Grimes Goes On Anti-Stereogum Rant Following Poor Dead Girlfriends Review

Say what you will about cooing bleep-blooper Claire Boucher (Grimes), but she sticks up for her friends. Last we checked in with Grimes, she was tackling sexism via a heated tumblr post. Now, she's using that penchant for fiery rants to defend her friend/roommate James Brooks. Brooks (of Elite Gymnastics fame) released an solo EP as Dead Girlfriends and Stereogum trashed it, taking particular offense at the closing track "On Fraternity" which the site took to be about sexual assault.

Via the Stereogum review, which accuses Brooks of "mansplaining":

The song itself, without its divisive lyrics, is something else. It screeches with feedback in places, its synths twinkle and build into an emotions-driven cushion padding Brooks's heartbroken vocals. It's painful and beautiful; its only problem lies within its lyrics. Since its release, Brooks has noted that there are no gender pronouns in the song, but its initial presentation felt like it was meant to explain to women the political reason there are certain physical discomforts that come from, essentially, being a woman in public. 

Grimes was not about to take that lying down let a faulty review go unpunished. Her complete rebuttal, which also attacks Stereogum for incorrectly analyzing her own musical output, is below:

ok, god damnit. First of all - these 'stereogum takedowns' are really stupid. Like, one of these happened to me when Visions first came out. Not only was it terrible journalism, but it was fucking sexist (suggesting that I'm not as admirable as my peers because I don't "tap into [my] womanhood and sexuality as a source of power." Um

So first of all assholes, you have NO fucking right the be standing on a feminist pedestal. Your article about me in this series based it's criticism on attacking my refusal to sexualize myself which is so immensely fucked like... i dont think i need to explain why it's fucked.

Secondly, you can't just rip apart an artist because you "feel" like his song is about something it's not about. You even acknowledge that there is no basis in fact for assuming that "On fraternity" is written from a female perspective or about a female experience.

It doesn't come close to "mansplaining". I live with the fucking person who wrote this song, and I can assure you I've never heard him mansplain anything. This song is about being JAMES and the way that JAMES feels and you have no right or reason to attack him. fucking surfer blood doesn't even get it this bad

James doesn't have a publicist or a label or money or an agenda. He's making art and he's releasing it. I'm so tired of people jumping on every possible controversy they can conjure because they need web traffic. We don't make art because we want to be in tabloids, you probably didn't start an indie music blog beccause you wanted to make tabloids

god damn it ive been trying to stay out of this but its gotten completely out of hand and with no basis in fact whatsoever

FACT CHECKING : its in ur job description

What do you think of Grimes defense of Brooks? Is she correct? Is the song being incorrectly correlated with sexual assualt? Listen to it here and decide.