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Zero 7
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
Actor
Universal acclaim
Based on 27 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 29 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: 4AD
Release Date: 05 May 2009
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Rock, Indie
Summary
Annie Clark's second album was produced with John Congleton.
Also By This Artist: Marry Me
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Delusions of Adequacy
With engaging songwriting, creative instrumentation and melodically special music, not only is Actor everything we imagined it would be but Clark has redefined the definition of pop music.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
Actor is a uniquely potent cocktail of sounds and moods that'll get you hooked, fast.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
Mostly, as Actor demonstrates, St. Vincent has found her own voice--and it’s one you wouldn’t want reading your kids any bedtime stories.
Read Full Review >Slant Magazine
Her voice seems small and fragile, but it's her most effective instrument, and it affixes a tight lynchpin to the album's broadly creative themes, leaving it glistening with ghostly elegance.
Read Full Review >Dot Music
Everything is that much thicker, more weathered, generously exaggerated and significantly less innocent. It pays increasing attention to composition and classy song structures and yet more to pulling them apart and lassoing passing listeners with the strands.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
With that in mind, the album is perfectly titled, as Actor proves St. Vincent as an artist capable of crafting believable, complicated characters with compassion, insight, and exacting skill.
Read Full Review >cokemachineglow
Like an unsettling dream, Actor will stay with you for quite a while, but it isn’t listeners or critics that will be discomfited by the eccentric sophistication here.
Read Full Review >Filter
To put it plainly, Actor is St. Vincent's doe-eyed awakening. [Spring 2009, p.94]
Billboard
It's the detail and charm listeners have come to expect mixed with these welcome surprises that keep Actor exciting.
Read Full Review >Uncut
A stunningly audacious second album, inspired equally by prime Prince and film soundtracks, and reminiscent of Jane Siberry's prog-pop ambition circa "The Walking." [Jun 2009, p.103]
All Music Guide
This is some of Saint Vincent's most complicated music, but its fearless creativity rewards repeated listening, as Clark has few rivals when it comes to seducing ears and challenging minds at the same time.
Read Full Review >Blender
Her second album is rowdier and less well-behaved, and thus better, although the template is the same: breathy coos and lush strings intermittently blown apart by distorted guitar blasts.
Read Full Review >musicOMH.com
On first listen it feels like the musical equivalent of doodling a massive cock-and-balls on a Rembrandt, but eventually this reveals itself as the first moment of compositional brilliance on an album packed full of them.
Read Full Review >No Ripcord
Quite eponymously, the album is a grand performance, and one whose stagecraft is the sole work of a brilliant ringmaster in Clark.
Read Full Review >Spin
She's always juxtaposed the cruel and the kind, and here, the baroque arrangements are even more complex and her voice even prettier, with both only underlining the dark currents running through her songs.
Read Full Review >Tiny Mix Tapes
While Actor’s best moments may not reach the same high points as Marry Me’s, it’s an even more cohesive effort, and one that I haven’t tired of after countless listens.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe
You won't glean much more about those people and places than you knew going in, but Clark's strange angles and fanciful settings pack a visceral punch.
Read Full Review >Sputnikmusic
Between the organic and artificial sounds found in Actor, St. Vincent’s voice melts the two clashing styles into a divinely pleasurable experience.
Read Full Review >Drowned In Sound
For all the darkness of Actor's concerns, however, it remains an exceptionally pleasurable album to listen to.
Read Full Review >Paste Magazine
Here, Clark’s lyrics are less overtly clever than on her debut, and they’re more deeply buried in layers of her spastic instrumentation. Nonetheless, they suggest a subtle, abstract intelligence.
Read Full Review >PopMatters
What’s surprising is just how nuanced that performance is, because Actor marks no huge departures her work on Marry Me, but it still manages to constantly surprise, always meshing the earthen with the industrial in strange and compelling ways.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
Beneath the plushness of her terrific second album there are drolleries, black humor, a cosmopolitan's jaundiced take on romance.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle
A few songs could slim down, but the star gets in and out of her dream sequences seamlessly, already thinking of her next line.
Read Full Review >Observer Music Monthly
Those with the patience for deft songwriting willl want to wait for her.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
Occasionally it drifts a little too aimlessly, as if recorded under the dulling influence of Prozac, but when she gets it right, she can be entirely, weirdly riveting. [Jun 2009, p.131]
New Musical Express
Though less immediate than debut "Marry Me," Actor is full of charm, picking its way through disorienting rhythm changes and peculiar progressions.
Read Full Review >Under The Radar
When dissected, there's brilliance to be found in the instrumentation, but it's numbing to listen to the tracks in succession because their most striking quality is ornamentation. [Spring 2009, p.68]
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 29 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Yema gave it a10:
I can't believe this doesn't have a higher metacritic rating. The critics who gave it scores as low as 60 are wrong! I can listen to this album the whole way through and it never gets old. Truly a masterpiece and it deserves to be in every Top 10 list this year!
Blue Meanie gave it a9:
Ignore the cover. It's studiously naive like a Talking Heads photo. Like them, this is revolutionized pop as well. Way better than what I expected.
Simon D. gave it a10:
Perhaps the most spot-on pop album of the decade. I agree with the commenter who called it visionary: Annie Clark is redefining what pop music should be. Truly, truly stunning.
Aaron gave it a10:
This record deserves a top 5 position on most critics end of year lists for sure.
Danny T gave it a10:
Brilliance. Visionary.
Aidan W gave it a9:
Great from start to finish. A great synthesis of late 80s indie rock and St. Vincent's own energy. Varied, and captivating!
Yema L gave it a10:
An amazing album that gets better every time you listen to it. I can't stop listening!
