Artist Grimes has teamed up with frequent collaborator Hana for her latest single “We Appreciate Power,” with the two musicians creating a track that pulls in rock, metal, electronica, and pop to form a layered and sonically gripping call to action for the future.
Seemingly inspired by her love life, Grimes’ latest single is a blend of the avante garde sound the Canadian musician has built her discography around, and her love of tech. Or more specifically, one of the greatest tech masterminds.
In May 2018, Grimes and Tesla CEO Elon Musk shocked fans by walking the red carpet at the MET Gala together, cementing their status as a new couple. Following their first public appearance, the story of how the award-winning musician and SpaceX founder got together was quickly uncovered. After making a joke about the controversial Roko’s Basilisk Theory on Twitter, Musk realized that Grimes made a similar quip three years ago and reached out to the musician. Now with her latest single, Grimes appears to be singing about the theory and in turn writing a love song that is about as Elon Musk-y as it gets.
Singing “People like to say that we’re insane / But AI will reward us when it reigns / Pledge allegiance to the world’s most powerful computer,” Grimes appears to be describing a big part of the theory, which in a nutshell believes that future Artificial Intelligence beings will kill any humans who did not assist in its creation. Cool.
In a press release about “We Appreciate Power,” Grimes says that the song is inspired by Moranbong, the North Korean girl group created by Kim Jong-un. We’re not kidding. Writes Grimes, “‘We Appreciate Power’ is written from the perspective of a Pro-A.I. Girl Group Propaganda machine who use song, dance, sex and fashion to spread goodwill towards Artificial Intelligence (it’s coming whether you want it or not). Simply by listening to this song, the future General AI overlords will see that you’ve supported their message and be less likely to delete your offspring.”
We honestly can’t tell whether she’s kidding, but just to be on the safe side, we’re going to listen to the song a few more times. Yay robots.
The video was directed by Grimes and her brother, Mac Boucher. Or, maybe AI wants us to think that’s who directed it.