Actor is the second album by musician St. Vincent, released by 4AD on May 4, 2009, in the United Kingdom and a day later in the United States. The first single released was "Actor Out of Work" that April. St. Vincent wrote the album using computer music application GarageBand.

Reception

The album received wide critical acclaim.. Metacritic.com. Retrieved 2009-12-09. Pitchfork Media gave the album an 8.5/10 rating and a "Best New Music" tag, praising the concept and describing the sound as "melodic and controlled, conjuring abrasive textures that nevertheless have a clean, meticulous quality that complements her immaculate arrangements."

The AV Club's review called the album a departure from St. Vincent's debut, noting an absence of "the coy, conventional pop winks of Marry Me; even Actor’s lovelier moments come tinged with down-the-rabbit-hole danger." Clark has "found her own voice—and it's one you wouldn't want reading your kids any bedtime stories."

Other reviewers, such as Entertainment Weekly and Allmusic, praised the album's contrast of melodic pop and distorted guitars with dark lyrics.

Singles

*"Actor Out of Work" (April 20, 2009)

*# "Actor Out of Work"

*# "Bicycle"

*"Marrow" (November 2, 2009)

*# "Marrow"

*# "Oh My God"

Sales chart performance

Actor debuted at #90 in the US on the Billboard 200.

References

Category:2009 albums

Category:4AD albums

Category:English-language albums

Category:St. Vincent albums

sv:Actor

Artist/Band Information

Annie Erin Clark (born September 28, 1982) is an American multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter who performs under the moniker St. Vincent. Priorly, she had been a member of The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens' touring band.

Clark's debut album, Marry Me (2007) was released to critical acclaim, and was followed by Actor (2009).

Clark has opened shows for such acts as Television, Arcade Fire, Andrew Bird, Jolie Holland, John Vanderslice, Xiu Xiu, Death Cab for Cutie, Cristina Donà and Grizzly Bear.

She is perhaps best known to the public for her work with Bon Iver on the song "Roslyn", which appeared on the film soundtrack of The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

She currently resides in Manhattan.

Life and career

Annie Clark was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma.http She began playing the guitar at the age of 12 and, as a teenager, worked as the tour manager for her uncle's band Tuck & Patti. She grew up in Dallas, Texas, and attended Lake Highlands High School, graduating in 2001.

Following this, she went on to attend Berklee College of Music, before dropping out three years later. In retrospect, Clark said, "I think that with music school and art school, or school in any form, there has to be some system of grading and measurement. The things they can teach you are quantifiable. While all that is good and has its place, at some point you have to learn all you can and then forget everything that you learned in order to actually start making music." In 2003, during her time at Berklee, she released an EP with fellow students, entitled Ratsliveonnoevilstar. Shortly after leaving Berklee, Clark returned home to Texas where she joined The Polyphonic Spree just before their embarking on a European tour.

Clark left The Polyphonic Spree and joined Sufjan Stevens' touring band in 2006, bringing with her a tour EP entitled Paris Is Burning. It contains three tracks, including a cover version of Jackson Browne's "These Days".

St. Vincent and Marry Me (2007)

In 2006, Clark began recording a studio album, under the stage name St. Vincent. Her stage name is a reference to Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center where the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in 1953. “It’s the place where poetry comes to die,” she has said. “That’s me.”

Clark released her debut album, Marry Me on July 10, 2007 on Beggars Banquet Records. Named after a line from the television show Arrested Development, the album features appearances from drummer Brian Teasley (Man or Astro-man?, The Polyphonic Spree), Mike Garson (David Bowie's longtime pianist), and horn player Louis Schwadron (The Polyphonic Spree).

The album was well-received by critics, with Clark being compared to the likes of Kate Bush and David Bowie. Clark was lauded for the album's musical arrangements as well as themes and style: "There's a point where too much happiness turns into madness, and St. Vincent's multi-instrumentalist Annie Clark knows this place well". Pitchfork said "at every turn Marry Me takes the more challenging route of twisting already twisted structures and unusual instrumentation to make them sound perfectly natural and, most importantly, easy to listen to as she overdubs her thrillingly sui generis vision into vibrant life."

The songs featured on Marry Me were largely written when Clark was eighteen and nineteen years old, and, according to Clark, "represented a more idealized version of what life was or what love was or anything in the eyes of someone who hadn't really experienced anything." The album featured its one single, "Paris Is Burning", as well as a music video for "Jesus Saves, I Spend".

