Grimes says she didn’t want her next album, Psy Opera, to revolve around Elon Musk.
The musician discussed that decision with host Zachary Hourihane during an October 11 interview on his Swiftologist channel, PEOPLE reported.
Grimes, 38, shares three children with her former partner.
The project will be her first full-length album since Miss Anthropocene, which arrived in 2020.
She Says Personal Songs “Couldn’t Come First”
“I just didn’t want any of this to be about Elon,” Grimes said when discussing the material she had chosen for the record. Hourihane asked whether the stakes surrounding her personal life made her reluctant to write confessional material.
She rejected that explanation, saying the more personal subjects “couldn’t come first.” She felt the questions about technology she wanted to explore were especially relevant.
Grimes also described years of fear and feeling judged in both public and private. She spoke about shielding her children from her distress, and how motherhood brought anger about the world they were entering.
She Plans a “100% Personal” Second Part
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Grimes plans to release Psy Opera in two parts, with the second still being revised. She described that portion as “100% personal” and said she intended it to follow closely after the first.
She said her one regret was the balance between the two parts. She wished the first had more emotion and the second more computer-focused material.
She wanted the opening portion to take listeners through her growing nihilism and anger before they heard the second disc. Neither part of Psy Opera has an announced release date.
She Identified AI-Written Lyrics on “DeepSeek”
On the podcast, Grimes described AI as a mirror through which people can examine themselves and their behavior.
Her October 7 trailer, “Eve Is Online…,” introduces those themes through imagery of warfare and futuristic machines. Its narration adapts biblical creation language to describe the rise of artificial intelligence, The FADER reported.
In an April conversation with author Nnedi Okorafor for Interview, she initially said she did not use AI in her music, then identified an exception: “DeepSeek.” “Some of the lyrics were written by DeepSeek,” she said, referring to the AI model that shares the song’s name.
She also recalled abandoning plans to use AI dancers in a music video because she did not want to discourage people from pursuing dance, which she described as a fundamental form of human expression.
A Writing Assignment Helped Her Return to Music
In that earlier conversation, Grimes said she had quit music for a period and turned to reading and writing poetry. A request to write a rap for a K-pop performer drew her back into songwriting.
She liked the result enough to keep it herself, although she later removed much of the aggressive material she had written during that period. She eventually began adding pop songs to a project that had leaned heavily toward experimental spoken word.
On October 9, she released “Accelerando,” with producer VADAKIN, as the album’s lead single. Pitchfork reported that the project will be her first album through her own label, Nazgul Recording LLC, following her departure from Columbia Records.