I’ve been thinking a lot about Grimes lately. There’s probably nobody in music I’ve changed my opinion onmore over the last 12 months than her. When she released Visions, I shoved her off to one side as a performance art-heavy kind of performer: maybe you remember the video where she was in some kind of flashy and metal-lined suit and people waved swords around and rode in limos.

I’m the kind of person who rushes to judgment sometimes. So I more or less wrote her off as arty stuff that’s not up my alley, putting her in the same spot as bands like The Knife, who make music that doesn’t do anything for me and is maybe more than a little wrapped up in itself. Last summer, when breaking down the Polaris Prize last summer, I wrote this about Visions:

In a scene that’s crowded as hell right now, Visions didn’t quite separate itself from acts like TRST, Purity Ring or even Crystal Castles. “Oblivion” is the key track on this album and “Genesis” is good too. On the whole, though, Visions is an okay album by artist who’s only finding her stride.

Which now, after listening to this album in and out for something like four months solid, strikes me as a little unfair: it took me a bunch of listening to realize it, but this LP is the best-constructed album I’ve heard all year. It more than stands out from stuff like Trust, it makes them sound like just a dance band. There’s a lot more going on in a track like “Vowels = Space and Time,” than just a nice beat. And I haven’t gotten into her live shows, which are a blast. But we’ll get to that in a second.

But what really changed things for me was her Tumblr account, where Grimes routinely posts cool photos and writes about her music in a way that’s not pretentious or high-handed. I’m used to seeing most professionals go about social media in a constructed, safe way: they create content to help move product, like posting tour dates or instagrams of shows. Sometimes, maybe there’s a picture of the band in the studio or a link to a Soundcloud of the new song. Rarely do you get anything too interesting, or even human-seeming. Which makes Grimes’ account fun: she posts pictures, links to music she likes. You know, stuff you’d actually expect from a real person, not a public relations department.

Case in point: last week, she made waves by posting about sexism and stereotypes, making a series of points which show the kind of shit she has to put up with, which I’d bet a lot of men probably never think about: getting grabbed at shows; having men offer their help (because she can’t do things on her own, never mind that she put together Visions single-handedly); being labeled a waif in the press.

She’s right on the money, too. These things happen and will probably continue to happen because there’s still a segment of society that’s fucked up, the same kind of people who don’t see anything wrong with what Duncan Keith or Don Cherry recently said about women reporters: that because they’re women, they won’t be professionals in locker room situations. Well, go read some Helene Elliot some time: she’s done a better job on the hockey beat than almost anyone in the US.

But I’ve gotten away from Grimes here. The more I listen to Visions, the more and more I feel like it’s one of the most complete records of 2012: it’s swirling and mysterious, it draws you in but doesn’t spell anything out for you. I listened to “Genesis” maybe 20 times before I was even able to pick up on the lyrics; the more I listen to it, the more it sounds restless, like someone who’s realized they’ve outgrown their home. Or take “Oblivion,” which buries its fear under layers of ominous synths and layers of vocals. It sounds so unassuming, then Grimes hits you between the eyes: “Someone could break your neck / Coming up behind you / always coming and you’d never have a clue.”

Think about that tune; compare it to her above comments.  She’s been there, come out the other side and is pointing out truths I’d bet half her audience never thought to look for. And it’s done in such an unassuming way: rather than a band like The Knife, who dress everything up as a grand experiment, layering everything in unfamiliar sounds and textures, Grimes makes the same message bluntly, with a catchy, dance-influenced record. The video for “Oblivion” has her standing alone in a mostly-male dominated audience, ears covered with headphones. Sometimes she’s being shoved around, other times people are passively showing off their muscles in front of her. Her message couldn’t be more overt, but she’s not making it seem like it’s being pushed on the listener.

The album’s just stuffed with these details. On “Circumambient,” with a pounding rhythm and her voice fading into computery blips, her backing vocals lull you into a sense of security, like you’re listening to a mid-80s Madonna song, when there’s a groundswell of a bass note and she sings “Oh baby, I can’t say / that everything is okay / and I have a problem and I don’t know how to solve them.” Things aren’t right and maybe she has an answer for you, maybe not. But she’s telling you and you’ve got to do is listen; it’s kind of like what Bob Dylan once sang: “she just makes it all too concise and too clear.”

Forget the accolades people are handing to The Knife about how well Shaking the Habitual dealt with society’s problems: Grimes Visions is the real deal and a better listen to boot.