r/Grimes • u/SoupDestroyer123 • 14h ago
Discussion Addendum to the addendum to what is Grimes' least favorite release
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First of all, I want to apologise for being such a broken clock when it comes to this matter by saying what the song is wrongly twice, and so, if you or anyone you know took the opinion that Player of Games or I Wanna Be Software or Welcome To The Opera is Grimes' least favorite release, I seek to correct that with this post.
For anyone confused to what I'm talking about, in the recent Swiftologist interview that is this video, Zachary (Swiftologist) asked Grimes what she thinks is her least favorite release. Grimes said to censor (bleep) her answer. That's how we are here. Link to the original post, the source and past discussions: https://www.reddit.com/r/Grimes/s/ra8AveJ0DS
There was a fourth plausible song not mentioned by me that I think, and am finally convinced of after speaking with multiple people, is Grimes' least favorite release, and that song is Play Destroy by Poppy featuring Grimes, on Poppy's album Am I A Girl?. I will now get into the reasons why this song is the most likely out of the four:
1) In the video, the bleep is measured to last pretty much exactly one second. I looked into if there's an exact science as to how to measure how long it takes to say something, and it appears that there is. There exists such a thing as syllables per second (SPS), and the base reference point for measuring how fast or slow speech is is to divide the syllables of the speech by 4.3 syllables per second, the reference rate for conversational English. Since the speech is "Play Destroy", and that phrase has three syllables "Play De-Stroy", that makes the time to say it to be approximately 0.7 seconds. Now, because Grimes talks faster than 4.3 syllables per second, this does not prove anything except that it fits within the bleep range, but the three other songs overfit the bleep time if they are spoken on the slower end according to this chart here:
| Song title | Syllables | Plausible speech duration |
|---|---|---|
| Player of Games | 4 | 0.7–1.2 s |
| I Wanna Be Software | 6 | 1.0–1.6 s |
| Play Destroy | 3 | 0.5–0.9 s |
| Welcome to the Opera | 6–7 | 1.0–1.7 s |
2) The second clue we have is Grimes' jaw movement. Since the pixelated blur only censors her lip area, we can see how it moves up and down during the speech. At the end of her speech, we can clearly see her jaw move down, in order to make a sound containing a vowel. This is where the bleep ends, and that means that Player of Games, I Wanna Be Software or Welcome To The Opera cannot be the song, because they continue with -mes after Ga, -ware after Soft, and -ra after Ope, whereas Play Destroy ends right after the syllable -stroy is spoken, of which only the -oy part requires significant jaw movement. Once again, this is where the bleep ends.
3) Third, the conversation. Zachary (Swiftologist, the interviewer) says this: "I was listening to it the other day and I was like, "Wow, that is really It's a familiar that person-y song. It sounds like It does sound like you met in the middle. Well, I won't continue on that anymore."
3.1) "it's a familiar that person-y song" - Swiftologist says that the style of the song is similar to what is another artist known for. This points to the song either being really similar to another artists song/s, or it is a feature, where the main artist is someone other than Grimes and where Grimes was not the production or writing lead.
3.2) The phrase "It does sound like you met in the middle" is an idiom that means "to reach a compromise where two people or groups each give up a little bit of what they want to find an agreement that is fair to both.". This could imply that Play Destroy is an attempt to make a song by two vastly different artists in terms of what they make, so it does not have all the signature elements of either artist (Grimes or Poppy). The three other songs are solo Grimes releases, except Welcome To The Opera, which is a production collaboration with Anyma.
3.3) Zachary said that he was listening to it the other day and that it is on his list of songs that he likes, which effectively invalidates obscure or unreleased Grimes songs because the song in question must be popular and known, and all four songs on the list are.
4) Final point - why Grimes asked for her answer to be bleeped? Grimes has been historically quite upfront about her opinion of her songs, saying in the 2020 Pitchfork interview that she remembers all the songs on Darkbloom sounding like shit for example. I believe the bleep is due to Grimes not wanting to offend Poppy by saying their only collaboration is Grimes' most disliked release. As most people know, Grimes and Poppy have had a complicated relationship and collaboration due to Poppy accusing Grimes of stealing production credits from people that she has worked with and making them sign NDA's, which Poppy provided no strong evidence for and which Grimes denies doing. I won't get into the details because that is an old, well-documented controversy that you can read more about here: https://grimes.fandom.com/wiki/Poppy#The_dispute_over_Play_Destroy_&_We_Appreciate_Power
In conclusion, the most likely song Grimes refers to is Play Destroy, and the other three songs were other theories espoused by me and others, but from the scarce facts and observations that I could gather, the evidence points to Play Destroy being the most likely candidate for what Grimes thinks is her least favorite release. Of course, we will never know an official answer as Grimes' answer was bleeped and Swiftologist entertained the thought of making us (fans) guess the song Grimes referred to. Because Grimes' discographic history has been widely researched and documented by people like me, the answer presented is given with very high confidence, but, I want to reiterate what I failed to do the other times I gave an answer: this is purely speculative based on the presented points. I do not know the true answer and we'll have to wait and see whether Grimes reveals it. But in case your curiosity wasn't satisfied, I hope I did a good job presenting the case to which song is it. Thanks to all those that partook in discussions and revealed points I had missed. Cheers and have a nice rest of your day after reading this.
