The album that defines New York, according to St Vincent
There are countless songs written about New York. Perhaps more so than any other city in the world, NYC has become a character in itself, gracing albums throughout history as a looming, larger-than-life figure. Whether chewing artists up and spitting them out or representing a kind of main character victory where success sits on every corner, NYC is more than just a setting; it’s a state of mind. Any given person could assign the place their own soundtrack, but for St Vincent, there’s one record that stands out.
Plenty of people would actually pick one of St Vincent’s own songs. On her 2017 album MASSEDUCATION, the musician wrote her own anthem for her adopted home. “New York isn’t New York without you, love,” she sings, dealing with how even the biggest and busiest of cities can shrink to nothing without a certain someone. As she name-drops “First Avenue”, “Eighth Avenue”, or “the Astor” hotel, she plots out her own map of the place in her track.
It’s become a common thing in music as hoards of artists have taken their turn to navigate NYC in their songs. Frank Sinatra wrote the place a big, boisterous theme tune. LCD Soundsystem sang, “New York, I love you, but you’re bringing me down,” to deal with the loneliness of a big city. Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen all put the city into their songs, while the various music scenes that have burst out of the town all carry a piece of it within them.
There is a bounty of songs and LPs that could be considered as defining anthems for the city, but to St Vincent, she gives that crown to a collection of NYC’s leading underground heroes. She picks out You’re the Guy I Want to Share My Money With, a collaboration album by the powerful trio of Laurie Anderson, John Giorno, and William S. Burroughs.
It would be tough to pick anyone cooler or any group of people more representative of New York’s forever-thriving arts scene. All three names represent an utterly multi-modal form of creativity that personally represents the city that never sleeps’ hunger for creativity in all forms, all the time. Laurie Anderson is a musician first, but also an artist and filmmaker and the long-term partner of one of NYC’s most beloved sons, Lou Reed.
John Giorno first got his break within Andy Warhol’s circle, being filmed napping for hours for his infamous film, Sleep. As an artist who buzzed around the Factory scene, it’s tough to get more New York than that. William S. Burroughs also represents a pillar of the city’s history as one of the key names in the Beats movement that originated there.
When you put the three together, it’s like a meeting of the titans bringing together several powerful threads of the city’s artistic history of the 1960s and ‘70s. “The combination of these three people, embodies New York City at a certain time,” St Vincent said.
The 1981 album is lost to history, unavailable on streaming services and only pressed for a limited run that St Vincent managed to get her hands on. She declares the record her “most prized vinyl rarity”. But even that feels incredibly representative of New York at the time, as artists would come together to create something for a small but dedicated audience. This full-length effort came before Anderson had released her own debut record, proving that she’d already been able to build a cultish following within the city, letting her work with artistic legends even as she was in her creative infancy.
As the three multi-disciplinary artists came together for the release, recorded on a joint spoken word tour, the collaborative effort seems to perfectly represent the collective energy that held NYC in the 1960s and ‘70s. With places like the Chelsea Hotel or Max’s Kansas City, there were clear meeting points where the creative crowd would gather, share ideas and work together, helping each other achieve things by working as a unit. For St Vincent, the coming together of these three New York legends captures the city perfectly, both as three individuals and through their dedication to working together.
