Half a year after releasing her seventh album, All Born Screaming, St. Vincent has recut the vocals entirely in Spanish for a re-release titled Todos Nacen Gritando. The first single is a rendition of “Broken Man,” retitled “Hombre Roto,” which maintains the anglophone version’s desperation and panic. The whole album will come out on Nov. 15.
The artist, whose real name is Annie Clark, worked with the Spanish translations of each track with Alan Del Rio Ortiz, whom she calls her best friend. Ortiz is a filmmaker who’s directed music videos for Ice Cube, Elle Fanning, Maggie Rogers, and Fetty Wap.
“The origins of Todos Nacen Gritando can be traced back to some of the most memorable shows I’ve ever played, in Mexico, South America and recently Primavera Barcelona in 2023,” Clark explained in a statement. “Though separated by time and geography, and across a diverse range of settings and venues, these crowds were united in their passion — singing every word to every song in perfect English. It was truly inspiring.
“Eventually, I asked myself: If they can sing along in a second or third language, why can’t I meet them halfway?” she continued. “So I enlisted my best friend and occasional collaborator Alan Del Rio Ortiz to work on translating these lyrics, tweaking here and there for melodic reasons, making every effort to stay true to the song at hand without sacrificing accuracy. After much rewriting and re-singing every vocal track on the album, the result is Todos Nacen Gritando, equal parts labor of love and tribute to the people who inspired it.”
The album notably isn’t the first time St. Vincent has reworked one of her records. In 2018, she put out MassEducation, quieter, piano-focused versions of the songs on her Masseduction LP released the previous year.
Also notable is how Todos Nacen Gritando continues a tradition of artists releasing anglophone albums and then putting out versions of the same songs entirely in Spanish. Over the years, Sting, David Lee Roth, and Christina Aguilera have all re-released records in Spanish, and in 1999, Phil Collins re-sang his Tarzan soundtrack in Spanish (as well as French, German, and Italian). In 2021, Elvis Costello produced a compilation of every song from his This Year’s Model album sung in Spanish by Juanes, Luis Fonsi, and others.
A Spanish-language album is a way for her to open up even more than she already did on the album. Earlier this year, Clark told Rolling Stone how she concealed her identity less in the songs on All Born Screaming. “In past records, I’ve been very interested in the idea of persona and iconography,” she said. “I realized I’ve done that in my work because I’m queer. I’ve known that gender is performance since I was a child. But this record isn’t about persona or identity. It’s just about, like, life and death and love, and how in some ways life is impossible but we get to live it.”
Todos Nacen Gritando track list:
1. “El Infierno Esta’ Cerca”
2. “Salvaje “
3. “Hombre Roto “
4. “Pulga “
5. “El Mero Cero “
6. “Tiempos Violentos”
7. “Se Fue La Luz “
8. “La Fruta Mas Dulce”
9. “Tantos Planetas “
10. “Todos Nacen Gritando” (presentando Cate Le Bon)
