List of Unreleased, Scrapped & Abandonded Projects

Over the years, Grimes and people that have worked with her have teased several projects such as albums and music videos that never saw an official release. These range from ideas that never grew past the planning stages to fully realized bodies of work. Several things could have contributed to these projects never seeing the light of day such as record label interference or Grimes simply losing interest. Below is a list of all of these projects that we are aware of, as well as everything we know about them. Everything listed here is attempted to be sorted in chronological order in their respective sections. Projects such as bands or radio shows that were abandonded after one or a few releases are also mentioned here.

Note:

Unsubstantiated pieces of information are [speculated].

Albums

Original third album

Grimes first revealed that she had been working on her third album in an interview with Maisonneuve, published in March 2011. However, in an interview with NOW Toronto published later that year in June, she said she lost the whole album because her computer died, and in an interview with Nightlife.ca, it was said that the album was five months in the making, as opposed to her actual third album Visions, which took three weeks to make. In an interview with XLR8R, she talked about the album:

❝ I think it’ll be much better than Darkbloom. I think it’s the best thing I’ve done. It’s clean and hi-fi and really vocally oriented, and it’s like a dark take on New Edition or something. There’s definitely sort of like an R&B-hip-hoppy thing going on, but also kind of detuned bass and noisy stuff, but all in a very spacial, spacey way; not a lot of held-down chords and reverb. There’s a lot more empty space than on my other albums, but it’s also a lot more fast-paced. It’s more dance-oriented than I wanted it to be, but I think I’m just too hyperactive to make slow music. ❞

And in an interview with SFGate, she said:

❝ It’s the best thing I’ve done. It’s really like paired down instrumentally, with most of the focus on the vocals. Production-wise, I’m most influenced by Outkast and Dungeon Family, but vocally it’s like Mariah Carey and Enya, and I used a Juno G so theres lots of like buzzing and distorted dub-steppy bass and stuff. But the instrumentals are also like miles ahead of my old ones, even if they’re simple. It’s not so loop-y anymore. Also, I want every song on the album to be a potential single. I just want it to be a great album with no filler. ❞

The influences and certain elements of the production match up with the way both Grimes herself and critics have described Visions, meaning she could have attempted to replicate the work that had been lost. It is possible that Genesis and Nightmusic were apart of this album as they both had been performed as early as March 2011.

Acapella album

❝ I’m working on a new full-length, it’ll probably be out in January [2012] and then I hope to tour and also release a vocal a capella album and make exclusive tracks for a bunch of producers I love and see what they do with it. ❞

-Grimes for Dont Panic, 2011.

Original fourth album

As early as 2011, Grimes had been working on a Visions follow-up, stating in an interview that she was working on her next two albums. In the early stages she described the music as "sort of like NIN + Jigglypuff." In an interview with MTV Hive, she described her vision for the album at the time:

❝ I've been working on more percussive noise music and also a lot of straight vocal music. I want to make dark percussive shit and... release an album that's halfway between ethereal reggaeton and industrial dance music but is still very pop in its song [structures]. ❞

On June 22, 2013, Grimes declared that "months of work appears to have magically deleted itself from my computer". It is unknown if this work was ever recovered. On September 16, 2013, Grimes announced that the first four songs of the record had been completed and that she had settled on an album title. In December 2013, Grimes gave a tentative release date of September 9, 2014.

Grimes scrapped the album in February 2014, revealing why in September:

❝ The album was scrapped cuz it was depressing and I didn't want to tour it. I may release it one day. I throw out music all the time, i have almost 1000 gigs of unreleased music on my hard drive. I just want the next album to be as good as possible. Go was never on the album anyway, it is a collaboration with a close friend that was released for fans as a 'Thank you' for waiting since my album was being delayed. There are only about 4 people on earth who have heard my new music. People's opinions do not factor into my process. That is all, and hopefully this helps... I'm really not that sad or insecure of a person. ❞

In retrospect, Grimes said this:

❝ It wasn’t so much a scrapped album. It was just [songs] that didn’t make it onto this album. Basically, I was doing a bunch of stuff, and maybe a bit before Go, I was like, "You know, my life is getting a lot better. I’m going to put all this stuff on a hard drive and start again." There were just hundreds of songs—on this album that I’m making now, there’s at least a hundred songs that won’t make it onto this. I think all musicians have songs that don’t make it onto records. [..] Everything I made after [starting over] was 10 times better. ❞

Grimes said in November 2015 that she would release all the songs from the album when she retires, "but it's not rly a whole album as much as hella unfinished/ unreleased songs".

Nightcore album

Grimes first revealed she had been working on a nightcore album in February 2019 in a livestream on HANA's Twitch channel, describing it as "an original nightcore album that [she] was [making] to troll [her label] 4AD". She mentioned the album again in 2020 in an interview with RA Exchange, also revealing her love for the genre but casting doubts whether or not it would be a good idea to release it. She most recently acknowledged the album in January 2022, revealing on her Twitter and Instagram that it had 35 tracks at that point, has been in the making since 2015, and she was considering releasing it after Book 1. It is likely that the Nightcore Remix of We Appreciate Power is a track on the album.

