St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION (5th album, October 13 2017)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b3/Masseduction.jpg/440px-Masseduction.jpg

1. "Hang on Me" 2:48
2. "Pills" 4:40
3. "Masseduction" 3:17
4. "Sugarboy" 4:01
5. "Los Ageless" 4:41
6. "Happy Birthday, Johnny" 2:58
7. "Savior" 3:26
8. "New York" 2:34
9. "Fear the Future" 2:31
10. "Young Lover" 3:33
11. "Dancing with a Ghost" 0:46
12. "Slow Disco" 2:44
13. "Smoking Section" 3:37

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TPqUvy1vYU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8jxAKmojxY

yikesss this is really bad

I'm still only ok on "New York", but "Los Ageless" is cool. Maybe a little more straightforward than I was expecting, but catchy enough to make up for it

Yeah, I don't like either of these. Also, that cover art.

cover rules

totally

both songs sound wonderful! love her sense of melody

Taylor should've asked Clark for help rather than Antonoff

Los Ageless is a total banger! She could play arenas with that.

Enjoying this more than the s/t singles (much as I respect that record I think it relied to heavily on a concept for me to fully enjoy)

the album art + the visual aesthetics for this record is great, "new york" is fine, i'm not feeling "los ageless" at all

What was the concept of the s/t?

Her tweeting about anti-capitalism when she advertises Tiffany and has her own line of signature guitars is nagl. By all means make money off your work to pay your mortgage but don't pretend to be counter culture when you're schilling really expensive VIP tickets.

Even trv kvlt anarcho-commies gotta eat..

I loved loved loved the last album but I've a horrible feeling about this one. 'New York' is just a really bad song in every respect. We don't need ANOTHER song like this.
Los Ageless is okay on first listen but lacks the spikiness of her previous productions that made them so interesting.
This sounds like it's going to be her attempt at making a full-on Taylor Swift pop album, which in any other case would be a well-advised move, but not at the expense of sounding generic pls.

believe s/t was a lot about the internet and modern life?

I was listening to Release Radar in the background when New York came on and slowly grabbed my attention until I was like "wait a minute this is a new st vincent track!"

I like the ridiculous cover art but that’s about it. Both of the singles, “Los Ageless” especially, just sound so bland to me. She’s already been hinting at this middle-of-the-road production style with the s/t bonus tracks (“Bad Believer” and “Teenage Talk”) but I was hoping she wouldn’t go further down that road. Oh well.

Yeah I wasn't into those songs either

the fetish porn aesthetic is interesting, but fetish porn is kind of difficult to subvert. haven't heard the new songs. will probably listen once the album is out.

Taylor should've asked Clark for help rather than Antonof

But...Antonoff produced this record too?

I had no idea Antonoff was involved but I immediately felt like "Los Ageless" had some shared DNA with the new Taylor songs

She's decided to be a pop star rather than a musician, it seems.

oh cool let's play that dichotomy again

it's a crappy way of putting it, but most of the stuff she's released since after the s/t album does sound like a different artist - Los Ageless could be by anyone really, and New York is almost begging to be used in an episode of some quirky indie comedy-drama.
There's not a lot rubbing up against itself on these tracks, and as such they seem to slip through my ears almost a little too fluidly.
The music, the cover aesthetic, makes me expect a passage on the album "I'm sorry, the old Annie can't come to the phone right now, Why? Oh, 'cause she's dead!"

But...Antonoff produced this record too?
whaaaaaat!!!!

idg the complaints tho, she's been writing strong melodies from day 1, she's a crossover artist, kinda like Byrne

Yeah man.

...she worked with producer Jack Antonoff, whom she connected with over a dinner in Los Angeles. “She was very open about the things in her life,” said Antonoff about the dinner date. “That’s what I was interested in. Continuing to reveal more and more. I said, ‘Let’s go for the lyrics that people will tattoo on their arms.’”

There's a Song Exploder podcast where she talks about working with him too.

cool, I'll check that out!

re new vs old Clark, even if it's in part due to her distinctive vocals, surely most attentive listeners would recognize the new songs as St Vincent songs

idg the complaints tho, she's been writing strong melodies from day 1, she's a crossover artist, kinda like Byrne

― niels, Thursday, September 7, 2017 3:39 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't think anyone's complaining about 'strong melodies', rather than a drift into generic songwriting and production.

Have people heard the whole album yet? I would before jumping to conclusions. She might have a couple uber dancy pop singles, but still do the avant pop that she does elsewhere. She's a great guitar player, I hope she didn't put her guitar away for all of them.

Yes it's crappy and reductive to pull it into a dichotomy like that, but, as far as most people who aren't ilxors are concerned, it's a pretty simple way of describing what's going on, and simple ways of describing things can be very useful.

I thought New York was a pleasant enough song, if inconsequential, but that it lacked some of what I think of as SV's USPs - her fucking awesome guitar playing, for one. Probably the biggest one, in fact. I was excited at the idea of their being a new album, though.

Likewise one can only really tell Los Ageless is even by SV because of her voice, which feels like a shame, because I thought there was more to her than just that. But the arrangement / production feels really anonymous to me, just big modern whooshy pop that anyone could sing over. If that's what she wants to do that's fine, but it's not, I don't think at this stage, what I'm interested in from her. That said, I like the way the outro goes quiet and minimal, and the difference in tone between this and NYNY might mean there are some interesting tensions on the album.

As a rule I'm happy for people to move and and find new creative partnerships, and actually, in this case, I felt like the self-titled had taken her relationship with John Congelton as far as it could go. I'm just not excited about the album now like I would have been a few years ago.

woof these songs are bad :/

i want her signature guitar so bad, v cool looking

xpost Very well said; I feel the same way. Both of the singles are basically anonymous in their genericness — and Annie’s voice alone isn’t distinctive or unique enough to turn them into tracks instantly recognizable as St. Vincent’s. Or maybe I just miss the deadpan delivery over her idiosyncratic arrangements and shredding, and projecting these expectations is just very rockist of me? Of course these two songs are not necessarily representative of the remaining 11 tracks but they definitely deflated my excitement for the album.

i saw Annie open for The National many years ago and have followed along ever since and my take on her has never changed: I think she's cool and important and talented and a visionary and I just don't like her music much.

oh well ... my loss!

