St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION

If there is one thing Annie Clark succeeds in, is to perceive that fame, in a weird and deranged world such as the one we live in, brings very few true benefits to a public life. While drifting past mainstream conventions in her previous albums, the singer/songwriter has grown to be more than an acquaintance to tremendously popular figures in and outside the art universe. As a direct result, Clark's own popularity has raised considerably, as we see her drifting farther away from the alternative music weirdo she seemed much closer to be for quite some time in her career. Hence, the collaboration with mainstream-converted producer, singer and songwriter Jack Antonoff hardly comes as shock-inducing news. With this constant back-and-forth crossing of names from both music grounds, lines between 'mainstream' and 'indie' start to blur and fade, but that is another story.

With increased budget and a star-studded team behind her, Annie still seems to be doing what she really wants with her music. That is not to say that MASSEDUCTION does not sound way more 'pop-oriented' than much of what she did before. Sure, the eccentricity and provocateur stance of her previous efforts is kept (and portrayed on the goddamn album cover!), and the genre-hopping antics still show up on "Pills", where she shows spirit while playing with advertising-like lullabies and electronic trickery; "Masseducation", where dancetronica is the name of the game, and more specifically on the industrial-ladden "Sugarboy", by far the most adventurous piece on the entire record. On the other hand, melancholic ballads like "Slow Disco" and the unexpected bare-hands "Happy Birthday, Johnny" (definitely Clark's most revealing composition yet), as well as a big portion of material harking from the second half shows a completely different shift in sound and tone - especially after taking a peek at the imagery developed for the album.

Pluralistic endeavours have long played a huge role in St. Vincent's music. Not only has Clark been a forward-looking artist completely devoid of fear of aesthetic exploration, but, the way she structured her thoughts on social issues, feminism, politics and sexuality on previous albums acted as means for the popularity and the seemingly unconditional love
boasted by specialized publications and critics. MASSEDUCTION is no less plural, especially in terms of lyrical content. It is the way Annie depicts most of these themes that makes the whole thing quite surprising. Often has St. Vincent's output sounded dynamic and versatile, touching on a plethora of themes, employing a myriad of sounds and influences. Rarely has she sounded so disjointed.

On a recent interview, Clark stated the line "I can't turn off what turns me on", out of the title-track, works as some sort of hypothesis for her new album. In fact, most of the cuts on the first half show her employing an exaggerated, black-humoured tone to the technicolor tracks that talk sexuality in a devious, but at the same time sterile, synthetic light, as the artist takes us on an eye-widening short trip inside her own musical world. While there is nothing that new to the concept, the promising viscerality of singles "Pills" and "Los Ageless", allied with the absurdist imagery used on the album's merch worked as an intriguing build-up to MASSEDUCTION's release. Honestly, there are very few names in contemporary music more suitable to talk about sexuality and individuality amidst the
chaotic paranoia of advanced technology and wide-media social construction than Annie Clark herself.

Unfortunately, this record stands in the middle ground between a highly-complex compendium of genre-issues filtered through the eyes of an eccentric, yet sensible woman casting her eyes upon the contemporary world, and scattered notes of an ordinary individual making amends with people close to her, while at the same time writing some gimmicky essay on human depravity and the downsides of modern-day busy lifestyle. The contrast between tracks like "Los Ageless" and "Happy Birthday, Johnny" going way beyond sonic disparities, screaming indecision from the top of its meta-lungs.

From the immense sensibility and beauty of St. Vincent's dynamic structuring on previous albums, a work like MASSEDUCTION feels like a treasure map entirely made of magazine cuts. Its original premise might have been to guide the reader to a distinct point, but its final layering leading absolutely nowhere. There is literally a whole lot going on in here, but, after the record is over, one can't really understand what is the point of putting these tracks together, for all they do is tip on all these immense topics it set out to do in the first place.

In one cut there is Clark singing about nostalgia and the loss of a precious one (New York); on the next track she talks about love in the imminence of a dystopian future (Future Fear). Wait a bit more and she will sing about being in a party but not really being in the mood for all the festivities (Dancing With a Ghost). Some of the orchestral bits on the later part sound pretty, but they can't pay back the bad aftertaste left by the plastic "Sugarboy" dessert, a few numbers before. "Smoking Section" is Annie Clark undressed of the glamorous facial production of magazines and is one of the very few exhilarating moments of the album, showing a distinct part of the beloved singer/songwriter not many fans could have known before - but, at this point, does anyone still remember the whole "I can't turn off what turns me on" speech? Wait - What? All these publications giving MASSEDUCTION a perfect score, stating that it is a tremendous work because 'it creates it's own internal logic' must be getting their own. If not, what a messy 'canon' we might be getting these days.

Out of an impressive mess come a few moments of beauty, that much can be said. For all Clark's indecisiveness (and Antonoff's horridly inconsistent production rarely knowing when to make the mix louder and when to work with subjectivity), MASSEDUCTION brings revelatory light for a considerably cryptic personal life, now slowly opening up to fans. For all the sexual and surrealistic promises, what an album titled MASSEDUCTION actually brings of value being a bare-soul portion of straight-forward lyricism. One could argue that it is pretty much all one might expect from his/her favourite artist, but, when talking about such a clever, provocative musician and considering all she's done so far, remnants are not enough.