I don’t mind being “pulled in just behind the fridge” Loved the SNL performances Melting of the Sun also name drops A few other Chelsea Hotel residents Joni Mitchell - off her Hejira album Are they referring to Jane Mansfield who died in a car crash in coastal Mississippi ? - maybe Malibu killed her too
Im not a huge fan of her album releases tbh. But I saw her in a tiny club in college in 2009-2010 timeframe and became enamored. She’s an undeniably talented entertainer and like many, shine much brighter ina live setting (and especially that dive with maybe 500 in attendance)
I don’t know why but this SNL live is 3/5. Both songs studio version are 5/5 imho 2 nd song is better then 1 song i mean on SNL. Im confused bcs i more like St.Vincent live than studio version, but for this 2 songs prefer studio version. Im hope another live will be much much better
I totally get the criticism and being turned off by the 70s cosplay.. if the songs aren't there for the listener then all this dress up doesn't do much. I really like the first two songs and am really glad she took a hard turn away from the direction of her last record.. Ironically this record is supposed to be more personal - Daddy's Home as you all know refers to her dad coming home from prison. So I also think if the others songs get to a more personal place then all of this "performance" was a way to heighten the moments where she gets more "real" so to speak.
One hang up i have about the SNL was the visual production. I nifty pant suit and some bride maids dresses were about it. While SNL would need proper HD footage of the group onstage, I was hoping for some cheesy 70's videos tricks on screens behind the band. Sorta like the bonus DVD thing she did 8-9 years ago. Is her band from the past few tours done? I don't mind the "70's cosplay" but admit I'm a serious fan who owns all her stuff on CD/LP and seen her 7 times but still haven't had the new stuff really "click" for me yet. Less about over doing the references to an earlier decade and more confused about HER spin on the genre or 2021 world's need for this throwback other than a pandemic distraction. Maybe further interviews or further singles will correct fans scratching their heads on this one. I think of something like Amy Winehouse's big album as a similar throwback to an era before she was born. But looped sounding drums gave it a subtle hip hop flavor and lyrical matter like "Rehab" were clearly new twists that avoided Dusty Springfield cosplay accusations. What has she not played ball on? She was coy about her personal life for a long time but the jailed father and her girlfriends of note were likely as exciting as it gets. She seems to have taken opportunities that came her way. Seems to have lots of other showbiz friends/connections. Not sure if her stuff has avoided tv/movie/ad license, but maybe nobody asked.
I've watched that "Pay Your Way In Pain" performance about a dozen times now and still haven't gotten sick of it. I think this whole era finally clicked for me when I first saw that on Saturday night, and now I'm 110% ready for this album.
I'm a big fan of the mix of the SNL performances. There was more air and space in these live performances than the studio tracks. Not a fan of Jack Antonoff's production style, it's too dense for me. Music like this needs room to breathe.
Once again - though unsurpising to me - I liked the songs far better when they’re stripped down: https://www.instagram.com/p/CNRUvWHAQnG/
She won't break out of the performance art schtick...and its a schtick. She's really smart, but she doesn't seem to want to make a conventional recording or play a conventional show. She'll be plenty "normal" on stage with Nirvana and others...but she's trying to hack art on the masses...getting tons of cred for it...but no legacy...no hits. It reminds me of Rivers...he also wants to create and move into new directions, then he gets a full frontal assault of blowback and retreats back to the stuff that makes his fans buy stuff...he plays ball (he actually sells out too much...its damaging, but ultimately forgiven). Annie won't budge. She likes rock but won't record it. Likes pop, but won't record it. Won't play the game, no legacy...just a career spanning greatest hits album no one will recognize or buy.
...what? You do realize she spent the first several years of her career playing "normal" shows without the choreography and spectacle, right? Maybe she got tired of playing it straight and decided to do something that is more entertaining for her personally. Clearly a lot of people are along for the ride, because she certainly hasn't downsized venues or tours since getting artsier. As for whatever genre nonsense you're going on about, she released a single with a sludge-metal inspired song ("Grot") on one side and a punk song ("Krokodil") on the other, not to mention her live shows where she often makes her songs heavier than they are on record. Hell, for upcoming Record Store Day, she is releasing another single with covers of NIN and Metallica songs. She seems to commit to whatever sounds she feels like dabbling in at any given time. It's okay to admit you don't like it, but I feel like you're reading waaaay too far into her career choices and how she presents herself as an artist.
