With her literate, emotionally intricate songwriting and inventive guitar playing, St. Vincent's Annie Clark excels at subverting rock and pop conventions. A Berklee School of Music student inspired to learn the guitar because she loved grunge acts like Nirvana and Soundgarden, she introduced her genre-bending approach on 2007's Marry Me, which fused elements of indie, rock, electronic, and jazz in surprising ways. From there, her increasingly ambitious albums brought the scope of her music into clearer focus, and she achieved a rare balance of critical and commercial success as the years passed: Clark made her Billboard debut with 2009's Actor; became the first solo female artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album in 20 years with 2014's St. Vincent; and cracked the Billboard Top 10 with the anti-pop of 2017's Grammy-winning MASSEDUCTION.nn St. Vincent was born Annie Erin Clark on September 28, 1982 in Tulsa, Oklahoma and spent most of her childhood in Dallas, Texas. She began playing guitar at the age of 12, and picked up some valuable lessons on the life of a touring musician as a teenager when she joined her uncle Tuck Andress on the road with his popular jazz duo Tuck & Patti. After graduating from high school in 2001, she studied at the prestigious Berklee School of Music, and recorded a self-released, three-song EP with fellow students in 2003, Ratsliveonnoevilstar. In 2004, Clark left Berklee and joined the extra-large Baroque pop group the Polyphonic Spree as a guitarist and a singer; she toured with the band, and appeared on the sessions for their 2007 album The Fragile Army. In 2004, Clark briefly worked with another unusually large group, performing with Glenn Branca's 100 Guitar Orchestra for a recording of one of his avant-garde symphonies. In 2006, she left the Polyphonic Spree and joined the backing band of like-minded pop composer Sufjan Stevens. She recorded a three-song EP to sell at her shows with Stevens, on which she adopted the name St. Vincent (inspired by her grandmother as well as the New York hospital where poet Dylan Thomas breathed his last.) In 2007, St. Vincent stepped out on her own and signed a deal with Beggars Banquet, which released her first full-length album, Marry Me. It was well-received by critics, and in 2009, she moved to the celebrated British independent label 4AD for her second album. Teaming with producer John Congleton, St. Vincent's sophomore effort, Actor, was a musical and lyrical step forward from her debut. Strong reviews, coupled with St. Vincent's impressive live performances, helped it rise to number 90 on the Billboard Top 200 album charts. In addition to her busy touring schedule, she found time to make guest appearances on albums by the Mountain Goats and the New Pornographers. In 2011, she appeared at a special concert paying homage to the pioneering indie rock bands chronicled in Michael Azerrad's book Our Band Could Be Your Life, where she performed a striking version of Big Black's "Kerosene" that earned praise from group founder Steve Albini. Early in 2011, she reunited with producer Congleton, and the third St. Vincent album, Strange Mercy, was released in September 2011.nn The following year, she collaborated with Talking Heads musician David Byrne after the two met at Radio City Music Hall in New York City for AIDS/HIV charity Dark Was the Night's benefit concert in 2009. The initial plan was to play a one-off show together; however, after the pair began to trade ideas, the project snowballed into a full album. They incorporated horns into the sound and traded lyrics via email until Love This Giant was realized and released in 2012. St. Vincent spent much of that year and 2013 touring in support of the project, which was a critical and commercial success. Late in 2013, she began work on her fourth album, once again working with Congleton. St. Vincent, which boasted some of her most accessible songwriting and challenging sounds, appeared in early 2014. That April, Clark fronted a reunited Nirvana at the 29th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, performing "Lithium" with the band. In February 2015, St. Vincent won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album, making Clark the first solo female artist to win that award in 20 years. Later that year, she appeared on the Chemical Brothers' album Born in the Echoes. In 2016, she contributed a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Emotional Rescue" to the soundtrack of A Bigger Splash, directed a segment of XX, a horror anthology film featuring all-female directors, and designed a signature Music Man guitar for Ernie Ball. She became the first female ambassador for Record Store Day in 2017, and later that year released her fifth album, MASSEDUCTION, which she recorded with co-producer Jack Antonoff in New York and Los Angeles. The album also included such collaborators as Kamasi Washington, Jenny Lewis, Tuck & Patti, Doveman, and Cara Delevingne. The album debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200 and earned widespread acclaim. In October 2018, St. Vincent released MassEducation, a reimagining of MassEducation songs featuring Clark on vocals and Thomas Bartlett on piano. In early 2019, the era was capped with a win at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, where Clark not only performed a smoldering duet with Dua Lipa, but also took home Best Rock Song for "MassEducation." ~ Mark Deming