Art Angels re-release with more songs

In 2016, Grimes expressed her desire to do a re-release of Art Angels in the style of Lana Del Rey's Born to Die: The Paradise Edition:

❝ It would be like that. There are songs I seriously considered for Art Angels, but they fucked with the momentum when I tried to put them on the record. [..] With Art Angels, it was all like [growls]. This would be more chill vibes, downtempos, synth-y shit. That makes it sound boring. It’s not boring. ❞

Although she was initially cited as saying she was "half-way done" with the new album, she clarified on Tumblr this was not the case, and for her fans to not "set [their] expectations too high." intending to take a break as she hadn't in years.

Original fifth album

An unused album cover made around the time she was working on this album.[1]

Grimes was initially working on two albums while working on Miss Anthropocene in February 2018. She revealed in her Instagram comments section:

❝ [I'm releasing] one final album for my shit label and then my first album on a label of my choosing which im crazy stoked about eeeee. or i might go fully independent, researching options. the second one will be extreme darkness and chaos, the first will be highly collaborative and most glorious light. ❞

The next month she remarked:

❝ its less collaborative now because i'm addicted to making music and i'm making music too fast to have a ton of features but i legit do wanna do a producer album in the future after i finish the 2 albums i'm working on currently ❞

Considering the sound, concept, visuals and overall theme of Miss Anthropocene, as well as the standard edition of the album having two collaborations total, it is safe to assume that it is the "extreme darkness and chaos" album, while the "highly collaborative and most glorious light" album remains unreleased and possibly scrapped. In videos posted to her Twitter previewing demos of 4ÆM and IDORU on June 4, 2018, a playlist called "! Upbeat Album" can be seen in her iTunes library, possibly referring to this album.

In the very early stages of creating an Art Angels follow-up in 2016, she revealed the direction she wanted to take her fifth album in:

❝ “I’m really vibing on making something really slow and gorgeous that just breathes, and has room to breathe. I feel like my work has always been fast paced, kinetic, and almost just manic and I feel like for me the hardest thing I can do is make something that’s slow and heavy. I’m so ADD in my work; I really want to push myself into something that would be slower and more reflective.” ❞

Album containing demos with proceeds going to different charities

In a Twitter Q&A in February 2020, when asked if she would ever release an album consisting of unreleased music, she responded:

❝ Yeah it [sic] 4ad is down I want to do a like, charity thing where I release demos on bandcamp by donation and each song can be a charity I like ❞

Miss Anthropocene second disc/re-release with scrapped songs

Miss Anthropocene was intended to be a double album as revealed in a Q&A in February 2020. Later that year in April a fan suggested that Grimes release a "Definitive Edition" of the album consisting of songs that didn't make the cut with Grimes responding that that could be the [right] call. A few months later in August eight songs were registered to Grimes' ASCAP repertoire with a few of them known to be Miss Anthropocene outtakes. A version of the album is titled Miss Anthropocene (Deluxe V1) on streaming services, which could be referring to a re-release (or V2).

Grimes referred to these songs as "(..) metal and rock and that kind of thing (..)", immediately after commenting that "(..) guitar music done wrong just sounds like shit."

Book 1

Main article: Book 1

Second DJ mix in the vein of This story is dedicated to...

In April 2023, Grimes said on Twitter that she would drop another DJ mix "soon".

Book 3

Main article: Book 3

EPs

EP made for her neuroscience class during McGill university studies

Grimes talked about the first music she ever worked on in Sean Carroll's Mindscape Podcast:

❝ I was actually in neuroscience at McGill [...] and we had to learn logic to do ... Yeah, I don't know, make some tones or something. It was like, "Go home and then come back on Monday with a snippet of something musical to prove that you learned this program" [...] just generate tones and various things or whatever. And so I went home and just made an EP. ❞

This was possibly the project that ended up being Lethe.

EP to be released before Halfaxa

Originally, Grimes wanted to release a free "three or four track" EP before the release of Halfaxa due to the album initially not planned to be for free. However, this was when the album was called Dragvandil and was to be released late July 2010. Halfaxa did end up being released for free (with the option of a suggested donation).

Darkbloom (version on which Grimes and D'eon would perform on tracks together)

In an interview with Negative Youth in 2011, Grimes and D'eon revealed that they originally wanted to work together on Darkbloom tracks, but were unable to because of a deadline. (Note that this excerpt was translated from the original Spanish article, meaning it's not likely the exact quote.):

D:[...]In Montreal, it's very common to have cassettes that people make, only 100 copies, with one artist on one side and another artist on the other. I think that's rare in the rest of the world. The album we're releasing in a few weeks has four of my songs on one side and five of her songs on the other.

Maybe everyone thinks we're doing things together. I hope they're not disappointed. We were going to try singing on each other's songs, but it was like...

