St. Vincent

Success didn't come overnight for Annie Clark. The Berklee dropout spent time playing with The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens' backing band before attempting to make it as a solo artist, adopting her stage name from the New York hospital where poet Dylan Thomas died in 1953. If the first St. Vincent album won some admirers, it wasn't until sophomore effort Actor that Clark began to attract a wider audience – one which broadened yet further with the release of Strange Mercy to almost universal acclaim in 2011. One of the year's best records, it's as musically inventive as it is lyrically complex, making the inevitable Kate Bush comparisons sound like more than just lazy journalism – St. Vincent's music really is that good.