Grimes was “doing Taylor Swift cosplay” when she wrote ‘California’

Grimes has revealed in a new interview that one of her songs, ‘California’, was written while she was “cosplaying” as Taylor Swift.

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While speaking to K-pop girl group aespa for Rolling Stone’s Musicians on Musicians series, Grimes and the group exchanged their thoughts on technology and AI in music and more. aespa’s Giselle asked Grimes how she came up with the sounds of her 2015 songs ‘California’ and ‘Easily’, adding that she loves both tracks.

“‘California,’ I think I was just doing Taylor Swift cosplay, but it’s also vaguely about how the media is obsessed with portraying you as this troubled soul or something,” Grimes said in response to Giselle’s question. “I don’t know if you guys get that the same way in your media.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Grimes was asked by aespa member Ningning if she was preparing for a new album. While Grimes says she has “a whole album” ready, she’s not releasing it just yet as she’s readying an AI album to release at the same time and is “going to make them compete”.

Grimes went on to explain: “I’s sort of an experiment about AI versus humanity. I’m working with a bunch of kids using various types of AI in the Grimes style. I’m feeding them training data and various things. They’re doing the AI thing and all the art for it. And then I’m doing my thing and the art for it. I want them to compete.”

Grimes’ latest album was the 2020 effort ‘Miss Anthropocene’, which scored a four-star review from Rhian Daly for NME. Daly wrote: “On ‘Miss Anthropocene’ Grimes proves herself once again to be the master of her own destiny, refusing to let any outside forces steer her from the course she’s chosen for herself, even if the album itself does deviate from the expected script. It’s a record stuffed with imagination and packed with beauty. It’s also a fitting next step for an artist who’s built her reputation as someone who refuses to keep in step with the rest of the world.”