C: We didn't have enough time. They set the release date before we finished.

D: Exactly.

C: My side isn't even finished. I HAD to release it. They MADE me release it.

D: Yes, yes. We thought it would be around September, and then it was like, "No, let's release it in April," like, "let's do it NOW." It's okay.

So you haven't done any music together.

D: Nothing we've recorded.

C: We played a show once where we did a live soundtrack. We did it together, but otherwise, no. I don't work with other people.

D: I'm very interested in composing vocal harmonies, something kind of Renaissance, Baroque, pure vocals. Like choir music. And having her record it, all the vocals.

C: I could... if someone else wrote something, I could sing it, but I find it too difficult to create collaboratively.

In an interview with DMY, however, D'eon said that they did a split release instead of a collaborative effort because "We don’t jam with other people very much, so…that’s why we did the split, rather than a collaboration, because it would just be too stressful to compromise both of our [sounds]."

Sit Back, Rewind

Sit Back, Rewind was an EP supposed to be released sometime in 2012 with Tim Lafontaine under the name Membrain (see Membrain for more information), but this didn't happen. However a remix album was released on Cop Car Bonfire's Bandcamp on July 31, 2012.

"Goth" EP produced for Lil Uzi Vert

Grimes revealed in a December 2019 interview with Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 Radio show:

❝ [Lil Uzi Vert] asked me to produce an EP for him once, and then I sent him the WeTransfer and he never downloaded it. And I was like, ‘Dude, I spent two weeks on this.’ It hurt my feelings. I think ‘Darkseid’ is from that session. That’s how I, like, have all these weird rap beats. It’s good when you can see when they don’t download it because then you can like…Get mad at them. He hasn’t done my manager and I see it. There’s one day left or whatever to download. Your files have not been downloaded yet. ❞

Darkseid is the only (semi-)confirmed track meant for the EP. The unreleased Deth Angels is speculated to have been part of it as well.

"Not goth" EP

When commanded by a fan on Twitter to "release a mini EP my goth queen" in May 2018, she responded:

❝ i am making a not goth ep (album is definitively goth} also but i think that shud come later ❞

EP to be released before Miss Anthropocene

Grimes talked about releasing an EP before Miss Anthropocene in an interview with Crack published in April 2019:

❝ “I just made a bunch of music this month and I’ll probably drop that as an EP first, honestly, just so I can clear my mind to then go back and finish the goddamn album.” ❞

The songs known to be made around that time are Pretty Dark, Shall I Compare Thee, and принцесса ☣️, with Pretty Dark released in demo format first as a music video and later on streaming services under the Grimes name, and принцесса ☣️ quietly released on a SoundCloud page under the name Dark. Around this time Grimes was also working on music not intended for Miss Anthropocene (due to delays and the album thought to be finished at that time) and instead working on then recently made music and releasing said music in demo format.

In an interview with Flaunt published later that month, she expressed her dislike for the album format:

❝ "Albums are trash unless you sit down and make a really good album. I'm not really that consistent. I feel like I would work better in like EP-ish formats." ❞

Fairies Cum First

According to a January 2022 press release and Grimes' interviews, Shinigami Eyes was to appear on an extended play called Fairies Cum First, which was described as "a prelude" to the forthcoming album.

On February 3, 2022, Grimes officially announced the EP. However, later in September, Grimes revealed that she had been suffering from medical and legal issues, resulting in everything being behind schedule. In January 2023, Grimes tweeted that music is now a 'side quest' due to her personal life. As she is now independent after leaving Columbia Records, it is not known who owns the rights to the album and extended play. There is speculation that Fairies Cum First was only put forward to satisfy the demands of the record label, who pressured Grimes to release new music.

Unknown musical projects

Music where the amount of tracks that has been made is unspecified, meaning it could range from a single song to tracks that could fill up multiple albums, theoretically at least.

Music made on a tape recorder

First mentioned in her earliest known and possibly first ever interview with Lookout in early 2010, she revealed that when she was 17 (in 2005), she started making "really crappy music on a tape recorder, like wannabe classical music." In an interview with TheYYSCENE later that year, she elaborated:

❝ “I had the same synthesizer that I have now but I was obsessed with Chopin at the time. It was pretty pathetic. I basically just played the keys really fast and tried to memorize what I was doing so it sounded like classical music. From there I would record it and layer things using cassette tape.” ❞

Music made before Geidi Primes

In an interview with Pitchfork in 2020, Grimes revealed that before she made Geidi Primes, a friend of hers recorded her making music with Grimes describing it as "the most unlistenable music and [she] hopes it never leaks". In a 2010 interview with The Coast she hinted at the music being of the country genre.

Music produced by D'eon with vocals from Grimes

Both Grimes and D'eon have expressed a desire to work on more music together, with D'Eon saying in an interview with Negative Youth that "I'm very interested in composing vocal harmonies, something kind of Renaissance, Baroque, pure vocals. Like choir music. And having [Grimes] record it, all the vocals." it is not known if this ever came to fruition.