In 2008, Clark was nominated for three PLUG Independent Music Awards for the album: New Artist of the Year, Female Artist of the Year, and Music Video of the Year. On March 6, 2008, she won the PLUG Female Artist of the Year award.

Actor (2009) and commercial success

stvincent2009b.jpgthumbleft200pxSt. Vincent performing in San Diego on May 30, 2009

In 2008, after returning to New York from a lengthy tour, Clark began working on her sophomore album. Her inspiration reportedly came from several films, including Disney movies: "Well, the truth is that I had come back from a pretty long — you know, about a year-and-a-half of touring, and so my brain was sort of all circuit boards that were a little bit fried", Clark said. "So I started watching films as sort of a way to get back into being human. And then it started to just really inform the entire record."

Clark, who didn't have a studio at the time, began recording the album in her apartment on her computer using GarageBand and MIDI, because she had been getting noise complaints from neighbors. The songs were largely inspired by scenes from various children's films; Clark has stated that she would imagine a soundtrack for certain scenes from films when constructing the music and lyrics, including scenes from Snow White (1937) and The Wizard of Oz (1939).

The second album, entitled Actor, was released by 4AD Records on May 5, 2009. The album was also well-received and gained more commercial attention than its predecessor. Spin gave the album eight out of ten stars, noting its " the cruel and the kind, and here, the baroque arrangements are even more complex and her voice even prettier, with both only underlining the dark currents running through her songs". Entertainment Weekly said the album "plays up the contrasts, letting her church-choir voice linger on lyrics that hint darkly at themes of violence, sex, and general chaos", and branded the album "a uniquely potent cocktail of sounds and moods."

The contrast between the light and dark/good and evil themes in Clark's music was heavily taken note of by critics again, which Clark herself discussed in terms of the album being inspired by fairy tales and, particularly, Disney movies: "I'm a big fan of those movies", said Clark. "I unironically love them because they're beautiful. The other side of fairy tales is that they got cleaned up for Disney, but if you read Hans Christian Andersen, those stories are horrifying. They're awful and the characters do terrible things to each other. Disney put them in the washer for kids but they're still pretty fucked up.

Actor charted well for an independent release, peaking at #9 on Billboard's Independent Albums Chart, and #5 on the Tastemaker Albums Chart. It peaked at #90 on the Billboard 200. Although the album spawned no singles, music videos for "Marrow" and "Actor Out of Work" were released, and aired on several music channels.

As of January 12, 2011—according to her Twitter account— Clark is working on her third album, a follow up to Actor.http In early March, producer John Congleton, who also worked with Clark on Actor, commented that he and Clark were nearly a third of the way through recording the new release.

Musical style

Clark's music has been noted for its wide array of instruments and arrangements, as well as its dichotomous lyrics, which have been described as teetering between "happiness and madness". In response to this, Clark has said, "I like when things come out of nowhere and blindside you a little bit. I think any person who gets panic attacks or has an anxiety disorder can understand how things can all of a sudden turn very quickly. I think I'm sublimating that into the music."

In addition to guitar, Clark also plays bass, piano, and organ, and her music also often features violins, cellos, flutes, trumpets, clarinets, and other instruments.Marry Me (2007). Beggers Banquet (liner notes) Her unorthodox musical style has been characterized by critics as a mixture of chamber rock, pop, indie rock, and cabaret jazz.

Her pedal board includes the following: Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Reverb, Early Sitori Sonics Tapeworm prototype, DigiTech Whammy, Boss TU-2, Line 6 DL4, Eventide Pitchfactor, ZVEX Fuzz Factory (Vexter Series) and a Fulltone Fulldrive.

Discography

Albums

* Marry Me (2007)

* Actor (2009) (US #90; UK #161)

Notes

Category:1982 births

Category:Living people

Category:American female singers

Category:American female guitarists

Category:American singer-songwriters

Category:People from Tulsa, Oklahoma

Category:Musicians from Oklahoma

Category:Musicians from Dallas, Texas

Category:American songwriters

Category:American multi-instrumentalists

Category:Berklee College of Music alumni

Category:4AD artists

de:Annie Clark

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fr:Annie Clark

pl:Annie Clark

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zh:安妮·克拉克