut album was re-released through No Pain in Pop Records, in CD and vinyl format for the first time. In 2011, she collaborated with DJ/producer Blood Diamonds.

Following extensive touring and positive reception to her first two albums and Darkbloom contribution, Grimes signed with record label 4AD in January 2012.

Her third studio album, Visions, was released on January 31, 2012, in Canada through Arbutus Records, February 21, 2012 in the United States through 4AD, and various dates in March 2012 elsewhere.

appeared on a number of publications' year-end lists and was considered Grimes' breakout album.

The album's second single, "Oblivion", was named the best song of 2012 by Pitchfork and was produced into a music video co-directed by Emily Kai Bock and Grimes.

Grimes went on the Visions Tour from 2012 to 2014 with supporting acts Born Gold, Myths, Elite Gymnastics, and Ami Dang.

In March 2012, Grimes collaborated with Cop Car Bonfire's Tim Lafontaine and went under the name, Membrain.

They released an EP called, Sit Back, Rewind.

In May 2012, Grimes was featured on Blood Diamonds's song "Phone Sex".

In July 2012, Grimes toured as a supporting act with Diplo and Skrillex on the Full Flex Express Canadian Train Tour.

NME included it on their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2013.

Visions won the Electronic Album of the Year Award and Grimes was nominated for the Breakthrough Artist of the Year at the Junos.

Grimes also won the Artist of the Year Award at the 2013 Webbys.

Pitchfork ranked "Oblivion" at number one on their 200 Best Tracks of the Decade So Far list in 2014.

In interviews following the album's release, Grimes explained that she was assigned a strict deadline by which to have her third album finished far before it was complete, resulting in her recording the bulk of Visions while isolated in her Montreal apartment for three consecutive weeks.

Notably, this intensive recording session included a period of nine days without sleep or food and with blacked out windows, since she generally could not make music as readily during the day, and doing "tons of amphetamines" She described the writing process as being "equally enjoyable and tortuous", feeling that its difficulty contributed to its success.

Following this, her fourth studio album, Art Angels, was released in 2015 and several publications named it the best album of the year.

Her fifth studio album, Miss Anthropocene, was released in 2020.

Outside of music, Grimes had a voice role in the 2020 action role-playing video game Cyberpunk 2077 and is a judge on the music competition game show Alter Ego.