Grimes Splits With Columbia Records

Boundary-pushing pop artist Grimes has left Columbia Records, according to a source from the label. The singer’s longtime manager, Daouda Leonard, confirmed the news.

The Canadian musician signed with Columbia in March 2021, marking her first major label deal after releasing five albums on independent labels prior. Geidi Primes and Halfaxa both arrived in 2010 on Canadian indie Arbutus Records, while her last three albums — Visions (2012), Art Angels (2015) and Miss Anthropocene (2020) — were released on 4AD.

Visions hit No. 98 on the Billboard 200 and No. 17 on Billboard‘s Top Alternative Albums chart. Art Angeles landed at No. 36 on the Billboard 200 and topped the Top Alternative Albums chart. And Miss Anthropocene hit No. 32 on the Billboard 200, No. 4 on Top Alternative Albums and No. 1 on the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart.

Grimes has long teased her forthcoming sixth album, BOOK 1, offering many status updates during her time at Columbia. Last fall she even shared on social media that the project was done and may be released in two parts.

“Album is done we’re mixing. My friend and I. perfected the last song in the plastic surgery clinic cuz they wouldn’t let me leave and we were laughing that this was the most Hollywood moment of all time. I have 20 songs so maybe BOOK 1 and BOOK 2? Deciding format/ tracklist,” she wrote on Twitter.

Last month, Grimes offered a sneak peek into the long-awaited album during her performance at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival. During the set, she also unveiled her latest venture, ELF.TECH, an app and web-based operating system, as well as unveiled Grimes Gen 1 Avatars, the first series of her own virtual artificial intelligence avatars.

Over the weekend, Grimes took to Twitter to voice her support of A.I. Posting a screenshot of an article about fake hits by Drake and The Weekend, made using A.I., Grimes wrote: “I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist i collab with. Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings.”