Songs

Main article: List of Unreleased Songs

Geidi Primes and Halfaxa song remakes for live performances

On May 3, 2014, Grimes expressed the desire in a since deleted Tumblr post to "(..) re-produce one or 2 old songs for the live show for extra insurance in case i can’t get all the new songs i wanna play together b4 gov ball -"

Continuing:

❝ i was thinkin’ feyd rautha dark heart(from geidi primes)? or weregild (halfaxa)?

any other requests? it kinda has to be a song with like verses and a chorus since it’s mostly for festival use altho i could potentially convert a crazier thing into one of my interlude-y psych jam things

ill check the comments of this — sincerely interested in any feedback ❞

❝ **** hmmm thanks 4 feeback! reading comments now — yeah rosa could work

i like devon too, but i was thinking of doing just a piano version of that as like an encore or smthn when i do club shows again

ok will think on this ❞

When reminded of this in 2018, she said that she was "Working on Devon and feud rautha dark heart" It is unknown whether Grimes actually reproduced any songs or if she still has the recordings.

"War Anthem" with Maisie Williams

In a conversation with Maisie Williams hosted by Yana Peel, Grimes mentioned how a day after the 2021 Met Gala, she and Maisie were "very sure" that they would meet up to make a song together potentially with Charli XCX and Bella Poarch, and that it would be a "short film/song thing", "war anthem" that they would learn a lot of martial arts for.

It is unknown whether this collaboration happened or not.

Kito's Cold Touch (Grimes' version)

In an interview for The New York Times, Grimes was invited to speak about GrimesAI and review some songs that were made using GrimesAI. One in particular, Cold Touch by Kito, caught Grimes' attention, and she said this about it:

❝ The chorus hook is really good. I could probably be convinced that I worked on it — that would not shock me at all. Especially when the techno comes in. It was immediately very euphoric and very Grimes-y in a really pop way. I would change a lot about the verses, and I’m probably going to do my own version. But I like that she feels really strongly about her artistic vision and wants to stick to it. That’s why we’re doing Kito’s Version and Grimes’s Version, using the Taylor Swiftian nomenclature. ❞

It is unknown whether the Grimes' version of the song was ever made or that Grimes and Kito ever collaborated, but Grimes mentioned in a Twitter (now X) reply on May 20, 2023, that she was in the process of reproducing it.

Music videos

Gambang

Around March 26, 2010, a music video directed by Emily Kai Bock for Gambang was released. It has since been taken down and is assumed to be lost.

Music video for every single song on Visions

Grimes first expressed a desire to make a video for every song off of Visions when talking to Fake Plastic Tunes in 2011. She elaborated on this in an interview with the same publication published on January 16, 2012, telling them the following:

❝ I’ve shot three so far. I’m shooting another one in a couple weeks and I’ve made one out of found footage. So there are five that will be done really soon. Hopefully, I can finish the rest in April. “Genesis”- my friend has a VHS recorder and I’m going to get a bunch of girls and they will all be like angels going into buildings and setting off fireworks, breaking stuff, and doing graffiti. ❞

In February 2012 she still had the intent:

❝ I'm trying to do a video for every song. I've got, like, five, and I'm about to shoot a sixth one in the three days that I'm back in Vancouver. I think there's, like, eight songs or nine or something, so... ❞

The music video for Oblivion was shot in October 2011 and the music video for Nightmusic was around the same time judging by her hair, while the unreleased Be a Body music video was shot circa early January 2012 and finished in February. It is not known for what song the found footage music video was meant for. It is likely that the video which she was about to film a couple weeks after the interview took place was for Genesis.

In August 2012 she was asked by Pitchfork if she was still planning to make a video for every song on Visions to which she responded:

❝ Everyone's so overexposed with Grimes right now, and I'm so sick of my own music that I don't know if I can edit another video, which involves hundreds of hours of listening to your own song again and again and again. It becomes so grating after a while. I've moved on; I'm psychologically past this album. ❞

Be a Body

On April 11, 2012, Grimes posted stills of the music video to her tumblr, stating:

❝ Be a Body Video stills this might never see the light of day cuz it’s a pre-4ad video (budget of $136!) ;) am thinking of using the footage for an elite gymnastics video? have to work it out with everyone else involved ❞

On April 17, Grimes posted the lead dancer's fingers on which "b e a b o d y" was tattooed, with the following caption:

❝ My friend Hannah who starred in the be a body video (which may or may not end up existing) got be a body tattooed on her knuckles :) looks awesome

tattoos by Carmen Verdicchio ❞

In February of the same year, Grimes gave details about the shoot, mentioning that the DOP [Director Of Photography] was a person named Nick:^{[citation needed]}