My reactions to her music are normally aesthetic rather than emotional, if that makes sense. Which is why an aesthetic shift is a big deal if it goes the wrong way for me.

I like the new songs. I wonder if this is sponcon though

https://image.ibb.co/gWGKTw/Screen_Shot_2017_10_09_at_6_14_50_PM.png

her classically minded, sweetly coy 2007 debut Actor

I could understand making a mistake like that if you're an outsider writing about Guided By Voices or someone else with a zillion albums, but St. Vincent has, like, five.

jesus I didn't realize she'd been around that long. in my mind she was always a strictly '10s artist. i went and looked at her discography at went ohhhh yeah! at the cover of Actor. was Love This Giant seriously 5 years ago???

Yeah, she's been around long enough that people originally cared she was friends with Sufjan Stevens...so you know it's been a while.

37 state themed albums ago

and she was in the Polyphonic Spree! bizarre

That's more of a footnote. Hundreds of people were in the Polyphonic Spree.

(Mainly I just wanted to clown on Sufjan's 20-teens irrelevance.)

I will assert that his last album is very good and easily his best as penance for my own sufjan clowning

yea i agree although i can't really listen to it, i like illinois more but carrie & lowell prevented him from becoming stuck in the aughts

seven swans is all time but carrie and lowell is a good contender for best

Another new one. It's very At War With The Mystics.

https://youtu.be/hwFx0ROBf7o

hmm not for me, too concept-y

Good album. Definitely not as instant as the self titled. Love how she uses her voice throughout, some really incredible performances.

pills really reminds me of the stuff she was doing with byrne

CD arriving tomorrow so not bothered d/l the leak

this album is fucking incredible

Listening to this now - New York and Los Ageless didn't turn me on much but I like them a lot better in context. Title track sounds so much like a lost Prince track, it's scary.

yeah, this album seems so much better than the singles in isolation

Her best record to date.

CD arrived

was listening to this earlier, some of it reminded me of bill nelson a bit - obviously the flashy guitar playing but also that particular odd melodic sense and the oblique lyrics

plus also y'know

https://image.ibb.co/jPnQqb/annienelson.jpg

Is this a good choice for first st Vincent then?

I still like Actor the best, but you'll get the idea starting anywhere.

I want to say, give or take, I've liked each album a little less than the next, as she's gone more and more high-concept/arch.

xxp I'd say this is a great choice, but I'd commit to giving the whole album a spin

Pills is odd.. the chorus is horribly kitschy and nothing else is too interesting, but that coda - holy shit, it's incredible

is the song successful if the crash is better than the high?

I've listened to little else in the last 24 hours and I'm fully on-board with this. It's probably her most consistent album yet.

Slow Disco is my current favourite, even though it's way too short. Such a beautiful arrangement.

Anyone else getting Beth Gibbons vibes from Smoking Section? She sounds so much like her when she repeats, "it's not the end".

if concept level is the factor you're going off of, i'd say start with STRANGE MERCY, and if you get into that and enjoy ~high-concept~ music, go into ACTOR and ST. VINCENT and MASSEDUCTION. if ~~high-concept~~ isn't so much your thing, go into MARRY ME.

i think strange mercy is her best ablum by far, but this is good too, about on par with the last one.

I think Actor is still my favourite. There's barely anything between the new one, Strange Mercy and St. Vincent.

She does sound a lot like Beth Gibbons on the “it’s not the end” part and the piano part also sounds like Portishead... it doesn’t seem accidental.

the chorus to "Los Ageless" is also very Portishead

Listening to this for the first time now after seeing a Twitter comment that hinted it was influenced by Art Angels. I don't know how much that is really true, but I'm still liking this quite a bit so far. It seems less mannered and more fun than her previous albums.

Also, until this evening, I thought the album was called Mass Education.

since "nurse" i've neglected St. Vincent being a part of my musical life, not sure why. what a mistake, she is the best

On a couple of listens this seems really good; my fears from the singles are feeling a bit silly now.

I also thought it was Mass Education.

Has this record been ruined at the mastering stage or is she just addicted to shitty overcrowded midrange as an aesthetic choice?

In terms of the songs themselves this is probably her strongest record yet but she seems to pick up a new set of annoying mannerisms with every record, just as soon as she sheds the old ones. I want to like her more than I actually do.

She's definitely into overcrowded midrange. I just take that as her aesthetic now.

Her work is full of that sort of stuff, the jerky drums on one of the previous albums, and I'm given to understand she's an amazing guitarist but that guitar sound she's settled on is just horrible. I get the sense of an artist consistently trying to sound less talented than she is and it's just maddening - thinking about how much better the title track could have sounded if every element wasn't just piled on top of one other in the middle. I suspect it's also because her most obvious rock touchpoints (Bowie, Talking Heads in particular) really aren't mine at all.

Talking Heads and Bowie are both very synthetic-sounding for rock artists, too, which is obviously what she's been going for over the years. Part of me really likes her guitar tones, that buzzing modernity that almost sounds like she wants to be playing a synth instead. Even when she's overstuffing things (which is always, obviously) there's still loads of detail, which is what rescues it for me. And the way she layers things feels more sophisticated in terms of soundstaging than it could be; there's one song here with a really faint synth line or something over in the left channel (can't recall which after only two listens) that another artists would have inflated and moved more central.

