St. Vincent was born Annie Erin Clark on September 28, 1982 in Tulsa, Oklahoma and spent most of her childhood in Dallas, Texas. She began playing guitar at the age of 12, and picked up some valuable lessons on the life of a touring musician as a teenager when she joined her uncle Tuck Andress on the road with his popular jazz duo Tuck & Patti. After graduating from high school in 2001, she studied at the prestigious Berklee School of Music, and recorded a self-released, three-song EP with fellow students in 2003, titled Ratsliveonnoevilstar. In 2004, Clark left Berklee and joined the extra-large Baroque pop group the Polyphonic Spree as a guitarist and a singer; she toured with the band, and appeared on the sessions for their 2007 album The Fragile Army. In 2004, Clark briefly worked with another unusually large group, performing with Glenn Branca’s 100 Guitar Orchestra for a recording of one of his avant-garde symphonies. In 2006, she left the Polyphonic Spree and joined the backing band of like-minded pop composer Sufjan Stevens. She recorded a three-song EP to sell at her shows with Stevens, on which she adopted the name St. Vincent (inspired by her grandmother as well as the New York hospital where poet Dylan Thomas breathed his last.)

In 2007, St. Vincent stepped out on her own and signed a deal with Beggars Banquet, which released her first full-length album, Marry Me. It was well received by critics, and in 2009, she moved to the celebrated British independent label 4AD for her second album. Teaming with producer John Congleton, St. Vincent’s sophomore effort, Actor, was a musical and lyrical step forward from her debut, and strong reviews, coupled with St. Vincent’s impressive live performances, helped the album rise from the indie ranks to the mainstream charts. In addition to her busy touring schedule, she found time to make guest appearances on albums by the Mountain Goats and the New Pornographers, and in 2011, she appeared at a special concert paying homage to the pioneering indie rock bands chronicled in Michael Azerrad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life, where she performed a striking version of Big Black’s “Kerosene” that earned praise from group founder Steve Albini. In the spring of 2011, she was reunited in the studio with producer Congleton, and the third St. Vincent album, Strange Mercy, was released in September 2011.

The following year, she collaborated with Talking Headsmusician David Byrne after the two met at Radio City Music Hall in New York City for AIDS/HIV charity Dark Was the Night’s benefit concert in 2009. The initial plan was to play a one-off show together; however, after the pair began to trade ideas, the project snowballed into a full album. They incorporated horns into the sound and traded lyrics via e-mail until Love This Giant was realized and released in 2012. St. Vincent spent much of that year and 2013 touring in support of the project, which was a critical and commercial success. Late in 2013, she began work on her fourth album, once again working with Congleton. St. Vincent, which boasted some of her most accessible songwriting and challenging sounds, appeared in early 2014.

In 2015, she appeared on the Chemical Brothers’ album Born in the Echoes, and in 2016, she contributed a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Emotional Rescue” to the soundtrack of A Bigger Splash, and she directed a segment of XX, a horror anthology film featuring all-female directors. She became the first female ambassador for Record Store Day in 2017, and later that year released her fifth album, Masseduction, which she recorded with co-producer Jack Antonoff in New York and Los Angeles. The album also included such collaborators as Kamasi Washington, Jenny Lewis, Tuck & Patti, Doveman, and Cara Delevingne.