St. Vincent to Return With New Album ‘Daddy’s Home’

By: Samantha Eddy

After four years, St. Vincent (Annie Clark) is returning to the music scene with her sixth studio album Daddy’s Home, co-produced by Jack Antonoff (who also co-produced her last album, Masseduction). Daddy’s Home is reported by Clark as having a “grittier, more nihilistic, more ‘dirt under the fingernails’ vibe.” So, as you would expect, this album is to be extraordinarily different than her past albums. 

While Clark has been quite the tease with this upcoming album, she did release a sample of the album with the first song in the tracklist — ‘Pay Your Way In Pain’, which you can watch and listen to below. 

St. Vincent released a teaser on March 2^nd giving her fans a taste of what is to come. This teaser video advertised a hotline: 1-833-77-DADDY, which included a message saying the next album is called Daddy’s Home and ‘Pay Your Way In Pain’ — the new single and first song on the album tracklist. Vincent has begun a poster campaign to advertise her new album, with posters showing her in a maroon suit, next to what seems to be an album cover and a message titled, “Who’s Your Daddy?” If you look closer, the poster message opens with, “St. Vincent is back with a record of all-new songs. Warm Wurlitzers and wit, glistening guitars and grit, with sleaze and style for days. Taking you from uptown to downtown with the artist who makes you expect the unexpected.” 

In an interview with the Guardian, St. Vincent revealed that the album is partially inspired by her father’s prison sentence, which was in 2010 for stock crimes. Clark stated, “I didn’t have any perspective on it. It was just this horrible, festering wound.” Since her father has been out of prison for two years now, Clark is finally able to open up about how this event in her life impacted her, saying, “In some ways, the roles have reversed – I feel like ‘daddy’ half the time, you know? He’s a person, and every person has a lot of facets, and a lot of sh*t they’ve done wrong, and good qualities. So it just is.” It is clear that this new album touches home for Clark, as it comes from a personal experience revolving around her father’s role as a dad and lacking thereof. 

Let’s talk meaning. Referring to the lead song of the album – ‘Pay Your Way In Pain’ – Clark stated, “I feel like we live in a world where we’re often asked to choose between surviving and dignity.” “Part of it is like blues for 2021,” says Clark. “It’s also about how there’s nothing that I’ve done in my life that didn’t involve some sort of struggle. Some of those struggles are really worthy ones to have and something great can come of them.” Regarding the ‘Pay Your Way In Pain’ music video, which was directed by Bill Benz, Clark explains the basic simplicity with, “I’m just way more of the mind, especially now after everything that’s happened in the last year, that I would just rather do a simple idea executed really well than a lot of ideas hodge-podged.” “This is just a performance video of me singing a song, dancing and just doing everything in a very practical way. It was going in the same spirit as the music where it’s just a performance. It’s not got heavy-heavy production, but we just did it in the room to capture a moment.” 

Clark is trying to relay that Daddy’s Home is a heavily laid-back, simple story that comes from a specific moment in time and how she feels about that. Simply put, Clark stated, “One of the things about Daddy’s Home is that there is a literal and autobiographical element to it, but also I’m daddy now! I have sh*t to do, I have responsibilities and this world that I’ve created.” “I always think of the Picasso quote: ‘Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth’. These stories are things that I’ve lived and ways that I feel. It’s hard for me to parcel out what is what. I just make the world. I don’t think too much about compartmentalizing it.” 

A follow-up of St. Vincent’s 2017 album Masseduction, Daddy’s Home is strongly inspired by 1970s style, and artists including David Bowie, and Sly and the Family Stone. With this new album, Clark continues to use the “confident sexuality” of Masseduction, while throwing in retro groove themes. A lot of Clark’s inspiration from this album came from her father’s ‘70s record collection and “stories of being down and out in downtown NYC” and “last night’s heels on the morning train and glamour that’s been up for three days straight.”

In an interview with NME, Clark explained that she wanted to make this album “all about groove, feel and performance” and the ‘70s life spirit, rather than her typical “angular” style. “There’s something interesting about what the early ‘70s were, and the parallels between then and now – even socially. You had the idealism of the ‘60s come crashing down and the flower child thing had dissipated and made room for a way grittier, more nihilistic, more ‘dirt under the fingernails’ vibe.” Clark added, “People are trying to navigate what it is to just survive.” 

With Daddy’s Home just around the corner, St. Vincent has released album merch. You can find hoodies, a long-sleeve shirt, graphic tees, a trucker hat, and a key chain. To purchase Daddy’s Home merchandise, click here.

With all that said, fans will soon no longer have to wait as St. Vincent announced that the LP Daddy’s Home is to be released through the Loma Vista record label on May 14^th, so keep your eyes peeled! 

Daddy’s Home Tracklist:

1. ’Pay Your Way In Pain’
2. ‘Down and Out Downtown’
3. ‘Daddy’s Home’
4. ‘Live In the Dream’
5. ‘The Melting Of The Sun’
6. ‘The Laughing Man’
7. ‘Down’
8. ‘Somebody Like Me’
9. ‘My Baby Wants A Baby’
10. ‘…At The Holiday Party’
11. ‘Candy Darling’