RL Grime

One Liner:  EDM guy with a name playing on his childhood reading.

Wikipedia Genre: Trap, future bass, drum and bass
Home: LA

Poster Position: 6

Both Weekends.

Thoughts:  What?  The photo of this guy is of generic white guy with messed hair, standing in front of a mountain background, and then the first most popular song is nothing like the pastoral Americana I was expecting.  EDM plus rap.  It's actually a pretty fun track.  "UCLA," with 22.6 million streams.

Once I get past the initial shock of this guy making this music, that track is pretty basic.  The usual, a build and drop and some knob-twisting effects over the bass thump.

That track appears on his 2018 album, NOVA, which features a bunch of guests, including unknowns (to me at least) like 24hrs, the rapper on that last track, or Joji or Jeremy Zucker, but then has some well-knowns like Miguel, Julia Michaels, Jeremih, Tory Lanez, Ty Dolla $ign, Chief Keef, and popular EDM hook-singer Daya.  After the release of that album, he has kept it going, with 2018's NOVA (The Remixes, Vol. 1), 2018's NOVA (The Remixes, Vol. 2), and then 2019's NOVA Pure, a version of the album without any of the vocals so that you can just purely enjoy the JAMZ.

Speaking of remixes, that is where this guy came up, doing remixes of other people's stuff.  In 2012, he did a remix of Kanye's Mercy that grabbed over eight million streams on soundcloud, and then later did remixes of tracks by Chief Keef, Rihanna, and Benny Benassi.  Just to get a feel for that start up, let's check it out.

I mean, I think I'd rather hear the original?  Pretty good remix, I suppose.  The Wikipedia entry made me expect a massive wall of bass, but at least here on my work computer, I'm not getting the depth charge power that would make me call it "massive" like The Fader apparently did.

The man's real name is Henry Alfred Steinway (which is an amazingly moneyed-sounding name, like this guy should have a butler and live in a huge flat in Manhattan), and he originally went by Clockwork.  "He created the name RL Grime after joking around with his friends and talking about the author of his favorite childhood books, Goosebumps, R.L. Stine (who even did a voiceover for one of his Halloween mixtapes)."  Which is kinda funny.

Prior to that newer album, his only other album was 2014's VOID.  He appears to actually like putting out albums, which is different from most of the EDM guys.  The top track from that album is called "Core," which is a surprise to me because I figured the track with Big Sean would win the stream battle.  Incorrect (although that Big Sean track is kinda tight).  14.8 million streams for "Core".

You know what?  That track is weird, like a pack of sheep bleating in unison, and then it smears into a pretty cool version of the trap track.  I like that it doesn't quite drop on the beat that feels right, like he makes you wait just one second longer.  I also dig whatever middle eastern sounding instrument that is supposed to be sounding like.  Reminds me of an effect from that old Prodigy song "Climbatize."  I'm surprised, but I like it.  Also on this album, "Valhalla," which is an otherwise pretty generic EDM banger, features some drumline bits that get me fired up.  Nothing like a good drumline slice to get an old band nerd hard.  I also like "Pressure."

Something has changed in me - I don't immediately hate the EDM.  I'll readily admit that this wears on me when I listen to it all day long while trying to work, but listening to his top ten again is pretty fun.  I mean, I doubt I'd go do this over many of the other items at the top of the poster, but it might be fun.