Music

Grimes Doesn’t Know What Princess Peach Sounds Like

Grimes provided one of the strangest moments of the weekend's 'Saturday Night Live', appearing as Princess Peach across from her beau Elon Musk.

by Joseph Earp  10 May 2021
Grimes on Saturday Night Live

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Over the weekend, Elon Musk served his time as the guest host of Saturday Night Live, performing a series of — let’s face it — rather odd skits.

Opening the show with a much-discussed monologue in which he revealed that he has been diagnosed with Asperger’s, Musk then launched into a bizarre comedy sequence in which he appeared as infamous Super Mario villain Wario.

The whole segment was lopsided and odd — not least of all because there was a brief cut-away to a pixellated shot of Luigi’s penis (no, really.) But the jewel in this particular crown was the moment when Musk’s beau and hugely successful musician Grimes appeared out of nowhere as Princess Peach.

And lemme tell you this. I don’t know much about the world — it is a confusing and often unknowable place, full of hard-to-read people and baffling situations. But if there is one thing I can say with utmost certainty, it’s that Grimes has never — and I mean never — heard Princess Peach talk.

I mean, just listen to Grimes’ version of Peach’s classic garble:

That one line is sadly the entirety of Grimes’ performance. But like mountains of coal compressed into a single diamond, it’s a little that contains a lot.

Let’s get the basic facts out of the way: Grimes obviously thinks that Princess Peach is Italian. Princess Peach is not Italian. Princess Peach is to Italy as Elon Musk is to properly paying his workers and allowing them to unionise.

Then there’s the fact that Grimes’ Italian accent isn’t even particularly good. She sounds like a ’90s stand-up comedian on fast-forward, all pitchy rolled R’s and strange, robotic hand movements. It’s like watching someone who has only ever had the Italian accent described to them try to replicate the thing on first go. It’s odd, is what I am saying. Deeply, profoundly odd.

Anyway, on the upside, in the hours since the sketch went up online, we have at least been treated to a range of responses from the internet, ranging from the baffled to the quietly angry.

Like I say: the world is a strange and oftentimes confusing place.