Did you see what she was wearing on Jools Holland the other night? She's come a long, long way from the shapeless grey sweater thing and black curls on the cover of Marry Me, and it feels like she's doing the exact same thing with both image and sound.

she is an amazing guitarist but that only really comes across when you see her live, because recorded her stuff is so fucked with it doesn't really sound like a guitar (live it often doesn't either which is why it's cool but when you listen to an album these days, there are so many sounds that could be made by anything it's difficult to parse it out)

I have appreciated St Vincent albums before but not really cared all that much about going back to them after a cursory listen. I'm currently on "Pills" and this album is definitely going on my "faves of 2017" list and is making me a LOT more interested in her previous work.

Marrow from Actor was the tune that first made me go ‘oooh’, if that helps.

I have appreciated St Vincent albums before but not really cared all that much about going back to them after a cursory listen. I'm currently on "Pills" and this album is definitely going on my "faves of 2017" list and is making me a LOT more interested in her previous work.

― Marcus Hiles Remains Steadfast About Planting Trees.jpg (DJP),

This is where I'm at.

I'm impressed with how Lorde (remember her?) and St. Vincent have adapted Jack Antonoff's big beat approach to their own ends.

My immediate favorites are "Pills" and "Fear the Future".

Pills was my favourite and stuck in my head after one listen, but I like the album a lot less after listening on headphones.

The only drags are the slow ones at the end but I'm making my peace with them. "New York" is quite gorgeous.

i love her last few albums but am having trouble connecting to this one, i think it's a combo of the more "pop" approach, the "personal" lyrics, and the relative lack of guitar, which i guess are all interconnected. i feel like the prerelease press/rhetoric about it being written with all these slick professional songwriters and taking a more confessional approach conditioned me to not like it as much. i don't hate it but just not getting into it yet.

Good album.

This is the most excited I've been about her music since "Actor," not quite sure why yet.

"Lorde (remember her?) "

wow yeah, that album dropped off the face of the earth didn't it. It's good though.

Apparently the live show was terrible?

Lorde's live show? Or St Vincent's?

i can't imagine a bad st vincent live show. I didn't know lourde toured for this album.

don't know why I put a 'u' in there, but I imagine you're talking about the show she did recently in the UK which sounds...interesting.

I'm not a fan of St. Vincent live, tbh, or haven't been to this point. She's obviously hugely talented, but I've found her (no doubt per her intention) very affected.

Apparently she's just singing and playing guitar over backing tracks now?

Tonight, for 90 minutes, she stands with her guitar, static and alone, and sings along to studio-prepared mp3s that boom from the speakers, each one stripped of its lead vocal and lead guitar part so that Clark can re-insert herself, live and note-perfect, at the appropriate moment. Backdrops and video screens change behind her; lights flash around her; her stage costumes are unimaginably glamorous. The show, however, is barely alive: this is pop music as homeopathy, attempting to convince an audience that ever-smaller doses of live performance deliver an ever-increasing punch.

http://www.loudandquiet.com/short/baffling-funny-and-kidding-itself-of-artistic-heft-st-vincents-new-trolling-live-show/

That means we can all just stay home and send our phones in our stead.

idk man sounds pretty fucking cool actually.

isn't that sort of what the Knife did on Shaking the Habitual?

I thought her live show was great on the S/T tour, except for some very silly monologues about how 'when you were a child you dreamt of flying' or something that just didn't work and came across a bit Amanda Palmery

Knife on Shaking the Habitual tour (which I did not enjoy) was avant garde dance troupe getting down to musicians miming (I think). More radical was the SIA tour, imo, which had no musicians on stage and backing tracks, the singer masked but singing live far back at stage right, the videos a weird illusion of live performance and/or pre-fab, and every one of her songs acted/danced out by her troupe of dancers, including the girl from all her videos. In an arena.

Last time I saw St. Vincent live it was more or less set up like when Bjork toured Post, with a drummer and a couple of people behind keyboards, iirc. Plus Clark on guitar. She would stand stock still until it was time to solo, and then she would sort of shuffle around in her high heels.

I'm enjoying this new album, though! I kind of want to hear her collaborate with ... Trent Reznor. Or Flood.

or Drake.

That'd be cool, too.

Or lots of people, actually. She's a great singer and guitarist, you could drop her into any situation and she would sound good. Better than the Byrne album, at least.

about two-thirds of the shaking habitual tour was playback with dancing on the first leg and they cut that down to a third on the second leg.

i like some of this album (pills, the title track, sugarboy) but like most of her work it still leaves me cold overall.

I'm enjoying this new album, though! I kind of want to hear her collaborate with ... Trent Reznor. Or Flood.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, October 18, 2017 12:16 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed, I was definitely picking up some NIN vibes from one or two of the MASSEDUCTION tracks this morning.

Which ones sound most like NIN?

I'm not them but maybe fear the future

I'm thinking of the production, not songwriting. So, like, Savior (which does sound a bit like Closer), or Fear The Future, or Sugarboy/ Los Angeles (with their aggro Italo disco nods). It sounds pretty pervasive to me, but again, it's pretty surface, just the way it's produced and mixed, the way the distorted guitar pops out, etc.

I love the bit in the "Los Ageless" bridge that feels a little bit like it's pastiching Beck's "E-Pro".

i dunno, that live show sounds pretty interesting. I saw the Knife tour as well and also thought that was interesting. Do I think everyone should perform this way? no, but it's a bit laurie anderson-esque and I miss that kind of artsy performance wank.

^ I don't know, maybe you're right, but to be honest I kind of don't care about her visual half-assed art-student commentary on consumer culture or whatever she's trying to present with her current imagery. Maybe I'm just old but I'd rather see her playing for an hour with a tight rhythm section than witness what is basically a colourful karaoke.

Thanks for the suggestions re NIN comparisons. So far, this still doesn't feel like my thing (although I liked Actor pretty well); if there's a way in, though, this will probably be it.

I listened to this yesterday and found it quite moving, which surprised me. I usually enjoy StV on much more of a sweet riffs basis. Immediately after it Spotify stuck on "Antidote" (from Twilight Breaking Dawn Part II soundtrack, missed that one) and I thought it made a killer last track. Alas it does not belong.

