St. Vincent - All Born Screaming - Album Review
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- For this album review, St. Vincent opts for a more raw, groove-driven sound to push through hellish times... and I wish it worked more.
Best Songs: 'Flea’, ‘Big Time Nothing’, ‘Violent Times’
Worst Song: ‘Sweetest Fruit’
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St. Vincent - All Born Screaming - Album Review (indie rock)
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Spectrum Pulse is a music review / commentary channel, like colleagues Anthony Fantano of TheNeedleDrop, ARTV, Dead End Hip Hop, Rocked, Deep Cuts, Crash Thompson, Brad Taste, and plenty others, known for discussions of music, movies, art and culture.
Spectrum Pulse, music, review, 2024, album, album review, react, reaction, On The Pulse, St. Vincent, St. Vincent review, St. Vincent album review, St. Vincent reaction, St. Vincent All Born Screaming, St. Vincent All Born Screaming review, St. Vincent All Born Screaming album review, St. Vincent All Born Screaming reaction, Hell Is Near, Reckless, Broken Man, Flea, Big Time Nothing, Violent Times, The Power's Out, Sweetest Fruit, So Many Planets, All Born Screaming, indie rock
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![St. Vincent, Ugly, Owen и Porij. «Альбомы по пятницам» [65]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Kx9T5McZAfM/mqdefault.jpg)
![St. Vincent, Ugly, Owen и Porij. «Альбомы по пятницам» [65]](/img/tr.png)
An observation about the use of "my" on "Sweetest Fruit", which I think makes it more interesting without making it any less questionable: You remember "Dilettante" off of Strange Mercy? She's described that song as about her love-hate relationship with New York, but one of the layers is that it seems to be a song about romanticising people who you don't and can't fully know, limping after them on the street, listening through the walls, peering through keyholes. Combine that with some of the lyrics on Daddy's Home, and… I think there's definitely a degree of self-awareness to Annie Clark's rockstar worship and I think she understands how troubling and morbid and possessive it can be, but I also think that she's never fully shed that armour of artifice which she built up as a closeted queer teenager from a wealthy, somewhat sheltered upbringing in the South, even when she consciously tries to, which makes those stabs at sincerity at their best deeply strange and incredibly compelling, and at their worst, well, cringe-inducing. That particular lyrical turn is definitely more on the latter side of that fence, unfortunately, at least for me. I get it, but there are better ways to do that.
FULLY AGREE
Didn't got much out of this record either. Although I probably enjoyed it more than Daddy's Home, that's not very high bar
This album rocks, met her at a signing and she was super down to earth. Gonna see her at her first show on the new tour 🤘👏🔥
I've got to be the only one that loved the beginning of the track All Born Screaming and then found the build toward the end of it incredibly underwhelming and almost corny. That first half was transcendent hopeful optimism and then she totally missed out on her loud fuzzy guitar playing in the end
Heh, Daddy's Home is my top album from her, and I think Antonoff is worthy of the hype (excellent production.) This one is pretty mixed on first listen, she is now in 90s pastiche. Violent Times is a winner though, maybe my favorite thing she ever did.
How can you have loved Daddy's home yet think this one is mixed? That makes no sense to me
@@LedBellyBullets Probably I am a bigger fan of Antonoff than St. Vincent (even though I like her a good deal). Another album I am mixed on is Florence + the Machine's Dance Fever, which is also made much better by his production choices.
Idk I liked it
CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE!
This may irk some of you, but as a fan of both Swift and St. Vincent, I'd much rather listen to this St. Vincent album than Taylor's double album.
I get that St. Vincent isn't exactly making art rock anymore. But at the same time, All Born Screaming does juuust enough musically to get the job done for me. Maybe that's because Los Ageless is my favorite song of hers? Oh well. At least there aren't any flames in the thumbnail like there was with Little Rope.
Swift shouldn't even be mentioned alongside or compared to the brilliant St.Vincent. Swift isn't in the same league.
