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Suzanne Vega

Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega Audio CD

A fair review of the Suzanne Vega "Suzanne Vega" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Suzanne Vega reviews here, or go back to the Suzanne Vega tabs.

Band: Suzanne Vega
Title: Suzanne Vega
Rating:

Release Date: 1993-02-23
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Cracking 2: Freeze Tag 3: Marlene on the Wall 4: Small Blue Thing 5: Straight Lines 6: Undertow 7: Some Journey 8: Queen and the Soldier 9: Knight Moves 10: Neighborhood Girls

Still my favorite after all these years....
I agree on just about everything that has been said except on one major aspect: to my ears, this is not "folk" music and I would not classify her as a "folk" musician. I bought this the year it came out, hearing Marlene on the Wall at the great Chicago progressive rock station WXRT in Chicago. Now I am not a professional music critic but if you listen to this particular album, it sounds almost anti-folk to me. I guess to me the genre "folk" evokes an almost country-pop music structure or formula, and this album does not evoke that. I think "folk" and I think Joan Baez, Indigo Girls, Emmylou Harris, Alison Kraus and maybe even Jewel. But this album to me is so spare, stark, clean-lined, and precise that it's almost in it's own category and I know of no other album by a male or female artist that is close to the overall feel that this album creates.
When you think of folk, you think of the stereotypical country guitar twang, the granola-esqueness, the organic-ness, and emotional sentiments being song. This album is spare, ethereal, clean, sharp, dry, psychological, abstract, and Suzanne sings almost from a more emotionally detached state, observing, commenting poetically an abstractly. Her lyrics are definitely not folk-oriented but rather modern or post-modern, psychological as opposed to emotional, and texture musically is more contructed as opposed to organic. A good example is "Freeze Tag". It's like a poetry slam, rap, jazz song with its syncopated phrasing and crystaline guitarwork. Or listen to Small Blue Thing which musically and lyrically to me is so far removed from being a "folk" song - it's got more in common with Laurie Anderson than say Sheryl Crow.

All the lushness, decorations, and ornamentation have been stripped from the "folk" and you are left with a crisp, beautifully naked, sometimes haunting, sometimes dark, sometimes catharthic, sometimes enlightened, state. Her guitarwork, vocals, pacing, and lyrics all work together to elicit that state (for me).

The small amounts of accompaniment here and there are so intentionally slight and light that they almost sound as if they're ashamed to break-up the crispness of the guitar and of Ms. Vega's vibrato-free voice.

I frankly was quite disappointed when her next work, Solutide Standing, came out. It became too pop and formulaic with too much post-production (at least compared to her debut). Now I love love love SV and I've come to love and admire her other albums of course but this debut to me is the highest and purest distillation of her artistry and soul and the one I still play over and over regularly. I love the spareness, the reliance of her voice and guitar to carry through most of the songs. 20+ years later and this work still sounds like so much like "fresh air". It transcends all the other formulaic productions that other producers and artist seems to follow to sound edgy and "modern" but eventually dates them, too. This album never ever sounded "dated" to me. It always sounds "fresh"
and clear.

I guess a funny analogy I can use is that this album is an aural, emotional, and musical "palette cleanser". I love music of all kinds and much of it is rock, pop, jazz and classical - all multi-layered, loud (usually), formulaic in many cases, and typically overly produced. When I go back to this album it brings me back down to the "basics" and while this album has teeny tiny bits of pop, rock, jazz phrasing, classical, and, yes some - GULP -FOLK(!) in it, it is added in a judicious, conscientious manner - just enough satisfy a well-rounded, music-loving ear. This is an album I would bring to a desert island. Suzanne Vega is thought of the first "modern" "folk" artist that susequently ushered in countless others woman folk guitarists afterwards but I think with this album she transcends the "folk" "rock" and "pop" labels and genres and is really to me the first modern woman musical "artist", taking the baton from the other ground-breaking "folk" artist Joni Mitchell.
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Brilliant
There is not a bad song on this album, but my favorites are probably the quieter songs like "Freeze Tag" and "Small Blue Thing". Suzanne Vega created a new paradigm for the modern folk singer with this brilliant album and the two which followed it, "Solitude Standing" and "Days of Open Hand". It's too bad that this album is now out of print, but at least you can get it in electronic form from online vendors of music. Still, if you can find a copy in a used CD store somewhere (which is where I got mine), it's well worth the price.

Debut Album - Suzzane Vega

Often detached in her storytelling, she still manages superbly to convey a sense of intimacy & urgency. An impressive and unique debut for one of the most introspective, and sparse acoustic players.
A MUST HAVE!!!.

Suzanne Vega doesn't bore me
I figured that since I liked 'Solitude Standing' (my first) I would like this one. This was the second CD of Suzanne Vega's that I ever bought. And I was right. I could not explain it but every song grabbed my attention. I think it has to do with the fact that Suzanne Vega can write lyrics about tangable things and not bore you to death with superficial repeatitive lyrics whose rhyme you can figure out before it is sung. Suzanne Vega's lyrics don't bore me. They are food for my ears, mind, and spirit.

The woman on this album still fascinates me
Suzanne's lyrics gave you just enough of a glimpse to make you long to understand the unspoken secrets lurking in the head of this mysterious, extremely intelligent yet strangely vulnerable woman. This was my first Suzanne Vega album and remains one of my two favorites along with Solitude Standing. Very SEXY stuff without any sense of her consciously trying to be.

Like most of her fans I especially enjoyed "Marlene On The Wall" and "The Queen and The Soldier" -- but I'm also terribly curious about what kind of man she was writing to when she wrote "Some Journey". I wonder about the "rose tattoo from the fingerprints on me from you" -- was she abused herself? There are mysteries here that you may never solve, but your mind and your heart will grow in the process. Buy it, enjoy it. This is Suzanne at her best.

You can see a complete list of all Suzanne Vega discography, or go back to the Suzanne Vega tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.