St. Vincent (musician)

St. Vincent was born Anne Erin Clark, known as Annie Clark, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on September 28, 1982.⁠[1]

When she was seven her parents split and her mother remarried, and she moved to Dallas, Texas, where she attended Lake Highlands High School. At five she made her first guitar out of rubber bands and cardboard, and she was writing songs at the same age.⁠[2][1]

She attended Berklee College of Music, which lists her as a member of the class of 2004.⁠[3]

She then moved to New York, where she played in avant-garde composer Glenn Branca’s 100-guitar symphony and used her savings to record her first demos; unhappy with them when they were finished in 2005, she returned to Dallas that summer.⁠[2]

After returning to Dallas in the summer of 2005 she joined the choral rock band the Polyphonic Spree, touring with the group and playing on its album The Fragile Army. She recalled: “It was like getting nursed back to health or something.”⁠[2]

In the same period she toured with Sufjan Stevens and John Vanderslice and became a member of Sufjan Stevens’s band.⁠[2][4]

On July 10, 2007, she released her debut album, Marry Me, as St. Vincent on Beggars Banquet; the album was finished before she met with labels, and Capitol Records was among the companies that courted her.⁠[2]

On September 13, 2011, she released her third album, Strange Mercy, made with producer and engineer John Congleton and following Marry Me and Actor. It peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard 200, her first album to reach the top 20.⁠[5][1]

At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards her self-titled album, St. Vincent, won Best Alternative Music Album, her first Grammy; the album had peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard 200.⁠[1][6]

In April 2016 Magnet Releasing and XYZ Films announced that Clark would make her directorial debut with a segment of XX, a horror anthology film directed entirely by women; Roxanne Benjamin co-wrote and produced her segment.⁠[7]

The same year she debuted a signature guitar with Ernie Ball Music Man.⁠[1]

On October 13, 2017, she released MASSEDUCTION through Loma Vista, including the earlier single “New York” and featuring Kamasi Washington and Jenny Lewis among others. It debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 with 29,000 equivalent album units, her first top 10 on the chart.⁠[8][6]

At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards “Masseduction,” written with Jack Antonoff, won Best Rock Song, and the album MASSEDUCTION was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album.⁠[1]

Clark co-wrote and starred in The Nowhere Inn with Carrie Brownstein, a metafictional mockumentary directed by Bill Benz about the pair’s attempt to make a documentary on St. Vincent’s tour. It premiered in the Midnight section of the Sundance Film Festival in 2020, and IFC Films acquired its North American rights in March 2021.⁠[9]

In February 2021 she teased her next album with street posters and a telephone hotline; her sixth studio album, Daddy’s Home, was released through Loma Vista on May 14, 2021, with “Pay Your Way in Pain” as its first single.⁠[10]

Looking back on the album, she said she had needed to “become the music my father loved in the hope it would heal me.”⁠[11]

At the 64th Annual Grammy Awards Daddy’s Home won Best Alternative Music Album.⁠[1]

Her seventh studio album, All Born Screaming, was the first she produced entirely herself, having co-produced all of her previous records. Dave Grohl played drums on “Broken Man” and “Flea,” and Cate Le Bon contributed the bass part on the title track. She called it “my least funny record.”⁠[11]

At the 67th Annual Grammy Awards on February 2, 2025, she won Best Rock Song for “Broken Man,” Best Alternative Music Performance for “Flea” and Best Alternative Music Album for All Born Screaming, while “Broken Man” was also nominated for Best Rock Performance. That brought her total to six Grammy wins from eight nominations.⁠[3][1]

St. Vincent Official Online Store: Official website: https://ilovestvincent.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[12]

X: Public account: https://x.com/st_vincent (opens in a new window).⁠[12]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/@St.Vincent (opens in a new window).⁠[12]