The Singles Jukebox

ANNIE CLARK SMASH!

[Video][Website]
[6.33]

Jer Fairall: I won’t hold against St. Vincent the crushing “irony” imposed by her more ardent critics that celebrate her presentation as a Disney sprite laced through with menace (signified here with the intermittent stabs of anguished bass snarls) because, for all I know, this was a designation arrived to by someone glancing at her picture while hearing a few snippets of her weird yet distinctly “feminine” music. What I will hold against her is the crushing irony of giving a track this plodding and joyless the hipster-baiting title “Cheerleader,” for assuming that such banalities as “I’ve seen America with no clothes on” signifies something trenchant, and for essentially doing 80s Jane Siberry with less playfulness and incandescent pop sparkle, and (though again, not her fault) to much more critical attention.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: For once, it makes total sense St. Vincent’s on 4AD. Apart from the unmoored, dreamy chorus and skewed/skewered coquetry, this could be off Kristin Hersh’s Sunny Border Blue. The guitar scrapes and the melody’s diffident like “37 Hours,” the stuttered “I-I-I-I” is imported from “Spain,” and the outro might as well be a Muses lyric. It’s not a copy, perfect or otherwise; nor is it “Surgeon.” But that comparison, from me, will never be an insult.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: My favorite St. Vincent songs all have multiple ideas fighting each other for dominance; this one is almost bleak in its simplicity, from the unified strum-stomp of the arrangement to the repetitious verses, lines, and even syllables. It sounds like what you’d get if someone described pop music to an art musician but they’d never actually heard any: rhythm without funk, repetition without release, provocation without intent.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Although I can’t imagine a situation in which I’d listen to this art-pop again, it’s compelling: Ally Sheedy imagining life for a day as Molly Ringwald. Tom Waits (underwater with a Chamberlain), Polly Jean Harvey (caressed vowels and role playing), and TV on the Radio (moving in half time) are the referents, so you’re warned. Rhythmically it’s — well, what rhythm? Which, I suppose, is the point.
[6]

John Seroff: I’ve tried, really tried, but St. Vincent consistently underwhelms for me and “Cheerleader” follows suit.  The video takes a cue from the photorealistic sculpture of Ron Mueck but saps all the subtlety; the song reminds me that what I like about PJ Harvey is that she hardly ever grumbles.  Both video and song are passive, neither rise beyond their first idea.
[4]

Iain Mew: The verses present a series of ambiguous or contradictory situations and actions with a certain dispassionate distance, Annie Clark not really letting on to either guilt or pleasure from her actions. Then the chorus disturbs the reverie, the guitar bursts digging in with each repetition of “I-I-I-I” like she’s gradually pulling herself out of a trap, the track musically opening out to express the freedom that she’s found from doing so. While I’ve enjoyed the song since first hearing Strange Mercy, I’ve previously seen the urge to escape of the chorus in very vague terms, the choice of the word “Cheerleader” almost an irrelevance, reinforced by its interchangeability with “dirt eater”. Now the stunning video, with the public gawking at St. Vincent the museum exhibit, has fundamentally changed that. After watching I can’t help but think of “Cheerleader” as a more important choice of word and of the song as being about being watched and perceived in a certain way that doesn’t leave space for ambiguities – perhaps as someone that smiles and puts themselves on show and is a one dimensional character. The chorus now feels much more specifically like a fight against the ambiguities and experiences of the verses not being acknowledged, about yearning to be free from a role being enforced specifically by others. As a result, the song is affecting anew in a slightly different way.
[8]

Michaela Drapes: I’m fixated on the existential filth of this tiny melodrama, from the early line “pouring my purse in the dirt” to the penultimate bit of the coda: “don’t wanna be your dirt-eater no more” to the swirling, heaving dustdevil guitars. This is the kind of song that only does me good in hindsight. Where was this when I needed this kind of bolstering? Where was Annie Clark when I needed to be told not to debase myself for the weak and empty love of another?
[9]

Brad Shoup: For me to get into the refrain’s conceit, I have to dig past the boring high-school connotation. It’s a lot easier with the woozy crawl of the arrangement, the dull thumps that lead into her statement of purpose. Though funkless, especially compared to “Surgeon,” there’s an uneasiness that reminds me of early TV on the Radio. Tracks like these get me thinking about bruises, and I swear I’m seeing every synth zip and baritone backing vocal in blue and purple.  
[9]

Anthony Easton: I would like to be a cheerleader, but I am too big and too old. (Maybe I can just model my life on Kirsten Dunst in Bring It On instead?) I could do without being a dirt eater though; that sounds confusing and not very fun.
[4]