Working at WGRE has really opened my eyes to the amount of musicians there are in the world today. I mean, I’ll get CD’s from bands that describe their music as “heavy metal with a touch of jazz” or “psychedelic swing music” and immediately wonder what dimension these artists are from. Most of the time it doesn’t fit the feel that we at WGRE are trying to promote for our station, but sometimes we get someone who has a spark, the spark of an artist who can really perfect their unique art style. One of those artists is St. Vincent.
St. Vincent is the stage name of Anne Erin Clark who is known for her distinctive music style. This style combines elements of jazz, rock, and electropop music to create a sound not often found in the world today. Her new album, “MASSEDUCTION,” recently reached number 10 on the Billboard 200, which became her first top ten album in the US since the start of her career. This album really explores the reach of her musical style by containing songs that are slow, melodic, and beautiful, but also having others that are fast and aggressive. It really explores the boundaries of how music genres are formed.
How are these borders explored? Many of her songs have a moment of transition in where St. Vincent transitions from one musical style to the next, blending the chord structures to create a whole new genre altogether. One of her songs, “Los Ageless” is one of my personal favorites and is currently playing on WGRE. This song is great for reminiscing through your childhood memories as it really mixes both jazz and soft rock tunes to create a feel of longing. Maybe it’s because of this feeling that makes me really enjoy this song.
I’m also a big fan of another song called “New York.” In this song, St. Vincent further solidifies her jazz/rock style by bringing an exploratory feel to her music. It’s a very slow and somber song that really brings out the feeling of the end of a relationship. You can practically hear the emotion in St. Vincent’s singing during this piece, and it is this that makes this song so interesting to me.
St. Vincent is a wonderful musician who manages to blend very distinct musical styles into a form that expresses emotion that is completely different from any I’ve ever heard. Be sure to tune into WGRE to hear some of St. Vincent’s great music!