❝ [..] My friend Nick shot it, and he's just a really good DOP. I'm sort of, I'm doing this thing now where I'm, like, finding DOP's I really like and then, like, working together with them to make something really cool cuz obviously I don't own a camera. I'm alone on everything, you know, with the music, so it's kind of like "my band" is working with other- with people in film because I obviously can't do everything myself, and it's just so much, there's just so much more stuff that needs to be taken care of and... ❞

In a retrospective track-by-track commentary, Grimes said about the song:

❝ I adore this song. I feel so weird about it now. We shot a video for it starring my beautiful friend Hannah Myrberg who was a ballerina, and then she passed away before we could put the video out. And so we just never put it out because it felt exploitative of her death or something. I think everyone was just really traumatized and didn't know how to handle it. I remember she stick-and-poke tattooed "Be A Body" onto her knuckles while we were making this. Miss her a lot, and she's always tied to this song for me. Dedicated to her for sure. ❞

Note:

Due to a bug in Fandom's Desktop code, videos in a gallery do not show a thumbnail, but are playable when clicked.

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[1] Photography: Euvie Ivanova

Eight

According to the renowned fansite grimes-claireboucher.tumblr.com, the image shown below is a preview of the Eight music video:

Genesis (original concept)

The original concept for the video was different, as said by Grimes in an interview with Fake Plastic Tunes:

❝ My friend has a VHS recorder and I’m going to get a bunch of girls and they will all be like angels going into buildings and setting off fireworks, breaking stuff, and doing graffiti. ❞

Pin

Grimes expressed that she hoped to make a music video for Pin.

Unknown music video (shot in 2016 after California and before The AC!D Reign Chronicles)

In an interview with BBC Radio 1 on April 19, 2016 when asked what her plans were for the year Grimes responded:

❝ As soon as I get home [I'm going to finish and edit] a music video we just shot, and I'm shooting another video, and then I think we're hitting the festivals. ❞

Grimes did not start shooting any of the AC!D Reign Chronicles until late June 2016 when she had already started performing at festivals. Given that there have not been any updates on this music video shoot it is possible that it ended up not happening or that she delayed the shoot and that she was in fact talking about (at least one of the videos for) AC!D Reign Chronicles.

We Appreciate Power

Not to be confused with the lyric video.

Both Grimes and Hana have teased the music video of We Appreciate Power multiple times over the years. On August 18, 2023, Grimes played a DJ set at Sonicmania, Japan, and in the background snippets of the We Appreciate Power music video could be seen that haven't seen the light of day. Additional footage could be seen during Grimes' performance at AXE Ceremonia music festival, which happened on March 23, 2024.

Grimes said about the music video:

❝ It was one of our first forays into CGI and we just had some issues cuz we never really tried it before and, you know, as you guys know, we, like, do a lot of stuff ourselves both directing and we're trying [to] work with some other people, you know, [the] thing with CGI is, like, you can't be like: "Oh, we just want planets, we want them to look like this.", like, you actually have to really- our art director- as part of- one of the reasons Mac is in particular getting so good at CGI is so we can start doing stuff ourselves and just fully control the visuals. Um, so we just had some CGI issues, and then it just got to- and we were, like, super rushed, and so, we're actually gonna drop the We Appreciate Power video right at the end because, like, it just makes more sense- like, there's no point in, like, messing up the album cycle now by dropping, like, an old video for an old song - now - but we'll do it at the end. ❞

Note:

Due to a bug in Fandom's Desktop code, videos in a gallery do not show a thumbnail, but are playable when clicked.

One day I’ll actually drop this music video smh

Grimes & Hana - unseen We Appreciate Power music video footage

Grimes - SONICMANIA DJ set (August 18, 2023)

The music video begins at 23:08

We Appreciate Power music video snippet 002

We Appreciate Power music video snippet 003

We Appreciate Power music video snippet 004

Grimes & HANA - We Appreciate Power (MV recreation attempt)

We Appreciate Power (vertical video)

Not to be confused with the lyric video.

A vertical We Appreciate Power video could be played on Spotify around January 2019 but has since become unavailable and was likely never reuploaded anywhere else. A snippet of this video was uploaded to Grimes' Tumblr and Twitter pages with Grimes and HANA wearing the same outfits worn in the lyric video as well as the unreleased music video.

The video is "(..) just long takes of me and hana lipsynching as robots (..)".

Note:

Due to a bug in Fandom's Desktop code, videos in a gallery do not show a thumbnail, but are playable when clicked.

IDORU (original music video)

Not to be confused with these two videos released in 2020.

In December 2018, Grimes revealed that a music video for IDORU (then known as adore) had been filmed, and later she tweeted that she had been editing the video and would release the video "after [taking a] break". Two music videos for the song were released in February 2020 with footage that had been filmed recently judging by her hair colour and baby bump. Both videos, however, do feature scenes of Grimes and friends in a swimming pool with fairy wings which were also included in the Pretty Dark music video a year prior. It is possible that these scenes were taken from the original IDORU video. Additionally, in December 2018, around the time when she was editing the original IDORU music video, she tweeted a picture of what appears to be the same outfit worn in the swimming pool scenes and captioned it "I didn’t think love could matter so much but it does" (note that IDORU is one of the very few love songs Grimes has made).