Sugarboy the pick of the bunch for me, but the singles (as is so often the case) sound so much better sat in the album.

Lorde's live show? Or St Vincent's?

St Vincent's. Several people I know were there and said things along the lines of 'visually great but musically flat and lifeless'. By all accounts Lorde's most recent live shows were fantastic.

From what I understand a lot of her music is made alone, sat at the computer with her guitar on a very grid-based system, so maybe that's why? I think the flatness is sort of part of it in a way? You either like it or you don't.

Shitloads of modern music is made like that without that flatness though.

sure, i mean, i don't notice it or get bothered about it as much as you do though. there's plenty of music that does my head in (Four Tet, Caribou) for exactly the reasons you describe (too much mid-range, flat, lifeless and awkward-sounding) but I like St Vincent's production and sound choices

then again, i'm a big fan of things like Talking Heads and that nervous, twitchy, slightly stilted funk is something i really enjoy

so far i don't think this is her best album for me though. it feels like her tics are starting to show and while it's by far her most accessible work, it's the first one that feels arch or affected somehow

lol that apparently my problem with St Vincent up until now is that she wasn't arch enough

"Pills" is super.

Was humming this song as I reached for the Advil following my evening workout:

Pills for my head
Pills for my back
Pills for my knee
Pills for my neck
Oyyyy, pilllllsssss!

I also love that "Pills" follows in the footsteps of "Inbetween Days", "Dreams Never End", and other I-IV pop anthems.

i LOVE this record. have never gotten anything out of her other stuff. idk.

otm

I have got *something* out of her stuff before, but found it immune to love. This album may break down that barrier.

Just not feeling this album so far and I'm not sure why. Feels like a more affected St Vincent, sheened up with the edges razed off. Starting to think Actor is her most genuine-sounding record with the s/t her musical peak. Not that this is a 'bad' album - it's her most accessible to date, but her style is getting predictable and I'm starting to feel worn down by it

oh I just said that a few posts ago. I'm just repeating myself

you're getting predictable

can't turn off what turns you off

Oh shit this is exactly what I’m looking for in a St Vincent album at the moment, haven’t listened much since Actor. Same sort of emotional range, but pitched up in intensity- it’s almost like turning up the saturation in a landscape photo. /badignorantanalogy

Repeating New York all night.

Never been a fan or heard any of her records, but I got this one and it's fucking great. Can't stop playing it.

First album of hers I've gotten into but I can't stop playing it either. Took a little while to grow on me because it felt like there wasn't much oxygen until "New York" but it's just got a really interesting trajectory and flow. Love the between song interludes that are mixed really low, the key chain guitar parts and the devastating ballads. Front to back classic

trying to decide whether it's worth it to pay exorbitant resale prices to see her live

pro: among my favorite albums of the year; I have money now; I don't do this much waffling about taking five cab rides, which is about how much it'd cost
con: exorbitant resale prices, the knowledge I've been ripped off by a middleman (for the hell of it I Googled the original owner of my Tori Amos ticket and his online presence had a tad too much MAGA for me to believe he was a Tori fan who had something come up last-minute)

(I don't really care about the reviews of the tour or it being largely backing tracks or whatnot -- The Knife's tour was similar and that's still among my top shows of the decade)

For what it's worth id say go :-)

definitely go! you'll regret not going later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4HxWVA59zk

I've missed something somehow: I just noticed the press around the album repeatedly refers to her life/relationship becoming tabloid fodder.

What's that all about? I literally have no idea.

Until about a year ago she was dating model/actress Cara Delevingne. Not sure if there was anything after that.

Kristen Stewart I think

o_O

I've been listening to this album in the car, mostly, and now that I'm listening on headphones that tend to be a little more bass-heavy I'm realizing how punchy the low end is on this album! To the extent I checked to see if I'd switched to some EQ preset that was doing wonky things.

it's not bad, per se, but this is compressed in some interesting ways

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfYJt1O8ZjY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKKbqntxRN4

I watched a decent quality version of her one-person show on YouTube and it really had me annoyed that I didn't go to it when it came here.

This album rips. Sequencing is cool in that it starts with the comedown song - all wasted and sad and the party starts fittingly with “pills”.

I like that side A/side B is readily apparent from the sequencing.

Totally. I love the slower songs near the end. The albums crammed with so many sonic details that there’s always something new and to hear. Usually the overly compressed production wouldn’t be my thing but it works here. Killer Floyd reference on “pills”

the new version of Slow Disco she just put out rules, I like it more than anything from the album

It’s great

I hope she puts out the solo piano/voice version of this record she supposedly has.

The acoustic performance linked above is wicked

She’s playing alongside Florence and chvrches at a festival here

Fast Slow Disco really deserves to be her first number one single. I'm obsessed with it right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNm0b2SCXxY

Damn, that's a great song.

yeah, that's a v cool "alternate version"

apparently co-written with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Williams_(singer)

Gorgeous song

dece, album version's better

Slow Disco became my favourite song on the album. I'm not sure I can pick between that and the remix. They're both so perfect in different ways. Is there any way this can actually be a hit for her? Maybe not a number one single (as it deserves), but could it at least be her Dancing On My Own?

that "don't it beat a slow dance to death?" melody at the end is definitely lifted from somewhere.

or maybe just stuck with me from the album version so nvm. awesome either way.

