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Violence

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Violence is a single by Grimes and American DJ i_o. It is the lead single and the fourth track on her fifth studio album, Miss Anthropocene.

Violence is the Goddess of Gaming.[1]

Background[]

On September 3, 2019, Grimes posted on Instagram a painting of an angelic figure whose hands touch a sword pierced into a planet resembling earth. This post was accompanied by the caption "A new way to die! 2 days."[2] This caption led publications to believe it would be the name of the song.[3] But she clarified the actual song title a day later.[4] Another post in anticipation of the release read "There were Humans and Gods and nothing but Angels in between."[5]

Composition[]

The song uses an altered instrumental of the i_o remix of "I Remember" by Deadmau5.[6][7][better source needed]

Meaning[]

Grimes told Apple Music:[8]

❝ This sounds sort of bad: In a way it feels like you’re giving up when you sing on someone else’s beats. I literally just want to produce a track. But it was sort of nice—there was just so much less pain in that song than I think there usually is. There’s this freedom to singing on something I’ve never heard before. I just put the song on for the first time, the demo that [producer/DJ] i_o sent me, and just sang over it. I was like, ‘Oh!’ It was just so freeing—I never ever get to do that. Everyone’s like, ‘What’s the meaning? What’s the vibe?’ And honestly, it was just really fucking fun to make. I know that’s not good, that everyone wants deeper meanings and emotions and things, but sometimes just the joy of music is itself a really beautiful thing. ❞

Media[]

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

Video[]

Video Credits
Grimes_&_i_o_-_Violence_(Official_Video)
Title Violence
Premiere 05 Sept 2019
Length 3:41
Location Cathedral of Saint Vibiana in Los Angeles, USA
Director Grimes
Producer Mac Boucher
Editor Grimes and Mac Boucher
Choreographer Grimes, Natsuki Miya
Notes ~🖤 In Memory of Lauren Valencia 🖤 ~

Additional Credits

  • Dop: Neil Hansen
  • Production Coordinator: Luke Arreguin
  • Creative Consultant: Alexandra Parker
  • Dancers:
    • Alyson Van
    • Charissa Kroeger
    • Isis Woodruff
    • Symone Holliday
    • Tina Jackson
  • Nude Corpse: HANA
  • In the background (cameo): i_o
  • Title Card Image: Popovy Sisters
  • Animation: Chiara Feriani
  • Graphic: Mac Boucher
  • Globe girl: Ryder Ripps
  • Custom face mask: Kirill Mintsev
  • Styling: Turner Turner
  • Hair: Chanel Croker
  • Makeup: Natasha Severino
  • Art Assistant: Blake Hilton
  • 1st AC: Jay Janocko
  • 2nd AC: Michael Carrino
  • Gaffer: Drew Valenti
  • Key Grip: Tyler Johnson Williams
  • LCP: Zane Blanchar Grip: Stuart
  • Lock Grip: Andrew Petroski
  • Grip: Daniel Vasquez BBG: Thomas Platt
  • Grip Driver: Aram
  • SLT: Garret Williams
  • SLT: Josh Day
  • SLT: Noah Cruz
  • Truck PA: Aaron Harper
  • PA. Kevin Wilson
  • PA. Alex Aaronson
  • PA. Jacob Adams

Behind the Scenes

Background

The style of the video was inspired by Bollywood films. The face masks were used after a suggestion from Grimes' stylist to wear them because Grimes was showing "dumb facial expressions" while they were shooting the dance scenes. The dance choreography was inspired from a TikTok video by a girl named "Cindy" (cindy518c), where the girl did hand choreography with gun like gestures.

The original idea of the music video was not the one shown in the final video, which ended up as a "performance style music video". Most of the original concept that was shot had problems with the lighting, the location and other stuff. The concept was a "sort of a meditation on the nature of violence" by "removing our physicality" and consider "violence be translated into the digital realm". The idea of using the church was because it was white, as a reference to an "un-rendered 3d modeling program", but this was affected by the lighting problems. Grimes wanted "to just be in the uncanny valley between the real church and the fake church, and like the girls dancing versus like 3d models of the girls dancing ". The unused shots were filmed aroud 6 hours and the shots used in the final video were aroud 1 hour, this is because the team had limited hours to film in the location.

The book Grimes held, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, was censored "due to legal reasons."[12]

The beginning of the music video shows a brief gif of an editing process with the Russian word "насилие" on top and mirrored on the bottom, which means "violence" in English.

Video Credits

Title Grimes Talks “Violence” Music Video and Taking Inspiration From Bollywood and TikTok
Premiere 21 Feb 2020
Length 6:45
Director Harper's BAZAAR

Background

Transcript

Hey, I'm Grimes, today I'm gonna be taking you through my Violence music video.

This is PLAYBACK.