I didn’t think love could matter so much but it does

Note: This picture may or may not from the set of the video

Grimes - Scenes from the unreleased IDORU music video

If the YouTube video doesn't play, go to this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ywJ57eRDjYpCgdvkD91IV1DKOQRY1cTk/view?usp=sharing

Violence (original concept)

In an interview with Harper's Bazaar published on February 21, 2020, Grimes gave a rundown on the Violence music video and revealed that the initial concept for the music video was for it to look like it happened in an "unrendered, 3D modeling program", drawing inspiration from the digital sculpting tool Zbrush, but admitted that the idea did not came through clearly in the final product. She also explained that the video was shot in 6-7 hours but that most of the video consists of footage shot in the final hour. This was due to location/lighting issues and Grimes "randomly feeling good" in the last hour while usually being "super stressed" on music video sets. Some of the footage from the first hours did however end up in the final video in the form of fast cutting.

Grimes - Violence (unused takes)

My Name is Dark

Not to be confused with the English lyric video or the Russian lyric video.

Grimes stated that there is an official music video for My Name Is Dark in November 2019 and that she would release it the following year. however, it never got released. She did not say whether the video had been filmed or if there were plans to film a video, so it is possible that the video does not exist.

4ÆM

Not to be confused with the performance video or visualizer.

Grimes asked her followers in December 2019 on Twitter whether they would prefer a music video for My Name Is Dark or 4ÆM. This was after both the videos mentioned above had already been released, implying that there is an official music video. It is not known if a music video has actually been filmed or if she was just asking because she was curious.

100% Tragedy

A music video exists for 100% Tragedy and was first confirmed in an interview with Vanity Fair in March 2022. It features Grimes as the 'white swan' and Liv Boeree as the 'black swan'. Footage of the video was used as background visuals for Grimes' Sonicmania DJ set on August 18, 2023, and her DJ set during III Points Music Festival in Miami on October 21 of the same year. The visuals feature the texts "100%", "HAUNT", "FIRE" and, in certain shots, seemingly Liv Boeree, Claire de Lune, and fighting scenes (The song is about rivalry).

New scenes from the video could be seen as visuals of her DJ set during AXE Ceremonia festival on March 23, 2024.

Grimes - 100% Tragedy (music video preview)

Video - Grimes 100% Tragedy music video preview

Short Video 100% Tragedy music video preview 2

Short Video 100% Tragedy music video preview

100% Tragedy music video snippet 001

Grimes - 100% Tragedy music video (live)

Grimes - 100% Tragedy Music Video (recreation attempt)

Grimes - 100% Tragedy VFX snippets

A Drug from God

A digital animation featuring one of the NPC girls exists and was teased on November 30, 2021 on Grimes' Instagram story.

Note:

Due to a bug in Fandom's Desktop code, videos in a gallery do not show a thumbnail, but are playable when clicked.

Sci-Fi

A music video for Sci-Fi was confirmed in an interview with Vogue China in 2022: (Note that this interview was translated from the original Chinese article, meaning it's not likely the exact quote.)

❝ From what it looks like, the biggest cultural volcano eruption of this summer will be the new song and music video collaboration with The Weeknd! It's going to be a journey, definitely worth watching till the end, to listen to the monologue and then enter a more dramatic second half, where I share my whimsical thoughts on the friendship between humans and artificial intelligence. I directed and edited the music video myself, and I did all the CG post-production effects. I'm really curious about people's reactions after watching it—haha, who knows, it might be a disaster, but at least it won't be boring. ❞

Utopia

A music video for Utopia was seemingly confirmed when Grimes posted and then later deleted a tweet of the video being edited in January 2023. The visuals have been used before in the backdrop for Grimes' DJ sets.

Grimes - Utopia (music video preview)

Music videos shot in late March 2022

In late March 2022, several people from Grimes' team shared new pictures on social media of Grimes. In a conversation with Hasan Piker on April 1, 2022, Grimes said that she had red on herself (fake blood) from standing on a pile of corpses for a video shoot.

Welcome To The Opera (scrapped scenes from the visualizer)

On June 11, 2022, Grimes showcased the original Welcome To The Opera visualizer during her DJ set at Primavera Sound Barcelona-Sant Adrià that had more scenes of full body shot Grimes at a synthesizer, in addition to the up close ones that dominate the reworked (released) visualizer.

Video - Grimes DJ'ing Live Primavera Weekend 2 Barcelona 2022

Welcome To The Opera

Not to be confused with the Grimes visualizer or the Anyma visualizer.