Honestly this might be your worst review 😭
Not for the opinion but you genuinely don't elaborate your points enough, hell you miss half the tracklist??
Mention of past work (without seeing how it reflects in ABS)
That flea bridge is so actor coded, idek
The grit you talk about, beneath her previous work, it's all at the surface and manifests in this apocalyptic meditation of love and loss
The Taylor swift comparison 💀 💀 💀 (I love her but pls be serious)
The Sophie discourse and the mention of the queer on the power's out , Annie herself is queer. There's a bigger conversation to be had about parasocial relations.The lack of nuance (which I didn't expect from you)
See, here's the funny thing: I literally provided context in when talking about SOPHIE and highlighted the usage of 'my' when talking about dead queer people St. Vincent has never met - it's parasocial and possessive, and when placed alongside the imagery she used on 'Daddy's Home' seems fucking weird - and highlighted how that spilled into 'The Power's Out'. That's nuance that goes beyond saying 'well, she's queer too'.
Also, fun fact - I literally referenced EVERY SONG on this album by name, I checked my script. That's not missing half the tracklist, bub
This review was a trainwreck
They LITERALLY tie into the themes I brought up midway through. To quote myself in this video, "the possessive pronouns of calling them ‘my’ is a really awkward choice, and it’s not the only time that happens - on ‘The Power’s Out’ describing an apocalyptic scenario in New York City, the one person who dies in the song is a queer person who commits suicide with a line to ‘remember me smiling’, which just feels weirdly tacky and detached, playing into really dated tropes. And then there’s more than a few moments where she references being watched and scrutinized and critiqued like on the outros of ‘Hell Is Near’ and ‘Reckless’, or the entirety of ‘Broken Man’ and ‘Big Time Nothing’, the last of which is from the perspective of her own depression but for an album all about getting to the most raw moments, there’s a frustrated, cagey side to the writing which feels off".
This deliberately plays into themes I mentioned, to quote myself again: "sick of those trying to define and control her and exasperated with trying to ‘sell’ authenticity, stepping away from the artifice and deflective irony and masks for something that ‘feels’ authentic to her, regardless of how it turns out for everyone else, with the first half all about confronting brutal loss both internal and external, and the latter being ‘well, we have to get through SOMEHOW’, finding transcendence amidst a living hell."
Or to put it another way, it's a little weird when you're looking to find transcendence, the trope you go towards is queer death on multiple songs, and then get really defensive on the folks who gave you the side eye when confronted on the last album. If that's how your framing hell, that's subtext that says a lot, especially in comparison with what she was writing about on previous albums.
And considering the last half of the review is literally looking at the music side of things and mentioning over half the album by name, I think my bases are covered here.
@@SpectrumPulse (FIRST OF ALL, slight fangirl moment, I got a reply yaass)
Okay about the my Sophie part. I do agree it's parasocial but don't you think everyone pissed about the lyrics (especially on twitter) is in the same boat?
I feel like Sophie is as much as Annie's to write about as she is for her fans to defend. I don't think she was too egregiously bad with lyrics. But if Sophie's friends and family come out and say it's bad then I'd give it to everyone.
But getting pissed about the lyrics is equally as parasocial as writing about Sophie.
If Sophie can have an artist like St. Vincent, notoriously unsharing and private (think self titled era bad press about her, David Byrne's comments), don't you think it's a testament to SOPHIE'S music?
(Idk as a queer person in a very unforgiving country, I tend to think about my life through the lens of other queer people, thought it was strangely endearing)
You don't even talk about the her influences on this record or how they work up in Annie's music. How are they different (better or worse) from Daddy's home?
You don't try to get the overarching theme of the record or at least give your opinion on what you think it is about.
You talk about her previous releases all of which came with a built-in persona. Except this one. Does it translate into something for you?
Idk I've ALWAYS love your reviews they're so well articulated but this one just didn't do it for me
@@SpectrumPulse can not believe you called me bub AHAHAHA 😭😭
Well, if even St. Vincent is not woke enough for you we're getting in uncharted territory...
