Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, I’d like to thank you for indulging me over these past few weeks as I’ve rambled on about some of my favourite recent releases. It seems only fair that the album to take out my ‘Grand Vinyl’ selection should be the one that has spent far more time than any other in my car stereo since it’s release earlier this year, so with that I give you the fourth album from the wonderfully talented and refreshingly unique, Annie Clark, aka St Vincent.
Once upon a time in a land called the 1980’s, there was a gigantic laboratory that dominated the landscape called ‘pop music’.
For a long time (roughly ten years, in fact), it produced some really wonderful sounds and some truly brilliant and compelling artists. It rewarded artistic originality and bold ideas, it seemed to know no creative or stylistic bounds and people were constantly excited to hear whatever might come along next for there was every chance it would be ground-breaking and different to anything before it and it would find it’s way onto the airwaves because of those very virtues, not in spite of them. The listening public eagerly embraced fresh and innovative sounds and it seemed that the creative space in which these artists thrived would just continue to expand exponentially, the possibilities for pop music seemed vast and endless!
Have you listened to what is commonly referred to as ‘pop music’ lately?
Do you remember the final scene of ‘Planet of the Apes’ when Charlton Heston finally comes to the chilling understanding of how he ended up surrounded by monkeys?
Which brings me to St Vincent.
Just like a brave time-traveller, Annie Clark appears to have arrived from an alternate universe to show us how POP MUSIC could have been and indeed, how exhilarating and thrilling it still can be.
I am not going to spend any effort trying to describe this music to you because that would be boring and futile.
And I am not for a second saying that this music resembles anything from the 1980’s, not at all. There is just something very heartening to me about St Vincents’ spirit of adventure and experimentation with the idea of pop music that reminds me of that faraway land and that once proud laboratory…
Annie Clark has been to the 1980’s, albeit briefly, but that spirit of adventure presumably rubbed off on her and left an indelible impression, for she has managed to continue bravely on her journey, all the way here to 2014 and in spite of the somewhat barren post-apopolyptic landscape (alright, sorry), she continually creates a whirling vortex of sound that fills me with wonder and excitement for it reminds me that POP MUSIC always had a promising future, it just might take a time traveller from an alternate universe to remind us how to get there.
PD