"Oblivion" is a song by Canadian musician

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 ...

from her third studio album, '' Visions'' (2012). It was released as a

promotional single A promotional recording, promo, or plug copy is an audio or video recording distributed free, usually in order to promote a recording that is or soon will be commercially available. Promos are normally sent directly to broadcasters, such as mu ...

in 2012 by the British record label

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Creation

In an April 2012 interview with Jacinda Govind for ''

Music Feeds ''Music Feeds'' is a free bi-weekly digital music and lifestyle magazine ( street press) established in 2008 and based in Sydney, Australia Sydney is the capital city of the state of New South Wales and the most populous city in Austr ...

'', Grimes explained that the song is about a violent assault:

It made me crazy for a few years. I got really paranoid walking around at night and started feeling really unsafe. The song is more about empowering myself physically amongst a masculine power, and the hate of feeling powerless, making light of masculine physical power, making it jovial and non-threatening. I took a typically violent cultural situation and made it pop and happy.

Chandler Levack for ''

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'' in 2020 and Caz Tran for ''

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'' in 2022 have reported on Grimes' sexual assault, with Tran writing that "as a survivor of a violent sexual assault, 'Oblivion' was the result of rimes'most determined efforts to turn feelings of fear and paranoia into something light hearted and innocuous".

Composition

"Oblivion" has been described as

electropop Electropop is a popular music fusion genre combining elements of the electronic and pop styles. It has been described as a variant of synth-pop with emphasis on a hard electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a rev ...

synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s b ...

dream pop Dream pop (also typeset as dreampop) is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that emphasizes atmosphere and sonic texture as much as pop melody. Common characteristics include breathy vocals, dense productions, and effects such ...

experimental pop Experimental pop is pop music that cannot be categorized within traditional musical boundaries or which attempts to push elements of existing popular forms into new areas. It may incorporate experimental music, experimental techniques such as m ...

, with a "

futurepop Futurepop is an electronic music genre that has been characterized as a blend of synth-pop, EBM and dance beats, based on trance and techno.Peter Matzke, Tobias Seeliger: ''Das Gothic- und Dark-Wave-Lexikon.'' Schwarzkopf und Schwarzkopf, Ber ...

beat". The song was described by ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

'' as "

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, ) is a Germany, German Electronic music, electronic band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk was among the first successful a ...

teaming up with Blondie for a rework of ' Heart of Glass' and performing it several hundred leagues under the sea".

Critical reception

It is one of Grimes' most successful releases and was ranked at number 38 on Australian alternative music station

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's 2012 Hottest 100 countdown. It was named the best song of 2012 on ''

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'', which in 2019 also named it the second best song of the decade. It placed at number 229 on ''NME'' magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Music video

The music video was co-directed by Grimes and Emily Kai Bock, on a "shoe string budget". It features Grimes, in a black coat and her signature pink hair, with headphones on at a sporting match with a largely male crowd. It was shot in

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and at

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

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, during a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

game and a

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event. The video debuted on March 2, 2012 and shows Grimes amongst shirtless

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s, as well as in a men's locker room surrounded by

weightlifting Weightlifting or weight lifting generally refers to physical exercises and sports in which people lift weights, often in the form of dumbbells, barbells or machines. People engage in weightlifting for a variety of different reasons. These can ...

athletes. Grimes stated for ''Pitchfork'':

Art gives me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can't be, and part of it was asserting this abstract female power in these male-dominated arenas—the video is somewhat about objectifying men. Not in a disrespectful way, though.

In an interview with ''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles * Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...

''; when asked about her "videos layingwith ... clichés of powerful and powerless female archetypes", she answered:

I was interested in the Japanese archetype of a female protagonist who is very small and very cute and very physically powerful. You don't see that archetype in America. But in Japanese culture, there are female characters who can embody this girl uniform and still cut someone's head off with a sword. "Oblivion" embodies that kind of archetype, going into this masculine world that is associated with sexual assault, but presented as something really welcoming and nice. The song's sort of about being — I was assaulted and I had a really hard time engaging in any types of relationship with men, because I was just so terrified of men for a while.

Track listing

*UK promotional CD-R single #"Oblivion" (radio edit) – 3:10 #"Oblivion" (album version) – 4:11

Charts

Certifications

Use in media

* The song was most recently used in the 2024 Netflix documentary “Biggest Heist Ever.” * The song was used in the short film ''The Everything'' directed by Humberto Leon, co-creative director of '' Kenzo''. * The song was used in an episode of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

series, ''

Silent Witness ''Silent Witness'' is a British crime drama television series produced by the BBC that focuses on a team of forensic pathology experts and their investigations into various crimes. The series was created by Nigel McCrery, a former murder squa ...

''. * The song was used in the 2019 film, '' Good Boys.'' * The song was used in the second season episode of the Netflix series, ''Baby''. * The song was used in the BBC/HBO series, ''

I May Destroy You ''I May Destroy You'' is a British black comedy-drama television series created, written, co-directed, and executive produced by Michaela Coel for BBC One and HBO. The series is set in London with a predominantly Black British cast. Coel stars ...

''. * The song was used as the theme song for the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

series ''A Brief History of the Future''

References

{{Authority control 2012 songs Songs about sexual assault Songs with feminist themes Grimes songs Synth-pop songs Dream pop songs Futurepop songs 4AD singles 2012 singles