I love this version of the song but I'm really surprised at how early 2000s NME band the artwork is (particularly bearing in mind the considered aesthetic of the rest of Annie's ouevre).

https://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2018/06/fast-slow-disco-1527825993-640x640.jpeg

Upon absorbing Strange Mercy more I think it's gotta be Clark's best record. Songs like Cheerleader sing to be the template for the feel of a lot of the tracks, rhythm wise and even thematically there seems to be references to surgeon in a later song (also surgeon of course starts with the Brazil theme as well). MASSEDUCTION on the other hand has maximal production and not as much subtlety as the former record, sort of like if the whole record was played on a key chain guitar shooting off into the stratosphere, the energy is also far more anxiety ridden. Dunno, the production kind of gets in the way on the latest. Newest single takes the electronic tinged arrangements of Mass and dulls the gnarled edges a bit more, so perhaps it will be more successful. Not that Cruel wasn't a stand out single for instance but the newest single is less esoteric

*seem not sing

I'd be interested to see an albums poll for her. I'm guessing Strange Mercy would win, but I feel like it would be close.

what is happening

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBuSKj3XNu8

had me wtf'ing for a minute but I see it's "just" a remix

she def gave it a st vincent feel

https://i.imgur.com/QG5OgcD.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/oxbiVeY.jpg

MassEducation:

01 Slow Disco
02 Savior
03 Masseduction
04 Sugarboy
05 Fear the Future
06 Smoking Section
07 Los Ageless
08 New York
09 Young Lover
10 Happy Birthday, Johnny
11 Pills
12 Hang on Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yLmAwGpPV8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqNvRMAKj-c

Out next week.

Sweet! Glad she followed thru and released it. Been waiting for this ever since she mentioned it during promo last year.

lol at people wondering why she re-arranged the tracklisting - I mean hang on me was such a massive downer of an opening track that it appearing last totally makes sense somehow to me here. Additionally, restructuring the order is a good way of making this sound even more fresh than just a simple re-tooling. excited

based on those two tracks, wondering if this is gonna be a spared-back collection like her tiny desk acoustic set? i mean that might be kind of cool but i hope it's not just that uniform

It's all piano. Doveman's piano playing is remarkable. Works on pretty much every track.

This is such a treat if you liked Masseduction

Great live performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdmSRfbjQlY

given that i will not hear this for some time, can anyone give me more idea what it sounds like

i take it there is pedal steel and piano on every song (as mentioned) but how different are the songs to the originals, tempo wise, arrangement wise etc

finally listening to the piano version, EXCELLENT! 💯

this is a nice little video, the joke around 0:41 sure to please an ilxor or two

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VW3TWNCnWE

http://molly-young.com/stvincent.html

"I walked home thinking about how unusual it is to experience
sustained dislike as an adult. When you're a kid and you have no control
over your time, you're constantly forced to be with people (kids, mainly)
who find you lame and annoying, which is painful. The primary perk of
being an adult is that you have the agency to avoid these situations.
Until you don't."

Surely Molly Young must see the metonymy of writing something like this, both the sentence in particular and the sum post.

Clark's job description: learn guitar, learn to sing. Write songs, research gear, stay on top of current trends. Perform excellent shows and record excellent albums. Produce work for self and for others.

Clark's actual job description: look excellent at all times. Navigate public social and romantic relationships. Navigate inquiry regarding sexuality and private life. Be amenable and gracious in the face of intrusion, either by consumers of your work, or by interviewers who believe they are entitled to feeling "not disliked" upon first/second meeting.

It always amazes me when arts journalists, either by turning author (and subjecting their own work to the critical gaze), or by incidents such as this, suddenly experience what content-creators have to experience every second of every day

I'm not a journalist, so I don't know how typical this experience is or what expectations they go in with. But the way I see it, they are doing a job that is meant to be mutually beneficial for the artist and publication. Having a base level of courtesy towards someone who is helping to facilitate this service to promote your music isn't a lot to ask for.

2 years ago there was a piece in the New Yorker (similar scenario, journo tags along while SV does summat else) so the writer here must have been wise to what the score was. She's a bit of a wind up merchant is about the size of it as far as i can tell. Also she's not above apologising if she thinks she got something wrong;

'The next morning, my phone buzzes. Clark’s messaged me on Twitter. “Dude!” she says, “I’m sorry I was a cock.” She explains that she was exhausted, “which is not an excuse”, but that she’d felt especially defensive because she’d been getting negative tweets about the show all day, and had thought my comments were an attempt to go for the jugular. “I really misread the interaction,” she says, “and have been feeling horribly guilty ever since. I thought you were just there to tell me my show sucked and I got real defensive and yeah, it went downhill from there.”'

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music-theatre/2017/11/it-s-cool-some-people-hate-my-show-st-vincent-fan-backlash-and-chinese

fgti otm

I have no idea why any writer would admit to this

right

St. Vincent Has a Cold (Shoulder)

There are plenty enough Annie Clark-hates-interviews stories going around that at this point any halfway competent writer should know that going in.

these are both right:

they are doing a job that is meant to be mutually beneficial for the artist and publication. Having a base level of courtesy towards someone who is helping to facilitate this service to promote your music isn't a lot to ask for.

I have no idea why any writer would admit to this

that said, Annie sounds *awful* in that link piscesx posted. :(

awful? really? seems like typical aloof rock star behavior - exactly what one would expect profiling celebrities.

awful? really? seems like typical aloof rock star behavior - exactly what one would expect profiling celebrities.

I take it you've never actually done it, then. Most musicians are very nice and polite and welcoming in an interview context. They understand that it's a transaction, and they make it as pleasant as possible. Ones who've had decades-long careers are particularly so - I've never interviewed him myself, but I've heard that, for example, Robert Plant is a fantastic person to talk to. I always heard the same thing about David Bowie. Rob Halford of Judas Priest is one of the nicest people you could ever spend an hour with - he listens, thinks about your questions, and answers in paragraphs. Even people whose art is sometimes off-putting or alienating are great in interviews - I had a fucking blast talking to Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten.

Clark, on the other hand, comes off like someone who really dislikes doing interviews and therefor comes up with ways to short-circuit or "subvert" the process that she probably thinks are really smart and cool, and which I'm sure amuse her greatly, but just wind up making the writer (who's getting paid very little money to be there, and may even be taking time away from a day job to do it) feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. It's a shitty approach to something that is in her job description (if you want to make art for public consumption, you're going to have to talk about that art with journalists), and the fact that she gets such fawning press despite this spoiled-child stuff is baffling to me.

Booming post unperson.

