St. Vincent - Topic

Daddy’s Home, the sixth album from Annie Clark a/k/a St. Vincent, is the latest facet of an ever-evolving artist regarded by many as the most consistently innovative & intriguing presence in modern music. In the winter of 2019, as her 2017 masterpiece MASSEDUCTION's title track won the GRAMMY for Best Rock Song & the album won Best Recording Package, St. Vincent’s father was released from prison. She began writing the songs that would become Daddy’s Home, closing the loop on a journey that began with his incarceration in 2010, & ultimately led her back to the vinyl her dad had introduced her. The records she has probably listened to more than any other music in her entire life. Music made in sepia-toned downtown New York from 1971-1975. Gritty. Grimy. Sleazy. The first full broadcast from St. Vincent’s synthesis of this era reaches us in the form of “Pay Your Way In Pain,” a slinky slab of sweaty funk—punctuated by a few examples of Clark’s ability to shred vocal cords rivaling her shredding on her signature Ernie Ball Music Man guitar. The song plays like the result of time travelers from the future having booked a session Electric Lady in the early 70s. The video for “Pay Your Way In Pain,” directed by Bill Benz (director of the forthcoming The Nowhere Inn, co-written by & starring St. Vincent), opens up Daddy’s Home’s visual world—a world in which the most forward-looking artist of an era throws herself willingly into a network TV variety hour rabbit hole.