Grimes ft. Janelle Monáe – Venus Fly
2017 · Directed by Grimes
208K Likes
Best comments
1.“This collab happened because Grimes mailed Janelle Monáe a self-made drawing of a decapitated human head blasting out colors... because she was a fan.”
More comments
- 2.“The fact that there's a Bubbleologist in the credits just made me like Grimes more.”
- 3.“Also, I want to be a Bubbleologist when I retire.”
The story
Venus Fly first showed up in 2015 on Art Angels, the Grimes album NME named its record of the year. Fifteen months later she dropped a seven-and-a-half-minute video for it, and she did nearly everything herself: directed it, edited it, co-colored it. She called it her strongest work yet as a director, editor and creative director.
Grimes and Janelle Monáe play something like sword-swinging space warriors in cybergoth costumes, moving through a dreamy collage of fairytale, myth and futuristic overload, shot at Pie in the Sky Studios in Toronto. Much of the slow, floating look comes from high-speed Phantom cameras, which Grimes said were there to make time feel suspended. The credits list a bubbleologist, a flame stunt supervisor and a foot actress, which tells you about how normal this gets. An alternate version of the song plays over the end credits.
It came out on TIDAL in February 2017, right after a rough political season. Grimes said making art felt pointless for a while, and that Monáe's hopeful vision of the future, against all the dystopias on offer, gave her some bright moments. A seven-minute dose of optimism with swords.