I can see fgti's post which makes a lot of sense, but ultimately this isn't about artists having to jump through hoops. I keep coming back to the bit saying 'St. Vincent doesn't need to be in GQ, why did she agree to this in the first place?' Regardless of whether that is because of people surrounding her, it's never a good idea to be unkind to people imo.

I have done it. Some people are nice, some are fucking assholes. Comes with the territory.

there's really so little evidence to suggest Clark is awful there imo, and i mean who knows what's going on with anyone at any given moment. i know that there's an understanding about the give and take with being a public figure and being interviewed, and i understand that a lot of artists are great with interviews and some are definitely not, but i'm not sure it's really an effective way to measure their quality as a human being. it's such an outlier type of experience.

i guess the great part of being an anonymous person like myself is i can meet someone somewhere and have a mildly awkward or lame interaction and they're not going to write about me online. unless i worked at a restaurant and they were a yelper, idk.

(who's getting paid very little money to be there, and may even be taking time away from a day job to do it)

break out the violins

Of course it comes with the territory. But that doesn't mean shitty behaviour* can't be called out as such. Especially if the person involved agreed to be profiled for GQ. xp

(if said shitty behavior indeed happened, as Omar points out)

xp wow shitty reply, flappy

i've only been interviewed about my art once but i can easily imagine having deep contempt for the entire experience despite it being "part of my job"

wearing sunglasses and giving monosyllabic answers and brushing her off at a party is not "awful." the last thing a journalist should be concerned with is whether or not their subjects or their friends like them, it's not part of the job.

btw giving monosyllabic 3-4 word answers is a great way of not getting misquoted

yeah, exactly. artists have every reason to be suspicious of and aloof towards journalists

when i interview artists i work very hard on my questions and, when the interview happens, try to remain as in the moment as possible so the interview can progress less like a q&a session and more like a conversation. if the conversation feeling never arrives, i at least have my questions to lean on. this is pretty much all there is to it; it has almost nothing to do with whether the artist in question is an asshole or not bc who gives a shit, we're both doing a job

the writer trying to shoehorn themselves into conversations that the musician is having with an artist at a gallery? as an artist i'd be like "who set this incredibly awkward situation up, maybe i should fire my press person" and as a writer i'd probably really focus on the phrase "observe quietly"

I'd be paranoid about being The Duke in his Domain'd

i'd still eat the interviewer's apple pie, though

brad otm, if you're going to be awkward or aggressive just own it and make hay. that note is just so pathetic and stupid insofar as their career is concerned

honestly this account was more baffling to me than anything, because the idea of "(experiencing) sustained dislike as an adult" is more or less the ambient oxygen of my daily life, and the idea of this being a life-jolting occurrence is completely alien to my life -- the same way that I can accept that some people have synesthesia where, like, the number 6 is blue, but I cannot personally feel it. like, does she not have coworkers? roommates? Twitter?

i've only been interviewed about my art once but i can easily imagine having deep contempt for the entire experience despite it being "part of my job"

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Tuesday, January 29, 2019 8:18 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Then don't do the interview! It can be a deeply disappointing experience for all involved (I'm an editor in chief tbh). Again, St. Vincent agreed to this interview. So she had three choices: 1) cancel the interview, 2) do it but be "weird", so that your "weirdness" is noted and mentioned (success), or 3) do it and be nice. Being nice shouldn't be very hard, even though all of those three are legitimate options imo.

maybe this interviewer is awkward and uncool! the pass-agg note suggests it's a possibility...

it has almost nothing to do with whether the artist in question is an asshole or not bc who gives a shit, we're both doing a job

and i'd like to add that sometimes you have to pick up the slack if the person you're working with does a shitty job, and wouldn't merit documenting it in a mini-essay if it were happening in say an office building

by that i mean giving off bad vibes, idk. that note is such a weird thing to publicly post. is she trying to get fired?

xxp -- also, apologizing to an interview the day later for how one came off is something that I would guess is not that common. even if it's damage control and not genuine worry, from what I have heard it doesn't seem like an all that common form of damage control

she's a freelancer xp

right of course...it's weird self-sabotage either way

(if you want to make art for public consumption, you're going to have to talk about that art with journalists)

This hasn't been true for a few years now at least

if you're writing features for a major magazine you have probably earned more online candor than the average person

like, a lot of writers have mentioned similar experiences with st. vincent, all of whom are still writers, and whose careers are if anything going even better

I agree that the note is very strange, drawing way more attention to a fairly typical write-around celebrity profile than it would otherwise get (it's fucking GQ, the photos of Clark in $5000 coats are the point, not the text) and making the writer the story when she shouldn't be. But this is part of a pattern of behavior for Clark, as various interviews from her last few press cycles - not to mention those Instagram videos - have revealed.

the last graf of the note is baffling, especially this:

When you're a kid and you have no control over your time, you're constantly forced to be with people (kids, mainly) who find you lame and annoying, which is painful. The primary perk of being an adult is that you have the agency to avoid these situations. Until you don't.

like when you... become a journalist

it's called adult privilege

I mean yes it's true that I can avoid these situations, if I woke up on a pile of money and used that money to become a hermit

I smell truffle fries

i smell an edit of the challenger disaster mission control video where "FIDO, ..." is replaced with interview questions for "st. vincent"

tbh bc of like... the media ecosystem, and also instagram, i know this writer is married and lives in a beautiful loft, and when i read that last paragraph about never having to engage with people who dislike you, i thought "wow you sure are married and live in a beautiful loft"

not my finest moment

I like Brad's response

Also, I don't really know how to explain this, but in Clark's defence, I had an extremely intrusive question lobbed at me in 2006 by a lovely and talented writer who I admire both professionally and personally, and the question plunged me into an incredible state of distress, and I spent the rest of the allotted hour with my mind pinwheeling about both the audacity of the question, and how this writer obtained the information to ask it. It was completely off-putting and it didn't just spoil the interview itself but my feelings about interviews in general. I would imagine that Clark might have had a similar experience, except probably even more intrusive, given her high profile and her desire to keep private her personal life.

