How St. Vincent turned her 'dirtbag' New York years into her third Grammy nomination

Annie Clark of St. Vincent was as surprised as anyone about being briefly nominated for a 2022 Album of the Year Grammy, as a co-writer on Olivia Rodrigo's Sour.

"You know, it didn't occur to me until I was chatting with my friend [and producer] Jack Antonoff," Clark says in a special Grammys edition of EW's The Awardist podcast. (The 39-year-old singer and guitarist was a last-minute addition to the Sour credits due to Rodrigo's supposed interpolation of Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer," a song Clark co-wrote with Swift and Antonoff.) Alas, a week after the announcement, the Recording Academy admitted it had made a mistake and promptly dropped the trio from the nominations list due to being "songwriters of an interpolated track."

Anyway, Clark is more than content with the recognition she received elsewhere: in the Best Alternative Album category, for the grimy-glitzy Daddy's Home, an album partially inspired by her father's time behind bars and Clark's time living in New York City. "I lived a lot of dirtbag years in New York," she says. "There's a memory in every street: 'Oh, I fell in love on that corner, I was absolutely shattered drunk on that corner, I got broken up with on that corner.' I still have a very romantic notion of it."

The nod marks St. Vincent's third overall and second for Best Alternative Album, which she won in 2015 for her genre-bending LP St. Vincent. Clark was keen to note how proud she was of being recognized — a notable comment in an era when some major artists are staying far away from the annual awards show.

"I think what maybe the public doesn't know about the Grammys is it's not a popular vote," she says. "It's engineers, it's producers, it's songwriters, it's arrangers, it's composers. I think it's nice to be recognized by your peers who know a thing or two about the craft and are all doing the same hustle every day."

Daddy's Home is out now. Listen to the full interview on EW's The Awardist podcast below or available wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe for new episodes every Thursday. The Grammys will air Jan. 31 on CBS.

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Related content:

• St. Vincent on her bold new album: 'I'm the daddy now'
• See the full list of 2022 Grammy Award nominations
• Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, and St. Vincent lose Album of the Year Grammy nom for Olivia Rodrigo's Sour