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

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