When Welcome To The Opera was released, Grimes brainstormed what an actual music video for the song would be like:

❝ Altho I do genuinely love and adore this song ngl, @anyma - if I ever get to do a video for it rly feeling some sci fi phantom of the opera thing where I'm the phantom and we're the only two ppl left on a giant spacecraft that's lost contact. Like toxic horror pseudo Victorian space romance. ❞

I Wanna Be Software

Grimes' played the music video for I Wanna Be Software during her Sonicmania DJ set on August 18, 2023. The visuals are the same as on the teaser she posted on Instagram the month prior, but it is now removed.

New scenes from the video could be seen as visuals of her DJ set during AXE Ceremonia festival on March 23, 2024.

Iwbs

Grimes - I Wanna Be Software music video (preview 2)

Grimes - I Wanna Be Software music video (preview 3)

I Wanna Be Software music video snippet 001

I Wanna Be Software music video snippet 002

Grimes - I Wanna Be Software Music Video (version 1) (recreation attempt)

Grimes - I Wanna Be Software Music Video (version 2) (recreation attempt)

Bands

Liturgi (with Matthew E. Duffy)

Grimes and Duffy had started a noise band called Liturgi but they disbanded "due to the creative differences as well as the success of the better band from nyc known as liturgy." They have done a live performance together at least once.

In a Reddit comment, Duffy clarified that "auccly [actually] we made the noise band after [Grimes] it was just our fun side project for a bit we only played like two shows ahah. was super fun though i was back and forth from halifax, and endup [ended up] living in the same building on multi [multiple] occations [occasions], we collaborated on lots of other fun art and avngard [avant-garde] stuff. and then she invited me to be her dancer for some of the tours! eyc."

Membrain (with Tim Lafontaine)

Membrain was a collaborative project with Tim Lafontaine. The music was described as "techno- and kind of industrial-leaning." Grimes described it as:

❝ it's really a live thing.. and, membrain is like 90 % Tim i.e. cop car bonfire -- i just do vocals for him but he's the genius...Membrain is also basically a live improv drone techno act - so its really hard 2 get it from recordings ❞

Grimes' vocals are all taken from Visions. They were set to release an EP called Sit Back, Rewind at some point in 2012 but this didn't happen. However a remix album was released on Cop Car Bonfire's Bandcamp on July 31, 2012.

L$D (with Kreayshawn, Tragik and BloodPop® [then known as Blood Diamonds])

Information to be added.

Trashique (Grimes X HANA)

Main article: Trashique

Unknown band (c. 2018)

When the song Deth Angels leaked, Grimes confirmed to a fan that the song was meant for her new band.

Medieval Thots (with FKA Twigs)

In a YouTube Q&A in January 2021, Grimes announced that she was in a band called Medieval Thots with FKA Twigs and that "maybe one day [they'll] actually release music".

NPC (digital girl group)

Main article: NPC

Miscellaneous

AR/illustrated book/musical

In the YouTube description of the Pretty Dark music video, Grimes talked about some of her upcoming projects:

❝ NOT A SINGLE lol just a demo. This is from an AR musical im working on (AKA NOT THE ALBUM/ NOT OFFICIAL GRIMES MUSIC//////)

made the song and video yesterday so obvs majorly rough,

but while im finishing my album im just gonna start casually dropping stuff as I see fit. Been doing this exercise where I try to write and produce a whole song in like ~1-2 hrs... fuck technical proficiency and whatnot.

• • • • Also,

so gna start making AR (or illustrated?) 'sub-members' within Grimes (The art angels, as it were lol). (Kinda like the Loona sub-bands X the Gorillaz?... ..psychedelic post k pop-ish fake band for my non-Grimes musical ventures)

_They are the main characters from the book/ musical im working on.. (AKA im bored of being so precious abt music and also feeling boxed in by the Grimes branding and I have this whole other world that's rly fun to write for..

So I’ll save big singles and things for Grimes and casually release music more often as the AR band. )

PS… This is not her final look... but this character is named Dark. ❞

Dark

Main article: Dark

Tech Company & Inventions

In an Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe, Grimes said she's making "like, a psychedelic tech company, and I have a bunch of, like, weird inventions..." when answering to what she would be doing for the rest of the year. No more information has been said about both.

WarNymph

Main article: WarNymph

Line of baby products called "Brutalist Baby"

In a livestream for the release of Miss Anthropocene, Grimes said that she and her brother Mac were working on a "line of baby products called "Brutalist Baby", only, like, nightmarish, cement baby products", before saying that brutalism was her favorite form of architecture.

War Nymph Radio

Not to be confused with the Spotify playlist with a similar name.

Banner for War Nymph Radio.

War Nymph Radio (sometimes referred to as WarNymph Radio) was supposed to be Grimes' Apple Music radio station, in which Grimes promised to explore what she calls: “the uncanny valley between mainstream and underground music, or mainstream artists that I think are making radical, interesting music and independent artists that I think are making things that are super universal.” So far, only one episode aired on March 11, 2020, with special guest star Alexa Demie. It is possible that the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the world to enter quarantine a mere few days after this episode aired, was responsible for the seeming cancellation of the station.

