"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 early work has been described as extending from "lo-fi R&B" to futuristic dance-pop, and has in ...

from her third studio album, ''

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'' (2012). It was released as a

promotional single A promotional recording, or 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 ...

in 2012 by 4AD.

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. It is distributed electronically every second Tuesday, with additional material posted on the website r ...

'', Boucher 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 '' CBC'' 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".

Critical reception

The song was described by ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' as "

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the ...

teaming up with Blondie for a rework of ' Heart of Glass' and performing it several hundred leagues under the sea" inks added 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 Emily Kai Bock (born 1983 or 1984) is a Canadian writer and film director. In 2017, her short film '' A Funeral for Lightning'' was included in TIFF's annual Canada's Top Ten list of the top 10 Canadian short films of the year, selected by a pane ...

, 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

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

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and at

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

Molson Stadium Percival Molson Memorial Stadium (also known in French as ''Stade Percival-Molson''; commonly referred to as Molson Stadium in English or Stade Molson in French) is an outdoor football stadium in Downtown Montreal, on the slopes of Mount Royal ...

, during a

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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

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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 ''

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''; 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 used in the short film ''The Everything'' directed by Humberto Leon, co-creative director of ''

Kenzo is a common masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Kenzō can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: *賢三, "wise, three" *健三, "healthy, three" *謙三, "humble, three" *健想, "healthy, concept" *建造, "bu ...

''. * The song was used in an episode of the

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