St. Vincent - a.k.a. Annie Clark;

Again, xpost.

Oh yeah I've seen a Belew comparison too which um

snarky videos

(sorry for NME link): https://www.nme.com/news/music/st-vincent-interview-kit-videos-2134085

She is an extremely versatile and creative guitarist but it’s not clear until you watch her play live, imo.

I think it's less that people think she's a virtuoso because the notion of virtuosity has changed, and more people think she's a virtuoso because not that many people know or understand guitar, and there are relatively few younger people famous *for* playing guitar that seeing anyone play a guitar might as well be "virtuoso." But, sure, like Belew she is so clearly into her own thing that there's really not a lot of comparisons to what she's up to, which is one advantage of sounding weird or different.

Can Matt Sweeney play? I have no idea, he's always in bands though.

Anyway, she's a hundred times better than I'll ever be, so virtuoso enough for me! Still find her exhausting, though.

That’s what I’m saying though. The meaning of virtuosity has changed because the average music fan understands guitar less. I’m not even complaining about it really. Except in a sad suburban guitar playing dad way.

Virtuoso FX pedal stomper.

pff, when she plays I pay attention and I want to hear more, idgaf whether it's virtuosic or pedal filtered

TBF to Clark, I never get the feeling something like this could happen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8dZwXnMrRU
(Bill Bailey's U2 bit)

https://townsquare.media/site/838/files/2021/02/stvincent-whosyourdaddy.jpg
A different aesthetic for each album isn't necessarily a dealbreaker - I wouldn't be a Bowie fan if it was - but this looks like it'll be all-style-no-substance to the point of it almost being an ad campaign for bourbon. And yes the elephant in the room is 'Young Americans' but Bowie released that album in the 70s, worked with many of the pre-eminent musicians in that genre, and was genuinely into that music - whereas this feels like copping an aesthetic.

Also that fucking ad copy: the artist who makes you expect the unexpected
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/35/e7/84/35e784330597d07f55accb1702518589.jpg
"No-one makes you expect the unexpected!"

Actually St Vincent's suit fits about as well as those priest robes. What's up with the tailoring on that jacket? Also flares are tight at the top and wide at the bottom. Those trouser look more like something the singer in an early 90s shoegaze band would wear.

If it's an album of glistening guitars perhaps she has gone shoegaze

as I paste this link of her new song into this text box, I have already forgotten what this song sounds like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4cytdNY8Cw

Oh goody, finally an album with lazier lyrical cliches than Lou Reed's 'Rock and Roll Heart'.

At least Lou was actually a drug addict so he could speak with authority on heroin'n'benzos'n'shit. So far this St Vincent album sounds like the musical equivelent of a 'Live Laugh Love' poster in the living room of the straightest person you know.

Doing the whole "lyrics about other musicians who are better than you" thing makes me think maybe St. Vincent would be a fitting frontperson for Nirvana.

Everybody in the youtube comments seems ecstatic about it though, as well as on the popheads and indieheads subreddits. Maybe we're the baddies, idk.

it sounds better than her last album but also totally forgettable

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MByUaGiR2Z8

Eh for first song on SNL - Pay Your Way in Pain

it was all too period piece schtick without strong enough songs to make it work - St V in her 1970s clothes with her soulful Black background singers. Not bad but not great either.

my wife haaaated it on the same grounds. I was more forgiving, this kind of image-roleplaying stuff no longer seems as impactful as it did in the 70's or 80's when Bowie and others did it, it def. comes across as a gimmick, but it also doesn't bother me that much. but I would have liked the songs to be a little stronger.

The problem I have with image/aesthetic is that if the songs are good then it doesn't matter what the artist is wearing - they could be wearing a potato sack. If the songs are really amazing you're not even going to notice. But if the songs aren't good enough then a deliberate stylised image seems to highlight the deficiencies in the music.
It reminds me of some interview advice I got from a colleague. They said that I should wear a red tie in an interview "so that you stand out and the interviewer remembers you". The colleague meant well but even at the time I thought that if that was the only reason I got hired then it probably meant I wasn't very suitable for the role, and that a better strategy would be to impress in the interview with my suitability for the job.
There were a lot of glam rock era bands who looked the business but whose music wasn't exciting enough. On the other hand there were bands who were really good but looked comically fuck-awful (Slade to the point where the Reeves & Mortimer parody is basically them pretending to be Slade with slightly exaggerated Brummie accents). And there's the whole 'The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years' thing of hair bands spending more time picking out clothes then they did writing songs.
One other thing, if you're going for a particular look then commit to it. St Vincent looks like she's wearing a party shop wig. And it's back to Bowie again but even when he was a teenager pretending to be a Mod he put in more effort.

St Vincent looks like she's wearing a party shop wig.

Yeah, but this is half the point. It's part of the ancient aesthetic strategy of drawing attention to the fact that you're "wearing a costume" / "playing a role" by doing it badly and obviously, on purpose. I think it's cowardly, confusing insincerity with irony and giving the performer a way of distancing themselves from the thing they're attempting, so they've got an out if it fails, but it's very common in super-white indie music.

this is the best thread on ilm

"saint joni ain't no phony / smoking reds where furry sang the blues"

godawful

sorry to add to the pile-on

I'm listening to "The Melting of the Sun" and wondering if this is her take on the Lana Del Rey aesthetic

I just started paying attention to the lyrics and I would like to set my face on fire

still not feeling her music/schtick. then again I haven't really checked her releases. was turned off by her 2014 SNL performance in which she did some stage moves that looked copped from Mick Karn.
second half here: https://vimeo.com/133923846
too cutesy and mannered/studied by half.

then again it doesn't bother me when David Byrne uses weird choreography (so must be the music?)

"I'm listening to "The Melting of the Sun" and wondering if this is her take on the Lana Del Rey aesthetic"

Jack Antanoff

and Virginia O'Brien did 'frozen face' soooo much better

Ok the lyrics are pretty cringe on Melting of the Sun but I really like it musically. Gene Clark No Other vibes

+Gainsbourg Cannabis soundtrack

I just started paying attention to the lyrics and I would like to set my face on fire

― Dana Jel Pey (DJP), Monday, 5 April 2021 14:13 (two hours ago) link

I turned this on in the background and was like "this isn't so bad I don't understand what everyone is...oh my god"

My Marilyn shot her heroin
"Hell," she said, "It's better than abuse"

jesus christ!!

I scrolled down to the next bridge and wish I hadn't

A Bridge Too Far

Can't wait to see how many girls adopt "benzo beauty queen" as a tagline.

pretty good cover, but i miss the organ hook after 'might as well be melting on the sun'

byrne was a clear influence on her adopting all the choreography since she started doing it after their collab album + tour that featured heavy choreography (which was kinda a conceptual dry run for byrne's american utopia tour)

it's just a shame she's not very good at both that & her character stuff, none of it is compelling at all. it doesn't even come across as like, knowingly mediocre as someone suggested but if it did that would probably be even worse.

I do really like her signature guitar, esp the fact they actually did something new and not just as nth generation derivative of a trad model/body style

I haven't listened to this but I'm sure it sucks ass

I watched her SNL performance and immediately thought she was aping cokehead Bowie phase but like it was missing the saxophones or the songwriting and also I kept wondering what the backup singers thought of her music.

Her 2017 album is fantastic imo

I love all of her old stuff and the new first single off the new album. This thread is making me nervous tho.