Ignoring the Taylor Swift stadium cameo and Florence and the Machine arena tour support act. She's consistently played her high profile singles when touring. Who should she emulate her career after in the past 20 years? I'm not too sure who has fresh rock hits and fresh mainstream rock cred in the past 12 or so years. Even Tame Impala got a bit boring to hit arenas. I wouldn't want her to have some Ellie Goulding career doing boring pop. She went popper on the last albums and I think she noticed some fans got cold on it - hence the piano duet release of the whole album. I bet she views "the game" as futile, and she's probably not wrong. She may also have more money than some arena acts with bad deals/outside publishing. She did the David Byrne album/tour cycle and I think she kept working with choreographers/set designers. She also has a 14+year career now and still has albums In her I can't wait to hear. Plus the earlier Poly Spree stuff.
Despite the stylized SNL performance, Annie has been saying in interviews that she does want to just go onstage and play (once she can) without a lot of theatrics. That may have just been a one off for TV.
You’re describing St. Vincent 2014-now. Look back at St. Vincent 2007-2013. I hope she returns to those days. Sometimes I wonder whether her collab with David Byrne was the turning point.
I personally love the performance art aspect. Without the music it wouldn’t mean much, but I’m a big fan of artists adding a visual aspect to their live performances. Byrne and Clark are both great at this.
Thought the second single was really boring to be honest. That's where referentiality ultimately leads: circling the drain of history. The performances were nice, at least. People keep drawing this dividing line between her earlier 'rock' work and her post-2013 stuff, but I thought there was a stiffness and mannered sensibility about the earlier work too. I mean one album is called Actor and the cover is like a headshot, and the arrangements sound like they're played behind perspex sheets. Dinosaur Jr it ain't! No matter. There will always be artists who try and give it to you straight/'authentic' and those that dress up and play with character; there's no right or wrong way - you can be Johnny Cash or Prince or Nina Simone or Nick Cave or Elton John or Bill Fay or Ariel Pink - the quality of the music is really all that matters in the end column. Here there's an undeniable competence and literacy, and yes she is touring reasonably sized venues in the same way that a lot of well-promoted legacy "indie" artists have completely failed to cross over have. She is no different, in a great many respects, to artists like Mastodon and The Shins and Spoon and Roisin Murphy. Touring is big business against the death of record sales. That's still very good going: staying power is not easily come by. Readr is right to observe that she won't play ball. It could be what keeps her from having a career tank like Liz Phair, but it could also be a missed opportunity to take your talent to the most amount of people. I do think the average person would look at St. Vincent, particularly the SNL performance, and think that it is coastal hipsters playing dress-up (yes, even though she's an Okie who moved to Texas). Rightly or wrongly. That's the divided cultural world we inhabit; a performed sincerity, a larger-than-life persona, or a commitment to a recognisable identity is what gets you to the major leagues. With St. Vincent I feel like I've been waiting six albums now for this experience that has never really manifested itself, so it's probably about time I stopped probing this particular well.
Will definitely check out the new album in full when it arrives, but so far I'm tempering my expectations because what she's released so far from Daddy's Home has not connected with me at all like anything of Masseduction or her S/T did, or even Actor, which I love when I'm in the mood for a dark Disney soundtrack. I'm hoping she hasn't peaked yet as an artist, she's a favorite, and she changes so radically every few years I should expect there will be albums I don't care for along the way, and that's OK.
Daddy's Home gets a 5-star review in the latest (June) edition of Mojo magazine. I can't wait for this.
Wow The original video of TMotS kind of left me flat But it made you focus on the lyrics She does SNL Then suddenly releases the visually amped up new video Smart I received some SV swag today in the mail Can’t wait THe last great Mojo female artist 5 star review was 2020 - Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Boltcutters
Liz Phair's an interesting comparison. I've always thought the problem with Liz Phair wasn't so much pursuing a new audience than it was the fact that she struggled to come up with quality material outside of the songs she wrote over two years as a cassette artist. She was running on fumes even before she got Avril Lavigne's songwriters in -- whitechocolatespaceegg has to be one of the most boring albums ever -- and behind the press you got the impression that she had already gotten whatever sense of accomplishment she was going to get out of making music and that it was very much a job and lifestyle maintenance for her. (Her first memoir hasn't dissuaded me from this notion.) Until the last two singles I didn't get that impression from St. Vincent, even when I didn't like the material. Fortunately for her, the press is currently super-obsequious towards women artists (hence Liz getting back in the game) and referencing old stuff in a winking way, so I expect the album will do well enough critically. I'm just not looking forward to where the positive reinforcement will take her.
Good post. I see the obsequiousness as a corrective for the 60s-90s where it was pretty much the reverse. When she didn't get hauled over the coals for basically splitting up the greatest female rock band of the late 90s/early 00s (hell, scratch the word female there) in order to make them more like her, I knew she was critically untouchable for quite some time.
Derail, but: other than MeToo stuff or political wrongthink, I can't recall a recent instance when the press went after a content creator purely on aesthetic or moral grounds. If anything, they run interference for content creators and engage in apologetics to a degree that's in sharp contrast to what I've seen for most of my lifetime.