Ugh, that's bad news - and bad form.

I once sent an interview subject an email a day after we spoke in person, with the subject line "Intrusive Personal Question", because there was something I felt I had to ask but knew would have derailed the interview. I wound up not using her answer in the piece, because she explained her reasons for not talking about it in other interviews and they made perfect sense to me.

i don't understand you folks who think that's just how some artists are and they are totally in their rights to be that way toward a journalist

not bragging, as i'm sure plenty here have done more, but i've probably interviewed a couple thousand musicians in my life, some above SV's level, many at her level and many below her level, and if that account of her behavior at the interviews is accurate, it's as bad or worse than anyone i've dealt with. maybe i've just been lucky? i doubt it.

it's very simple: if she doesn't want to do the interview, she should tell her publicist she doesn't want to do it. she shouldn't treat another human being like shit. my 6-year-old knows that.

(again, i agree that the writer probably should've kept all this to herself.)

I don't necessarily think Clark is in the right (def not with the sunglasses bit, but at the party? sure), just saying this level of animosity / aloofness / suspicion of journalists is par for the course, in my experience (as a writer & as an artist).

it's very simple: if she doesn't want to do the interview, she should tell her publicist she doesn't want to do it. she shouldn't treat another human being like shit. my 6-year-old knows that.

it often isn't very simple - artists have obligations to their labels & the people working for them. they don't care if you're averse to interviews, and you have a responsibility to uphold your promotional duties. and again, just from that note, the behavior described is hardly abhorrent.

OK, I just went back and read the piece again and you're right ... I probably overstated it when I said she seems awful. I think this part really jumped out at me the first time:

“Yes.” I wait for more, but instead she pulls her phone out of her pocket and starts typing. “Keep asking away.”

She sounds like she's just completely wiped out and over the touring/press cycle, which I get. And I think she gets it, too, as evidenced by her reaching out to the journalist the next day.

This still sounds worse than 99% of my interactions with artists, who generally seem to understand the mutually beneficial transaction, and know how to set aside their current annoyances and deal with another person in a reasonably pleasant way.

(Lastly: I know SV has lots of people wanting her to do press even if she doesn't want to. That excuse doesn't fly with me. She knew that was part of the deal when she signed a record contract or whatever. If she doesn't want to do press that bad, she should find a business partner that won't force her to do it.)

(To put that last point another way: You're right, flappy, it often isn't very simple. But SV's at a level where she could make it simple if she wanted to.)

it often isn't very simple - artists have obligations to their labels & the people working for them. they don't care if you're averse to interviews, and you have a responsibility to uphold your promotional duties. and again, just from that note, the behavior described is hardly abhorrent.

― flappy bird, Tuesday, January 29, 2019 9:54 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No doubt you kill-filed me or w/e. But this still doesn't in any way excuse you from being nice, or even ok-ish, to someone.

tbh bc of like... the media ecosystem, and also instagram, i know this writer is married and lives in a beautiful loft, and when i read that last paragraph about never having to engage with people who dislike you, i thought "wow you sure are married and live in a beautiful loft"

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Tuesday, January 29, 2019 9:02 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:-(

Since almost everything StV does professionally is a pose (and therefore a choice) it seems normal to think that the decision to act like a dick was not also deliberate BUT there are a lot of circumstantial, relationship or mental health reasons that someone may be acting badly. Having said that this does seem bad in a very particularly rehearsed way.

this usually boils down, for me, to 'is the artist making good enough art to justify their interview antics'

with st vincent the answer is a massive resounding no, hence i am with the journalist 100%

I would never kill file you, LBI! I don't even know how to do that...

This all weird reasoning imo since the narrator here hasn’t shared anything that makes her sound anything other than maybe wiped out and a bit standoffish and I really don’t know how to take her “do you like doing this?” question, it does not come off on paper as an indicator of anything other than someone who may have just had some recent bad experiences with journalists or simply some shit going on in their life. I have no reason to trust this enough to make a judgement of SV as a person and the level at which one appreciates her art is no reason to judge her more harshly either, I mean come on.

(To put that last point another way: You're right, flappy, it often isn't very simple. But SV's at a level where she could make it simple if she wanted to.)

Is she? I genuinely don't know - she's an amphitheater act, not on a major label, not a household name... the way the music industry is, I don't think there are many artists that can forego interviews or a typical promotional cycle that would make someone like Clark weary w/o letting down their employers and their expectations.

yer right. also, fgti's story about the curveball question is horrifying. xp

there's also the aspect that the entire masseduction rollout (videos, etc.) was based on a sort of sardonic self-awareness of the press cycle, of which that question would be a natural part of

s Clark neared the end of recording, she turned some attention to the next phases—packaging, publicity, performance. She has observed that, when she makes the rounds to local media outlets or on cattle-call press junkets, she is repeatedly asked the same questions, many of them dumb ones. “You become a factory worker,” she said. “When you have to say something over and over, there’s a festering self-loathing. No better way to feel like a fraud.”

She’d made what she was calling an interview kit, a highly stylized short film, which consists of her answering typical questions. She sits in a chair with her legs crossed, in a short pink skirt and a semitransparent latex top before a Day-Glo green backdrop, with a camera and a sound crew of three female models in heels, dog collars, dominatrix hoods, and assless/chestless minidresses. A screen reads, “Insert light banter,” and then Clark reappears, saying, with a strained smile, “It’s good to see you again. Of course I remember you. Yah, good to see you. How’s—how’s your kid?”

There follows a series of questions and answers, with the former presented as text onscreen—generic placeholders:

Q. Insert question about the inspiration for this record.

A. I saw a woman alone in her car singing along to “Great Balls of Fire,” and I wanted to make a record that would prevent that from ever happening again.