I mean, I feel like the thing about this music video is that everything we planned for it to be completely failed in every capacity, but then it kind of turned out really well, sort of despite that. We'd been shooting for six hours, we hadn't gotten any of the short we wanted, like, there were just issues with the lighting, there's issues with the location... It was a total freaking mess; it ended up being this weird, sort of more performance video than, like, the concept that we had. Sometimes you just capture, like, a performance where you're like: "Oh, this was great.", like, I'm usually super stressed on music videos, so randomly I was, like, in a good mood for the last hour.

[Interlude]

So this was shot at this church called Vibeana. Everything is all white. There's this program called ZeeBrush, which is, like, for, like, 3D modeling and, like, sculpting and that kind of thing, and, like, when you make stuff in ZeeBrush, everything's all kind of white or gray. I've always been really into the, the aesthetics of this program, and so I was like: "Yeah, this church will look, like, we'll just pretend we're in like a unrendered 3D modeling program." That was kinda, like, supposed to be the concept; it obviously doesn't look that way, so that was one of our [laughs] things that's, like, when we got on set we're like, and started filming, we're like: "Okay, this doesn't look anything like [chuckles] what we were planning for it to look like."

We only spent, maybe, six hours filming - that was part of what was so stressful -is, they had really limited hours. It was definitely very intense day and pretty much everything you see is from the last hour. That's why there's sort of all these, these glimpses of shots where you're like: "Oh, she's wearing a different outfit and there's robot dogs.", yeah, and we really wanted to just be in the uncanny valley between the real church and the fake church, and, like, the girls dancing versus, like, 3D models of the girls dancing. I guess that's sort of a meditation on the nature of violence because, you know, by, like, removing our physicality you sort of start to consider, like, can violence be translated into a digital realm?

[Interlude]

I'm obsessed with, like, the history of warfare. It's actually one of my main interests, problably. So, I like all weapons, but swords are easy to obtain, like, costume places. I know a lot of people with a lot of swords and I own a lot of swords. I guess I just, I love the juxtaposition of, like, fashion, the loaded imagery of a weapon, but swords I feel like are abstracted from, like, real violence because it's, like, people are mostly not killing people with swords.

[Interlude]

I, everythng about this music video - it's insane that it turned out good because it was, like, everything was falling apart until literally minutes before we were shooting, but my stylist Turner just, like, randomly showed up with this stuff... so we were shooting the dance scene and, like, I couldn't stop making, like, really dumb facial expressions and I was like: "I can't keep it together, like, ahhh!" and then again Turner, my stylist, just pulled out these masks and I was like: "Ah, thank God!". Basically, I had, like, a mental breakdown during the choreography scene and wearing a mask was the only way to surpass the moment.

The choreographer's named Natsuki and I've known her for, like, eight years now? She danced for me, like, way back in the day... we were tryna hire choreographers and then I was just: "Man, we should just call Natsuki because she's very talented, like, she does a lot of, like, freestyling and stuff." The choreography was, like, very inspired by this girl Cindy on TikTok, that's, like, all this weird kind of, like, gun shit, but it's, like, cute hand choreography which I really like.

I actually haven't danced in, like, ten years; this was all real fast, like, I learned most of it in an hour - we only did two rehearsals... I don't know, we didn't actually - the dancing was very, like, natural and just easy, and just sort of happened, like, it was, like, quite a seamless - when thing's are easy, they're almost always good in art.

[Interlude]

Someone on the set asked me earlier what my biggest inspiration is, and I guess, in a weird way, I feel like, problably, my biggest inspiration is, like, Bollywood stuff just cuz my stepdad's Indian and I kind of grew up, you know, surrounded by Bollywood stuff and just, I guess it's a big influence on me, like, you know, like the super overdubbed, like, tight vocals, like the [re]verb and, like, in the film Dil Se, the song Satrangi Re, the video for it and song is just, like, problably, one of my biggest influences in the world and it's literally one of the greatest pieces of art I've ever seen, it's, if you could count it as a music video, I think it's, like, one of the best music videos ever made.

[Interlude]

Well, I started directing music videos, I guess, out of necessity. The first music video I ever shot, it was just, like, a mess, like, I was like: "This is a freaking disaster!", and my friend was a DP, so I was like: "Hey, John.". Shoutout John Londono cause he allowed us to use his studio for free and his cameras for free which, basically, is why I have a career, so, always shoutout John Londono.

I was like: "This is a mess, what are we gonna do?" and he's like: "It's a mess, you can come shoot something in my studio, like, tomorrow for a different song and we'll just, like, make something, we'll make it good and we'll, like, sneak it out before this other music video is coming out." You know, calling friends, like: "I'll give you, like, booze and cookies.", I just made a bunch of food, spent, like, twenty bucks on alcohol and was just like: "If people just please show up, and we'll just make something on the spot and...", but it was, like, really fun and it turned out really well, and it was sort of, like, mini viral... I just noticed that things were better if i was at the helm I suppose. I've become much more professional since then, but that's sort of how I started directing... It allows you to hold the paintbrush I guess.

[Interlude]

I work very closely with my brother - he's kind of my primary creative partner on visual stuff. We're not actually twins but we, like, the same, identical taste pretty much, so he's just a very reliable person with creative stuff, like, I know if I'm like: "Can you go handle that?", like, I don't need to be approving things, I know it'll just be good, so, I've kind of just been giving him a bigger role and bigger role, and he's pretty involved in the music videos...

