Grimes Essentials

Ranging from gauzy electro to postmodernist art pop to heavy-gauge EDM—sometimes all in one song—Claire Boucher is a masterful shape-shifter. No matter the style, the music she records as Grimes is supercharged with thrilling tension: Bright melodies dance across ominous electronic beats, and influences from different eras spark as they collide. At the centre of it all is her inimitable voice, looped and layered in playful, urgent and otherworldly ways. Original, uncompromising and unpredictable, her music is a candy-coloured ode to self-empowerment.