"Flesh Without Blood" is a song by Canadian singer, songwriter and music producer

Grimes Claire Elise Boucher (; born March 17, 1988), known professionally as Grimes, is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Her lyrics often touch on science fiction and feminist themes. The visuals in her videos are elabora ...

, released on October 26, 2015, as the lead single from her fourth studio album, ''

Art Angels ''Art Angels'' is the fourth studio album by Canadian musician Grimes. It was digitally released on November 6, 2015, through 4AD, and in physical formats on December 11. Boucher began planning the record in 2013 as the follow-up to her third s ...

'' (2015). The same day, Grimes released the "Flesh Without Blood/Life in the Vivid Dream" video to YouTube, a double music video featuring "Flesh Without Blood" and "Life in the Vivid Dream", another song on ''Art Angels''.

Background

Grimes revealed via her

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account that "Flesh Without Blood" is a song about a platonic friendship she had with a woman. Grimes noted how, prior to stating her

authorial intent In literary theory and aesthetics, authorial intent refers to an author's intent as it is encoded in their work. Authorial intentionalism is the hermeneutical view that an author's intentions should constrain the ways in which a text is properly i ...

, the press had assumed that the song was about a

heterosexual Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions ...

relationship. She saw this as an example of how "the press genders my lyrics" and said that she no longer writes songs about love. She also described it as a song about "being really disappointed with someone who you really once truly admired". One of the characters from the music video for "Flesh Without Blood" is named Rococo Basilisk, a reference to the thought experiment Roko's basilisk and the

Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

art movement. Grimes said that the character was "doomed to be eternally tortured by an artificial intelligence, but she's also kind of like

Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette (; ; Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last List of French royal consorts, queen of France before the French Revolution and the establishment of the French First Republic. She was the ...

Critical reception

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'' ranked "Flesh Without Blood" at number 15 on its year-end list for 2015, writing:

There were several otherworldly pop bangers on Grimes' ''Art Angels'', but we're glad she decided to let this stratospheric kiss-off kick off the album cycle.
rimes Rimes is a surname. It is an English surname of unexplained origin, as well as a Huguenot surname which possibly originated as a habitational surname from the city of Reims. Variant spellings include Rhymes. Statistics compiled by Patrick Hanks o ...
kept us guessing in the album's long gestation period, sharing "Go," an EDM banger she'd written for
Rihanna Robyn Rihanna Fenty ( ; born February 20, 1988) is a Barbadian singer, businesswoman, and actress. One of the List of music artists by net worth, wealthiest musicians in the world, List of awards and nominations received by Rihanna, her vario ...
, and then admitting she'd scrapped an entire album's worth of material. In the end, she delivered the pop some of her fans were craving, without sacrificing the weirdness that made her a cult star. "Flesh Without Blood" is that in a nutshell––a sky-scraping hook pulled out of unintelligible vocals, served over an underbelly of humming guitar.

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' ranked "Flesh Without Blood" at number 15 on their year-end list of the 50 best songs of 2015. The ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...

'' ranked "Flesh Without Blood" at number 12 on their annual year-end critic's poll. ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' named "Flesh without Blood" the 10th best song of 2015.

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music magazine founded in 1996 by Ryan Schreiber in Minneapolis. It originally covered Alternative rock, alternative and independent music, and expanded to cover genres includin ...

named "Flesh Without Blood" the 7th best song and 18th best music video of 2015. The song also came in at #71 on the annual Triple J Hottest 100 for 2015.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Uses in media

This song was used in the ''

Mr. Robot ''Mr. Robot'' is an American drama thriller television series created by Sam Esmail for USA Network. It stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer and hacker with social anxiety disorder, clinical depression, and dissoci ...

'' Season 4 Episode 3 "403 Forbidden".

References

{{authority control 2015 singles 2015 songs 4AD singles Dance-rock songs Grimes songs