Honestly, I think the thing I like best about this music video, and the reason we shot this actually, is the song isn't even supposed to be on my album, I just made the song with this guy i_o, which is something I don't normally do and because I hadn't actually spent that much time on it, so this is, like, one situation where I'm just like: "Man, I still love this song, I'm playing this song in the car all the time, like, let's just, like, change the first single and make it this song." and everyone was like: "[with laughter] This is a terrible idea!", but I was like: "I need to make a music video for something that I'm currently loving." I feel like you can tell that I'm, like, digging the song in the video as opposed to, like, the song giving me PTSD from having spent way too much time on it.

Yeah, I mean everything about this just has, had, like, like, a joyousness to it I think because I wasn't as burned out as I normally am.

[Interlude]

[Outro]

Video Credits

Title Grimes - Violence (Uncensored music video)
Premiere Unknown
Length 3:47
Notes The cover of the book The Art of War is uncensored.


The video can be viewed here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C6rlfFXfstfdp8dMQ2yBtYe_1vUaYzqm/view?usp=sharing

Video Credits
Title Outtake from Violence music video
Premiere Unknown
Length 0:56

Video Credits

Title Grimes - Violence Dance Practice (Mirrored)
Premiere Unknown
Length 0:39
Featuring Grimes and her accompanying dancers
Notes Video is mirrored for learning purposes.

Lyrics[]

[Intro]
I'm, like, begging for it, baby
Makes you wanna party, wanna wake up
Baby, it's violence, violence
Baby, it's violence
But you can't see what I see
You can't see what I see
'Cause you, ha, ha, you feed off hurting me
Off hurting me, yeah, ha

[Chorus]
I'm, like, begging for it, baby
Makes you wanna party, wanna wake up
Baby, it's violence, violence
Baby, it's violence
But you can't see what I see
You can't see what I see
'Cause you, ha, ha, you feed off hurting me
Off hurting me, yeah, ha-ha

[Refrain]
You wanna make me bad, make me bad
And I like it like that, and I like it like that
You wanna make me bad? Pay me back
Said, "I like it like that," said, "I like it like that"

[Chorus]
I'm, like, begging for it, baby
Makes you wanna party, wanna wake up
Baby, it's violence, violence
Baby, it's violence
But you can't see what I see
You can't see what I see
'Cause you, ha, ha, you feed off hurting me
Off hurting me, yeah

[Refrain]
You wanna make me bad, make me bad
And I like it like that, and I like it like that
You wanna make me bad? Pay me back
Said, "I like it like that," said, "I like it like that"
You wanna make me bad, make me bad
And I like it like that, and I like it like that
You wanna make me bad? Pay me back
Said, "I like it like that," said, "I like it like that"
You wanna make me, make me
Make-make me, make me, make-make me, make me
And I like it like that, and I like it like that
You wanna pay me, pay me
Pay me back-back, pay me back
Said, "I like it like that," said, "I like it like that"

[Outro]
[Vocalization]
And I like it like that, and I like it like that
And I like it like that

Trivia[]

  • She revealed that the song was originally intended for her sixth album, but Grimes decided to move it to Miss Anthropocene because the track "feels good".[13]
  • In a 2020 interview for Pitchfork, Grimes revealed that this song was included in order to replace Darq Souls, which according to her was "theoretically the best song on the record but it became an engineering nightmare so I was not able to finish it."[14]
  • Grimes compared Violence to 'Stand By Your Man' by Tammy Wynette, to accent the fact that Violence was made in under one hour.[15]
  • Violence is in age the youngest song on Miss Anthropocene.[15]

References[]

  1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20200228203815/https://www.grimesmusic.com/
  2. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/B18SKOQlgMn/?hl=en
  3. ↑ https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/latest-news/grimes-teases-new-single-a-new-way-to-die https://www.nme.com/news/music/grimes-a-new-way-to-die-new-single-2544437
  4. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/B2AFp-rHmtw/?hl=nl
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 https://variety.com/2019/music/news/grimes-drops-new-single-and-video-violence-1203324574/
  6. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaluULg2YE8
  7. ↑ https://www.mixcloud.com/deadmau5/deadmau5-presents-mau5trap-radio-007-i_o-takeover/
  8. ↑ https://music.apple.com/us/album/miss-anthropocene/1496782284
  9. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/BzYwatkAEs9/
  10. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/B2AFp-rHmtw/?igshid=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA==
  11. ↑ https://twitter.com/Grimezsz/status/1722446656019607749
  12. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/Grimes/comments/g2kq6a/finally_an_answer_about_violence_music_video/
  13. ↑ https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/grimes-interview-zane-lowe-beats-1-io-violence-8529252/
  14. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=10m13s&v=umoqd0VbRI4&feature=youtu.be
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 https://youtu.be/umoqd0VbRI4?si=orka7BMzX4Epumiv&t=633
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