#fanute

First, let me be clear. St. Vincent does, in fact, spit hot fire. I own all three of her albums. I unknowingly was listening to her do background vocals and instrumental work for Sufjan Stevens and secret Christian Fundamentalist art infiltration experiment The Polyphonic Spree. It's possible that you, dear reader, do not know what it means for one to spit hot fire. You should. In 2012, the old lines that once kept different varieties of "ethnic" slang from entering the mainstream have given way to a great digital melting pot fired by irony and hipster racism. No, we live in a world where French Montana's usage (or non-usage) of the word fanute in this summer's "Stay Schemin'" travels from a sketchy mix tape blog, to Grantland.com, to the pages of The New York Times within a matter of days.

The concept of "St. Vincent Spits Hot Fire" takes advantage of this hard earned, insensitive, but comfy cultural milieu. I thought of this blog when I noticed the incredible number of random mix tapes Pitchfork.com had begun to review recently. And by recently I mean 2-4 years ago when the idea of IIWL was first birthed. Being familiar with the conventions of both "indie music criticism" and "urban music criticism," I saw this as an excellent opportunity to flip the situation on its head. Rather than wax eloquent about the works of Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame in the voice of some skinny jeans-clad hipsters from [Insert wherever the hipsters live in Chicago here], what if I were to discuss the newest entry in secret (?) Christian fundamentalist Annie Clark's catalogue in the voice of a 14 year old urban teen/tween? There is a lot of potential for a blog of this kind to "get racist," but I would argue that it would be no more or less racist than the drivel Pitchfork puts out whenever it dissects a rap EP.

The style, as envisioned:

St. Vincent - "Strange Mercy"

Track 4: "Surgeon"

This track opens with some kind of chanting/humming that I would compare to the mysterious religious services Vinny attends 2-3 times a week, but she knows the Williamsburg 18-24s wouldn't be okay with that--what with the sharing of dope needles and eating heirloom tomatoes and such. Cut to the chase, this is a song about her being unemployed (musicians are freelancers, right? That means unemployed) and banging a mess of sketchy dudes one summer. Then she does some psychedelic riffing on a guitar to remind you that she isn't Katy Perry. 8/10

Track 5: Northern Lights

This is the "I bet I can get this on the radio," track of the album, but she's St. Vincent so this most definitely will not get on the radio. Instead it's just going to sit here in the middle of your album reminding us all that, contrary to popular belief, you are willing to sacrifice your art a little bit for the paper. Still cute though. 7.18/10