St. Vincent - Digital Witness Track Review

I just listened to St. Vincent's new LP and it is awesome. Some distinctly political flare here: exemplary is the second single from the album, "Digital Witness." Annie, the songwriter/main performer of St. Vincent, clearly understands the disquieting toll that social media and the "selfie" culture of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al. takes on a society in desperate need of change. In a recent interview with Quietus, Annie explains,

"Anything that knows it is being watched changes its behavior. We are now so accustomed to documenting ourselves and so aware that we are being watched and I think psychologically that takes a strange toll, which is going to show itself more and more as we progress. In some cases, we have this total connectivity via the internet, but if we are not careful, it can actually disconnect us more than we know. I’m curious as to what that is going to lead to… It’s the fact that we cannot just have a meal – a nice, quiet, private meal – and that we have to take a picture of the food and put it on Instagram and make sure we get a round of tiny applause, and then maybe make a Facebook post about how good we feel afterwards, and then go on Yelp and recommend the restaurant, makes this a strange time we are living in. I’m not arguing to be a Luddite or anything like that, I’m just asking the questions about, 'Where are we now?' and 'Where are we going?'"

"Digital Witness" explores this topic. Cf. the last chorus:

"Digital witnesses, what's the point of even sleeping?
If I can't show it, you can't see me?
What's the point of doing anything?
What's the point of even sleeping?
So, I stopped sleeping, yeah I stopped sleeping
Won't somebody sell me back to me?"

It's also interesting that, though the choruses are intoned from the position of a subject interpellated by ideology, the verses are actually intoned from what seems to be the non-existent super-egoic position of ideology itself. The call of the dis-embodied voice here is "I want all of your mind." I adore this detail.

As far as the music goes - we get some ultra-catchy horns with a well placed unison melody of Annie's voice and synth throughout. More to the point, this thing grooves. I really have nothing much bad to say about it. Perhaps the vocals aren't the best ever - but I'm not too concerned with that, there are some very difficult intervals to hit in the melody. Give this song a listen or twenty.

She can do no wrong:

9.5/10