It’s St. Vincent (who despite the name is female), in this video for her song “Actor Out of Work”:
I tell you what, when she opens her mouth wide, it looks like her jaw dislocates and moves forward, like a snake. It really just scares the crap out of me, it does. I think I may be in love.
Creepy indeed, but in a good way.
Song sucks, though. A shame.
You’re right. It looks like she’s getting ready to suck down some incorporeal part of me, down into her innards where it will join a horrible choir.
Gah.
Amanda Palmer’s mouth extension is much more extreme, and her song is much better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlJ9z_LowBI
Her intensity makes sense when you know some of Annie Clark’s background. Three years of playing with the Polyphonic Spree will throw anyone off-base.
too much strange jaw tension and extension to be sure…
which is odd because from the same thing I also figure the woman has to have had a good bit of vocal training from it at the same time… Like maybe she kept her jaw too clinched in the past and now is trying for the opposite extreme?
So freaky to me even simply from a vocal pedagogy kind of perspective….
The snake-like jaw was mildly disturbing; the reactions of the putative would-be actors… was *really* disturbing, at least to me.
NEXT!
Poor Scalzi was born a few generations too late to be goth.
Are the people who hate this song listening to the same thing as me? Annie Clark is awesome. (and yes, scary mouth).
Also, the critics seem to rather like this album:
http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/stvincent/actor
That trait could come in handy, though.
@10: Exactly. Those guinea pigs ain’t gonna eat themselves.
I totally dig this song, despite the fact that her jaw is not entirely human. All of the songs I’ve heard from her so far lack some aspect of pop music mechanics which can make them a bit weird to hear the first time.
@7 DmL: Well I’m the same age as Scalzi and while I wasn’t goth I had and have plenty of goth friends. The 80′s was where goth began.
Oh and this lady is not even remotely goth.
Dispariging Annie Clark makes Fake Brad Pitt and Fake William Shatner cry.
The song and her singing remind me of some of Yoko Ono’s tracks on Double Fantasy. Feel free to interpret that however you will.
I didn’t think the jaw was really that odd. Seriously. She did open her mouth wider than your average singer, but not so wide as to register on the creepiness scale.
Maybe Scalzi is doing an “emperor’s new clothes” deal and just seeing how many of his readers are sheep that jump on whatever bandwagon Scalzi’s driving…
It’s like the entire neighborhood of Williamsburg has taken human form to snap its hungry chops at my soul.
Yeah… that was creepy to watch, which is a shame because when she closes her mouth she’s a pretty girl.
Also, the song did kind of suck, unfortunately. You could hardly hear her voice.
Maybe it’s the combination of a *really* wide mouth plus big, wide eyes?
Did I miss something? I was expecting her to lunge forward and snap one of the actor’s heads off the way John was talking.
I was too busy being jealous of her looks to actually pay attention to anything else. Sorry.
I’ve always been jealous of people that can cry on cue. I can’t even cry when it’s appropriate.
Can you imagine the potential for awkward humor if you could just start balling in front of people? HILARIOUS!
The emotionless expression doesn’t help either.