Q. Insert question about how much of her work is autobiographical.

A. All of my work is autobiographical, both the factual elements of my life and the fictional ones.

Q. Insert question about being a woman in music.

A. What’s it like being a woman in music? . . . Very good question.

The camera cuts to her interlaced fingers. She wears paste-on fingernails, each with a letter. They spell out “F-U-C-K-O-F-F.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/st-vincents-cheeky-sexy-rock

(xp -- also s/"a natural part")

caveat: I have not participated in many interviews in my life, and I was probably a mediocre interviewee and not anyone doing interviews for publication. I've seen a lot of one-on-one and roundtable live interviews -- notably a different thing than one done for publication -- and generally there are two types: the light questioning with extended answers, and ones that are more "transactional"

it seems weird to me that this kind of drops in the middle of the note on how the interview went

Midway through Clark turned to me and asked, with audible hostility, "Do you like doing this?" (There's a long pause in the tape here.) I said something evasive and steered the conversation back to modular synths.

why be evasive? imo that's the basis of why interviews can be an inherently hostile enterprise, it's an unnatural conversation style with no reciprocity. even if you're going to fuck up the answer, reciprocate

yer right. also, fgti's story about the curveball question is horrifying. xp

The question was, "Who's a better kisser? Algernon Featherwilly, or Benjamin Powderbottom?"

Years later I am still traumatized

why be evasive?

Seriously. The obvious answer is "usually, yes." I mean, I've never - in 22 years - had an interview disintegrate into outright hostility (I have had one person hang up on me), but if she's putting it out there, grab it and see what happens.

w/r/t whether SV is at a level to make her music without doing press - or more precisely, doing press she wants to do, when she wants to do it - i mean, i really have no idea how much $ she makes, what kind of financial obligations she has, whether she gives a shit if people buy tickets or not, etc., etc., not to mention the various promotional pressures she feels.

but just generally speaking, i would imagine Annie could either (a) find partners to help her start her own label and release music that way, a la Wilco, or (b) tell labels straight away she wants to control the press stuff, and if they don't like it, they can go sign someone else. i'm quite sure there'd be labels that would love to work with her anyway.

until she does one of those things, she signs up for putting some control of press obligations in someone else's hands.

and she can handle that any way she wants, of course. but taking out her frustrations about it on someone who is just trying to do their job isn't a great look.

i thought "wow you sure are married and live in a beautiful loft"

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Tuesday, January 29, 2019 2:02 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not my finest moment

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Tuesday, January 29, 2019 2:02 PM (four hours ago

no this is a keeper

There's literally nothing keeping St. Vincent from saying "I'm just not gonna do press for this record"

Even if her records aren't doing Adele numbers, she's got producer gigs, festival appearances, gear deals, movie syncs in the fuckin Twilight movies ... she's prolly got racks

No, you always have to keep doing press, esp at that level, the artist is a business investment and you can't make decisions like that without having arguments with labels et al.

It's people like Will Oldham who have that luxury

I interviewed her around the summer of 2010 and I just have fond memories of our conversation, tbh.

so having just come from a concert by an artist who was extremely anxious and uncomfortable on stage, and having belatedly realized my wondering if it was some kind of "performance" was both a natural human instinct and ludicrously overanalytical, i'm possibly more inclined than typically towards the theory that ms. clark was having a shitty day and reacted to it by being an asshole.

Maybe so

What’s your excuse for the interviewer posting a weird tell-all on her Tumblr? Was she also just having a shitty day?

Maybe her first shitty day (as an adult!). That last paragraph is something else.

I was fired from my job at one of the major national music magazines because Ozzy didn't like the questions I was asking him and hung up on me. The questions were indeed obtrusive and insipid, which was the name of the game as far as my boss was concerned. To this day, it was the only remotely unsuccessful interview experience I ever had.

My girlfriend at the time was a music publicist, and she believed the situation should have been mitigated by the fact that, being that this was 2003, the entire world knew that Ozzy was an irritable dim bulb (and he surely was taxed by shit Sharon made him do at the time, which was unprecedented by the standards he had known previously). Frankly, my boss (well known in the music press environment for being impossible. over his head, and ignorant of the business he was in) and I hated each other and this was the pretext he needed to axe me. And I was overjoyed to get away from him.

But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter if the interview subject is uncooperative. If you are acting as a professional interviewer, your responsibility is to get the goods. I didn't, and faced the consequences. But Young did get the goods, based on a perfectly serviceable piece by GQ's standards. Yet she is offended that Clark was indifferent and is moved to complain in public.. Will Welch is the new editor at GQ, and he may be charged to keep pace with modern journalism, which Welch very well could believe involves tolerating freelancers complaining in public about a professional interaction that occurred on GQ's behalf—because everybody has to talk about everything in public constantly. It wouldn't have been enough to privately complain to Nasty Little Man, or to Will Welch, or to her spouse in the nice loft or her friends. But if I was Welch, I would not use Young again.

David Bowie and Rob Halford were both indeed incredibly pleasant, thoughtful, generous in conversation.

seems like she's taken the note down

What’s your excuse for the interviewer posting a weird tell-all on her Tumblr? Was she also just having a shitty day?

― fgti's romance (flamboyant goon tie included)

outside of professional music writers, nobody actually cares about the interviewer as far as i can tell

but i can be really out of the loop and i'm prepared to be wrong about this

my main question is "why is this interviewer still using tumblr"

i mean this seems like prime tweetstorm material

if it was a tweetstorm ppl on here would ask why it wasn't a blog post

I mean, when you interview artists for a living, someone asks you like once a month which one was the nicest and who was a real jerk. And the answers - ime, at least - are always boring and disappointing. She should've just saved her SV experience for that.

I quite enjoy it when a writer describes the anti-social behavior of a subject, but that's just me.

There are times where it kind of creates empathy for the anti-social subject-- I always felt kind of sad about Lou Reed's chronic frustration that nobody was interested in all the reading he'd done regarding signal deterioration and buffering re: his guitar tone

Did anybody archive the note? Apparently she's done this before with other profiles.