June 24th, 2020

St. Vincent - Masseducation

Each month we take a look at a classic track or album and discuss it from a music production perspective, examining any interesting techniques that took place during its recording. This month we dig into the recording process behind St. Vincent's Masseducation. 

Released in 2017, this was the artist's first Billboard top-10 album and it went on to pick up two Grammy Awards. St. Vincent (real name Annie Clark) co-produced the album with Jack Antonoff – the producer being just one of a large cast of collaborators that Clark brought on board for the recording sessions. 

One of the most intriguing aspects of the Masseducation recording process is the way Clark used these disparate musicians on her songs – encouraging them to be individualistic, while somehow always ensuring that their performances remained in the service of a cohesive creative vision. A great example of this process can be found on the song 'Savior'. 

After going through numerous iterations of the song across various demos on her own, Clark brought John Congleton in to do some additional production on a more developed demo. She explains her extensive demo-ing process like this 'I do go through a lot of iterations in the demo process, 'cause the song will tell you what it wants to be. You can tell when it's wearing ill-fitting clothes. It's like, 'Please get me out of this weird Spock turtleneck. I wanna be in a fancy suit.''

This advanced demo was then played to Antonoff who made various suggestions about arrangement, before adding his own production to the track. Clark then had Pino Palladino come in to play bass, Greg Leisz added pedal steel and Bobby Sparks played a keyboard solo towards the end of the track. Clark also brought in her aunt and uncle, jazz duo Tuck and Patti to play on the song; 'Tuck played guitar over the whole track and just played his feelings, basically. Patti sang the backgrounds. I had her sing them super low; her voice just sounds so cool down there.'

Clark's approach with virtuoso musicians is to let them take risks with their performances; 'Player-players, if they think they're just coming in for a straight-up pop session, they might have the idea that they're supposed to play it safe. No, don't play it safe. Go for it, and then we'll steer it the way it needs to go. I'm down to be pleasantly surprised. If you stay so doggedly attached to your first idea of what something is, then you miss the fun of the process.' Much of Masseducation's charm comes from its quirks and many of these must be down to the creative input of Clark's collaborators. Of course it's vital in that situation that  someone retains an overarching creative vision – and this album provides evidence that St. Vincent clearly excels in that role.


Comments:


View all comments
profile
Fred Caceres
Jun 25, 2020
I find some distortion. very little, though.
profile
Leigh #111
Jun 25, 2020
Yes I love the production but I'll say it; I'm bummed that the most popular artist's are propped up by production teams. I see it as some what cheating the audience of the artist's real abilities. I know, I know, but I do wonder how they would sound if they had to do it all themselves, still at this level of fame? Would they even have a career if that were the case? Edit: Or a better way to put it is, would they be the mega stars that they are now? I do wonder Edit: But dang I'm listening to Halsey and the production is sooooo good. Wow! Prob wouldn't have this high of production value in the world if it weren't for production teams. So I'll shut up now.
profile
Salman Alqadhibi
Jun 25, 2020
that bass is intense!

Login to comment on this post