Miss Anthropocene short film

In February 2021, Grimes suggested to release all of the Miss Anthropocene music videos as part of a short film after the release of her next album.

Homo Techno (podcast with Liv Boeree)

In an interview for Billboard, Grimes explained:

❝ [I’m working on a podcast called Homo Techno with my friend Liv [Boeree], who was previously one of the world’s preeminent female poker players. She now works in AI theory and stuff.] Our thesis for the podcast is that we’re no longer homo sapiens, we are “homo techno” — we’re full cyborgs. It investigates the most aggressively controversial theories about futurism or the people who are most on the edge with either their ideas or practices with regards to ways the world can be. ❞

This podcast never happened.

Collaboration with Drop Dead

In February 2022 Brando Chiesa posted a picture of a snippet of a drawing to his Instagram Stories tagging Grimes and his clothing brand Drop Dead. Later that year in December he posted the finished drawing to his Instagram feed, this time tagging neither Grimes or Drop dead. The design has not been used in their clothing. It is possible that Grimes was not involved at all but rather served as inspiration for the drawing due to spotting a similar look to then then recently released Shinigami Eyes music video from the neck up.

Video/short film with Bella Poarch

Not to be confused with the music video for Dolls.

In her TikTok comments section of her cameo in Bella Poarch's Dolls video, Grimes revealed the following information:

❝ [Bella and I] have an actual song together coming out later haha, and we traded she's in a vid/ short film i directed coming out in a month ish 🧚🤍🧚 ❞

This was posted in July 2022, meaning the video would have to have been released in August of that year. Visuals featuring both Grimes and Bella Poarch have been used as the backdrop for Grimes' dj sets.

Baby project centering around lesser known historic women

In August 2022, Grimes tweeted:

❝ working on a baby project - need recommendations of the sickest lesser known queens/ goddesses/ wild women from history. Joan of arc, matangi, aethelfled, Hatshepsut, Khutulun, Lilith etc. Can be real or legend, myth. Need from all cultures and regions of earth if poss 🤍🤍 ❞

It is possible that this project is connected to Book 1, since that is also inspired by historic women, or her "civilization proposals" mentioned under "Creative writings." It could also be the How To Live Forever booklet about the (..) imo sickest female historical figures with fake and real quotes mixed together", with one known copy existing for her children.

elf.tech

Main article: Elf.tech

Book 2 ("treatise, or manifesto-type thing”)

Main article: Book 2

Creative writings

Grimes first revealed that she had been working on a novel in 2017, saying on her Instagram that she "started my novel, but my editor, @hanatruly – informs me that my first chapter needs more showing and less telling [...] re read some good intros to double check and i guess its best to start w a plot [...] don’t expect anything good for like 20-25 years."

In 2019, she revealed yet again that she had been working on a novel, which might be the same as the one she started on in 2017:

❝ I’ve been up since 6 am in China writing a fantasy novel instead of finishing my album [...] It centers around lesbian romance between a demon named War and an angel named Peace.. Set in a biological simulation run by AI ‘gods’. Pop stars r human-ai hybrid ‘angels’ (art angels) who are the tether between the gods (who are generating/play in the sim/game) & human “npc’s” ❞

The plot of this novel may have evolved and been integrated into both the Book lore and NPC.

On a Facebook post on March 27, 2020, Grimes mentioned writing a "(..) hard sci fi young adult romance novel that’s sort of a mix of Twilight and Surface Detail. It’s probably trash tho".

In a cryptocurrency article published in March 2022, it was revealed that Grimes was planning "(..) to create an "intergalactic childrens' metaverse book" which she hopes can follow in the footsteps of the acclaimed Studio Ghibli film My Neighbor Totoro."

In an interview for Wired, Grimes said this:

❝ I’ve been writing civilization proposals. But I also want to include something else. I’m working on a bunch of baby books. I’m working on one right now called Transhumanism for Babies. It’s about civilization building, for my kids. I can show you some of the stuff from it, let’s see. [She shows me illustrations—they are fanciful, anime-style drawings with a streak of Henry Darger.] The chapters are Culture for Babies, Fashion for Babies, Art for Babies, Vehicles for Babies. Interplanetary Babies, City Planning for Babies. AI Robotics for Babies. Megastructures and Exoplanets for Babies, Magic for Babies. I want to teach my kids things like, when you’re designing vehicles, what are the limits of design? I want to make beautiful, profound children’s content. We really need more of that. ❞

Grimes has also written a book she believes is too deranged to be published. She used the content of the book to train a large language model that talks like a diety from the Chaos Manual.

When Grimes spoke about the performance she did at Sphere, she said "we didn't have time to get the poem in too which rly recontextualizes the meaning of the song and video piece. For me it's rly incomplete without the spoken word intro (..)". It is likely that poem is hers, as she is present in the video and song.

Grimes holds her "bad" poetry in a folder on her computer, implying she has written poems and other creative writings.

Grimes has claimed she has "(..) hundreds of pages of [my personal] unpublished writing (..)"