Superlatives
A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
you’re able to judge aSt.
Vincentrecord by its cover, specifically its color.
Vincent; the leather salmon ofMASSEDUCTION.
Daddys Home,her sixth and latest album,tries to throw off that pattern.
Youve seen this kind of photo before.
Suspension of disbelief is advised.
Clark still writes show tunes, but it sounds like Steely Dan has now landed on Venus.
She can confirm at least half of that is true.
I saw them doThe Royal Scam, she continues.
Love Steely Dan so hard.
(She still has a place here, just in case.
)SNLwas a teaser for howDaddys Homewill translate live.
So much of it is the conversation between the instruments, she explains.
No clips, no tracks, no nothing.
Just people good at playing music, playing music.
People good at playing music, playing music is a good review ofDaddys Home.
In lesser hands, a The 70s!
travelogue through New York could have been about as nuanced as your college iPod.
Sometimes freeing turns into doodling with professional musicians jamming just for the sake of jamming.
Thats not a negative by default.
If nothing else,Daddys Homeloosens and unexpectedly challenges what a St. Vincent record could be.
It makes it so that Im unfortunately not a very strategic person.
Im just interested in what Im interested in now.
Favorite new piece of gear used forDaddys Home
The1967 Coral Electric Sitar Guitar.
Jack Antonoff [who co-produced the album] gave it to me.
In the end, I tried to give it back to him.
He was like, No, its yours.
I cant take it back.
I know this is a vintage piece of gear that is somewhat sought after.
We had Wurlitzers from that era.
The claves are from that era.
Everything was pretty period-specific.
Did I run it through a reimagined Opamp Labs console?
Did that exact board exist in 1971?
You could split hairs about new gear versus vintage gear.
But at least instrumentation-wise, the album was definitely done with instruments of that time.
Nerdiest music discovery made while researching forDaddys Home
Studying and charting out Stevie Wonders Golden Lady.
Its so musical but so harmonically complicated; it starts in a major key and modulates.
The chorus is in a minor key, and not even the relative minor.
It modulates to a totally different key.
I think studying harmonic cadences was probably the nerdiest I got.
l remember being at CVS and just happening to hear Bonnie Raitts Something to Talk About.
Im going to study it.I think I threw it into … At the Holiday Party.
I associateMASSEDUCTIONwith staying at a hotel by Electric Lady Studios in the Village on 8th Street.
I was in total nun mode.
Not drinking, no sex, no nothing nothing fun.
My only vice was with jellybeans from the minibar.
Thats what my life was.
The big, exciting treat: Jelly Bellys.
Daddys Homeis the Angel Orensanz Center on the Lower East Side.
Its a romantic instrument to me.
I dont mean that I anthropomorphize a guitar because I dont.
No, thats strange to me.
But its a romantic instrument to me in the way that I find them so captivating.
Its kind of only as useful as what youre able to say on it.
The loudest voice will always be the crankiest voice.
But I think guitars have energy and you play certain guitars in different kinds of ways.
If I pick up the strat, the first thing I do is play a Hendrix riff.
But in this way with a guitar with a new shape, you get a blank slate.
I rewrote the lyrics seven times.
As far as sonically, [Daddys Home] scratches a lot of itches for me.
Theres an amount of psychedelia, which is very soothing and transformational.
This isnt another record with an aggressive hyper-color assault.
I probably havent heard any of my old records in a very long time.
I dont even know exactly what to say from a sonic standpoint.
I think Im just most excited about what Im doing now, which I hope isnt a bummer answer.
I dont know because I havent listened to it in a while.
And your opinion on your own past will change depending on the day you ask it, you know?
I love getting to scream at the top of my lungs.
I guess you say joy; I say comfortable melancholy.
But theres a love there thats a warm, resigned, nostalgic, twinkle-in-your-eye kind of thing.
That one is joyful in a way that puts me in my chest.
The whole record [Daddys Home] was a lot of fun to sing and make.
Its a lot about capturing the performance.
My Baby Wants a Baby was fun to sing, especially at the end [starts singing it].
Go-to key to write music in
I hop around all over the place.
But I also will write something in one key and then realize it sounds better a half-step lower.
I will play with the keys a lot after the song is written.
All about the Big D. The new album:Daddys Home.
I probably should just stick to a key.
Im like the person at a buffet whose eyes are too big for their stomachs.
I write too ambitiously for my voice, or I did for a long time.
I dont do it anymore.
The good part about it is that you push yourself.
The tricky thing about it becomes: Oh, I gotta really practice to get this right.
I think it goes back to having something to say.
If I was just a guitar player, you wouldnt have heard of me.
If I was just trying to be a singer, you wouldnt have heard of me.
I kind of know what I am and what Im not, in a way.
Its the combination of writing and playing and singing.
But its the combo of being an artist.
Its not necessarily one thing that I do exceptionally well because I definitely have gaps in my abilities.
Im not trying to be self-effacing or self-aggrandizing in saying this.
That is the reason why my ability to have a place to go.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