I somewhat agree with you as a giant St Vincent fan. I'm someone who thinks her first album Marry Me is far and away her best project. But her s/t is where she really refined her pop/rock songwriting and stands out as a great dichotomy to that album.
Since Masseduction, she's doubled down into pop whereas if you compare her to Julia Holter, Holter started with an amazing experimental debut as well and also refined herself to a standout singer/songwriter pop album, but then on Aviary she brought back her roots to combine them into an expansive masterwork.
I think St Vincent has no interest in that, she just wants to be a rockstar. Which is cool, but I do think she can be a rockstar that really hits you in the face too. I agree there's a big mixing issue on Flea where the crescendo chorus (a true moment of her former brilliance) is really hampered by a clamped dynamic range. I also agree she's tackled these themes on previous albums better, but I do think this was more cohesively focused. I still think this album's better than the last two and thematically it is in the right direction.
Daddy's Home I agree I don't think she made her personal story universal, not really her strength. Masseduction at least I think is fun while being very clumsy. The theme of just all out massive hedonistic Brave New World orgy, I'm totally in, if somewhat disappointed in lack of creativity. You're right that there's a "bite" missing, because elements of her musical style show up but don't work as well.
Marry Me is her best album? That is definitely a hot take
@@LedBellyBulletsI dunno, it might not be *that* hot a take. I've heard people say Marry Me is their favourite a few times, and admittedly I get it, song for song it's a great record with a few indelible classics; it's less mature than Strange Mercy but at a similar level of enjoyment for me, although I definitely prefer Actor (my own personal favourite) and the self-titled.
@@ConvincingPeople It's more mature unless commercialism is maturity. Lyrically, compositionally, thematically. Demonstrably, the songs develop with more complexity. Listen to any song off Marry Me and pay attention to the sections of the song and how they develop. Then listen to any song off Strange Mercy or Actor. It is a noticeable difference, I won't say even just for people who know music theory, but anyone who knows basic song structure.
I'm hyperbolic somewhat, I consider her first 4 albums all to be various shades of brilliant but her first album is the kernel of all of them, the pure essence or extract. But not naive or undeveloped, it's a new genius's worried over and perfected "life's work" project.
Ambitious artists always want to start on their very best most ambitious idea and are told to work on other things first, get to that when you become established. She just went ahead and did it, and everything since has been the genius who created that using the same impulses to find a new life's work with great results that ultimately do not fulfill that even harder aim.
And my conjecture is post s/t, she no longer really aims for that. She looks at her inspirations to medley her style into them but isn't trying to mutate them true originality. This one is Bowie and Talking Heads, last one was Led Zeppelin, the Beatles and soul music.
Marry Me clearly has genres it is pulling forms from. But it is just borrowing what it needs, mutating, perfecting, and completely reimagining them. You can play Talking Heads tracks that inspired this album and those songs side by side, get a very similar thing from both. Show me another bossa nova track in the world that does what Human Racing does and I'd love you for it. A ballad that creates the bliss of Landmines. And I'm just going to say you can't find more brilliant lyrics than The Apocalypse Song.
Sorry for spring-boarding a rant on your comment, there was someone else who commented "Marry Me is your favorite, shows what your opinion is worth on the artist", clearly deriding. It's just comical because there's maybe nothing that has made me more concerned for the sanity of other people and the cogency of their thoughts than the general perception surrounding St Vincent albums. It's like having pyramids of Egypt next to the pyramid in Vegas and everyone's awing at the bright lights. Again, hyperbolic, but it really does give me some righteous feeling.
I never got the Daddy's Home love.
I think it’s just interesting how she went with a concept record
It's a great album
Absolutely disagree. This isn't just St. Vincent's best album...it's one of the best albums ever made.
You need to have a certain taste level to understand Daddy’s Home. I think it’s one of the best albums ever recorded.
this is the most misused mark giuliana has been in a while, this was mediocre and more than anything felt like shallow bowie pastiching
The majority of this does not sound like David Bowie. The only overtly Bowie song I can think of is Powers Out