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St. Vincent

The stage name of the guitarist, singer and songwriter Annie Clark, who left Berklee, played with the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens, and made Strange Mercy at Elmwood Studio in Dallas in 2011.

Origin
Tulsa, Oklahoma; raised in Dallas, Texas
Years active
2003-present
Genres
art rock, indie rock, pop
Labels
Beggars Banquet, 4AD, Loma Vista
Also known as
Annie Clark, Anne Erin Clark

Dallas, Berklee and Marry Me

Anne Erin Clark was born on September 28, 1982 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and moved with her family to Dallas, Texas at seven. She began playing a real guitar at 12, graduated from Lake Highlands High School in 2001 and spent three years at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, leaving without finishing. Her aunt and uncle are the jazz duo Tuck and Patti, for whom she roadied as a teenager. She made the EP Ratsliveonnoevilstar with Berklee classmates in 2003, played in Glenn Branca's 100-guitar orchestra in 2004, joined the Polyphonic Spree before a European tour, and in 2006 left to join Sufjan Stevens' touring band, the year of the EP Paris Is Burning.

Marry Me (July 10, 2007, Beggars Banquet) drew comparisons to Kate Bush and David Bowie. Actor (May 5, 2009, 4AD), produced by John Congleton and written on a computer with GarageBand and MIDI, partly inspired by children's films, reached number 90 on the Billboard 200.

Strange Mercy

Strange Mercy was written alone in autumn 2010, in Seattle by Wikipedia's account and in Walla Walla by The A.V. Club's, in what she called a loneliness experiment, with a studio provided by Jason McGerr of Death Cab for Cutie. It was released on September 12 and 13, 2011 on 4AD, recorded at Elmwood Studio in Dallas and produced by Congleton, 40:51 long, with Bobby Sparks on keyboards, McKenzie Smith on drums, Daniel Hart on violin and Evan Smith on saxophone and woodwinds. Clark said the title song was written first and gave her a theme: she wanted to write other songs that were, in effect, other instances of strange mercy. It reached number 19 on the Billboard 200, her highest at that time, and Pitchfork gave it 9.0 as Best New Music, saying her role-playing is grounded in emotions that are as cryptic as they are genuine and affecting. It was number 11 on Pitchfork's 2011 list and number seven on NME's, and 55th on Pitchfork's 2010s list.

Love This Giant, with David Byrne, came out on September 11, 2012, and in November 2013 she signed to Loma Vista. St. Vincent (February 2014) won the 2015 Grammy for best alternative music album, and in 2014 she sang lead vocals on Nirvana's "Lithium" at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Ernie Ball Music Man announced a signature guitar in March 2016.

Masseduction to All Born Screaming

Masseduction (October 2017, with Jack Antonoff) debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200 and has Metacritic's 88. In 2019 she co-wrote Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer" with Swift and Antonoff and produced Sleater-Kinney's The Center Won't Hold. Daddy's Home (May 14, 2021) won the Grammy for best alternative music album on April 3, 2022. All Born Screaming (April 26, 2024), self-produced, has Metacritic's 89, and in 2025 it won three Grammys, best rock song for "Broken Man", best alternative music performance for "Flea" and best alternative music album. Her tour ended on September 3, 2025 at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms, and Live in London! came out digitally on March 20, 2026.

Setlist.fm logs about 988 setlists. She has won six Grammys, and best alternative music album three times, tying the category record.

Records

Songs

Mitski

Where to go next

Reference

Live performance archives

Sources

  1. St. Vincent (musician), Wikipedia
  2. Strange Mercy, Wikipedia
  3. St. Vincent, setlist.fm
  4. St. Vincent, The A.V. Club (2011-09-15)