St. Vincent - Daddy’s Home Review
On Daddy’s Home, St. Vincent expertly wears her influences on her sleeve for one of the finest albums of 2021 — perhaps even St. Vincent’s best.
On her 7th album, St. Vincent’s Annie Erin Clark shares her most confessional and introspective album to date. While her last album MASSEDUCTION felt at times underwhelming and lacklustre, Daddy’s Home feels like a return to form. Clark is at her most nostalgic on this record, looking back and examining her relationship with her father. Taking influence from her father’s 70s record collection (Pink Floyd, Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder), the album parallels the “grittier, more nihilistic, more ‘dirt under the fingernails’ vibe” that came after the 60s.
The introspective nature of this record comes on the back end of her father returning from prison, where he spent 12 years locked up for his involvement in a multi-million-dollar stock manipulation scheme. Daddy’s Home also speaks of motherhood and the expectations and vilification that come with it. This is the first St. Vincent album to truly feel dripping with nostalgia and to excellent effect. Clark effortlessly combines influences from soul, funk, disco, psychedelic pop and rock with a refreshing level of detail in the production.
The album opens to ‘Pay Your Way In Pain’ with clunky honky-tonk pianos and thumping synths. Lyrically, Clark declares “So I went to the park just to watch the little children, The mothers saw my heels and they said I wasn't welcome” the first of many lyrics on this record giving us an insight Clark’s personal experiences as a woman in relation to motherhood. The second track on the album brings in some smooth slinky bass and trippy sitar solos, building gradually, exhibiting space and intimacy. Towards the second chorus, we’re gifted with heavenly gospel vocals provided by Lynne Fiddmont and Kenya Hathaway. There’s euphoria in this track that flows throughout this record; she’s never explicitly making a grand statement, yet always earnestly leaving you with a sense of necessity.
‘Daddy’s Home’, the title track, is yet another fun and incredibly engaging number. The chorus has a playfulness to it, with its underwater-sounding production and sticky guitar riffs. The vocals on the track are equally haunting, creating a bizarrely weird yet wonderful atmosphere. Atmosphere is the key, here, as ‘Live In The Dream’ is honestly like a dream. The music is beautiful. Being the longest track on the record, there’s a magnificence here that really encapsulates what makes this album so captivating, shining a light on Clark’s gorgeous vocal harmonies, epic chord progressions and impeccable arrangement. As the track ends in true Pink Floyd fashion with rising guitars and reverb-drenched keys, you find solace in its minimalist finish.
‘The Melting of the Sun’ was the second single to the album but this is a case where the track fits much more comfortably in an album context than a single context. Clark’s silky vocals glow around a return to the funkier end of the 70s. Though lyrically Clark is still throwing around references to Pink Floyd: ‘Hello, on the dark side of the moon’; not to mention the solo on this track is yet another one to give Gilmour a run for his money. The track sees the return of crisp keys towards the end that soar over the blockbuster chorus melody, really making for a strong moment to conclude an equally strong run of initial tracks.
Following this, we’re hit with the first interlude, titled ‘Humming (Interlude 1)’, a very brief track that seems more like a transmission on some postnuclear radio station that’s not quite there. This quickly dissipates into ‘The Laughing Man’, a track with an ironically more serious tone than those that preceded it. On the chorus, Clark croons ‘If life’s a joke, then I’m dying laughing’, perhaps commenting on the painful irony of just existing and remaining optimistic. The following track ‘Down’ is probably the strongest pop track on the record in a conventional sense. Once the full instrumentation kicks after the initial verse there’s a palpable injection of funk leading us into one of the catchiest choruses of 2021. Its call and response, ‘down, down, down’ panning in and out of your ears, is inescapably enchanting. Following this we’re led into another interlude, ‘Humming (Interlude 2)’ which is a shame given its more forgettable or even unnecessary at this stage of the record than the other interlude. This ends shortly enough, taking us into ‘Somebody Like Me’, yet another gut-wrenching track where there’s a sombre atmosphere, perhaps a yearning for something more.
‘My Baby Wants a Baby’ is a gorgeous display of call and response vocals with a gospel choir to encompass Clark’s mellifluous lead. The horns on this track and forward positive movement in the rhythm highlight this as one of the strongest and most hypnotic tracks on the album, with a real sense of rising momentum to it. Lyrically, Clark returns to the themes of motherhood ‘I wanna run, I wanna run, I wanna chase. The ending I can't see’, reflectively shining a light on her own worries as a musician and as a woman, engaging with how a child would take a lot of that time away from Clark. ‘Candy Darling’ is the penultimate track on the list proper, and functionally the closing number given the actual finale is technically another interlude. While this robs the album of a definitive closer, this track fills the finality niche well enough. The psychedelic lounge pop glows strongest on this track, paying homage to the legendary actress Candy Darling, best known for her work with Andy Warhol. Clark ensures a more optimistic and positive stance on Darling’s untimely passing, picturing Darling pushing forward on a new journey in life.
On Daddy’s Home, St. Vincent expertly wears her influences on her sleeve for one of the finest albums of 2021 — perhaps even St. Vincent’s best. The album is a triumph of stunning deconstructed pop, drenched in nostalgia ranging from Pink Floyd to Stevie Wonder. There’s a great deal of intimacy on this record, with a closeness to the production that gives the whole album underlying warmth. It’s a musical comedown that wanders away from the limelight and avoids making any well-defined assertions, but relentlessly bears a sense of strength that carries throughout. Good music is meant to be euphoric and this album is just that. Glittering with glorious harmonies, saccharine vocal melodies, nods to classic 70s sounds, and a level of self-reflection that has never come across so powerfully for St. Vincent.
