Suzanne Vega...Album by Album Thread.

Basically I is a metal head.
Rock has been in my very DNA since I grew up listening to my brothers Stone's albums...other brothers Slade albums.....ect.
Discovering Sweet had way more than just bubblegum singles as a kid...
Realiseing that Punk and New Wave had took my life over in the last couple of years of High School.....The Jam being the main culprit !!
Seeing Judas Priest on Top Of The Pops the year I left school in 79'........

All these were life changing things for a skinny teenager.

What's all this got to do with Suzanne Vega ?
Nothing really, other than I like to think I have a open mind for what ever I hear on the radio, whatever genre or style of music it may be.
I still love Pop music....you know the highly compressed stuff that makes up the chart these days, albeit with a finger on the skip...change channel finger !!

Back in Mar/April 1986 I was off work with 2 busted fingers.
I happened to have BBC Radio 1 on......people still did back then, at least on a Friday Night when Tommy Vance's Rock Show was aired !!!
Anyway's...I digress.....
Marlene On The Wall was played and I was hooked.
Next day I went out and got Suzanne's debut which had been released the previous year.

That's when it all started for me......

So...

Here is the plan.
Let's talk about Suzanne's albums, blow by blow as they were released.
Tell us why you love this album or that, and post any personal recollections you have of at the time, that mean something to you.
Over the years Suzanne's music has become a bit of a crutch to me in times when I have had low points.
Her lyrics hit me like no other artist.
They also lift me as well.

Here is the basic plan of action then....

Suzanne Vega (1985)

Solitude Standing (1987)

Days Of Open Hand (1990)

99.9' (1992)

Nine Objects Of Desire (1996)

Tried And True: The Best Of Suzanne Vega (1998)

Songs In Red And Gray (2001)

Retrospective: The Best Of Suzanne Vega (2003)

Beauty And Crime (2007)

Close-Up Vol 1: Love Songs (2010)

Close-Up Vol 2: People And Places (2010)

Close-Up Vol 3: States Of Being (2011)

Close-Up Vol 4: Songs Of Family (2012)

Solitude Standing: Live At The Barbican (2012)

Tales From The Realm Of The Queen Of Pentacles (2014)

Any singles or DVD's, concerts or just general musings are all welcome.
Was gonna stick to the studio albums, but for many, compilations are a stating point to discovering a great artist...so I have included them here.

Loose plan is to start next weekend and give each album a week for us to pick the bones out of.
Idea's before we start are welcome......

As a bit of fun, you can list your albums in order of favour as we go along or just do this at the end of the thread. This has been done on a few Album threads now that I have been involved in and it's a nice sidetrack. It's not life or death.

So. who's with me on this.....we start next weekend with Suzanne's Debut released almost 30 years ago now !!!

As I said thoughts and idea's are welcome.

Regards Yam.

 

Oh my.

 

Thanks ace.

 

Consider myself a casual fan and probably have about half her albums, so I'll contribute some but probably learn a lot. I do have a live EP not listed called Sessions at 54th Street or something that is quite good but too brief!

 

I love her debut. IMHO, it's the best thing she ever released. I also think the production on that (and the followup) suits her songs better than that on any subsequent albums--which may be part of my issue with those...

 

Solitude Standing is an album that everyone should hear. The musicianship is great and the songs are brilliant with no filler to be found. The sound of the record is clean and warm and compliments the jazz/pop sound of the tracks. 5/5.

 

I like most of the songs on the debut, although the queen and the soldier seems a little precious now. Not so sure I like the backing as much. Yes the vocal and acoustic guitar are at the center, but the electric guitar seems a little processed and cheesy to me.

This was music of my college years. I can remember playing some of the songs in an informal band, including the queen and the soldier.

I remember someone introducing the president of harvard to her debut album at a party, and then the master of my residence house (a classics professor) lecturing about the lyrics of "solitude standing" in the context of Greek ethics (the imagery of "putting a twisted thing straight").

Also remember playing that album while traveling on a train to Philadelphia to visit my then girlfriend.

I like the interplay between the poetic images in the music on the first two albums and the rhythm and meter of the melody and guitar. The best songs really work the rhythmic interaction, whereas ones like the queen and the soldier don't.

Philo

 

I got into Suzanne very early in my life, I was probably 13 or 14. Most teenage boys do not listen to this kind of music. My neighbours had a daughter who was 6 years older than me and she listened to ambitious music (Kate Bush, Suzanne, Tom Waits, 4AD). So naturally I got drawn into proper music.

Suzanne has been very much the soundtrack to various stages of my life. The first album... well it's a masterpiece. It is one of the very very few albums without a single dud. All the songs are superb. I have listened to it so many times I have lost count. The Queen and the Soldier is one of the best songs I know.

I remember a few years ago I heard Suzanne would play live in a city nearby - and I did not have gig money at that time! The place was a philharmonic and the tickets were quite expensive.
Guess what... I won two tickets from a local website... and I basically never win anything

 

Don't forget , this is a prelude to the album discussions....which I hope to start next weekend.
Hard to believe its 28 years since Marlene On the Wall was a hit here in the Uk.

 

I would never have guessed, Yam. I like Suzanne Vega a lot, so I'll be checking this thread often. I cannot contribute much, I'm afraid, but this will be refreshing.

I should probably add that there is no song of hers (that I've heard) that I enjoy more than "Night Vision". Truly a subtle masterpiece.

 

Yes, Night Vision is a beautiful song.
I certainly hope this thread will be refreshing.
As much as I love the sound of charged guitars over a blistering beat....lyrically most metal/ rock is generic.
Suzanne Vega can put the hairs on my back up. Her voice is just so distinctive as well.
She is my all time fav lyricist.

Glad I can still surprise a few people here !!

 

Great idea for a thread. I'm a huge fan, I own every album listed above except for the Retrospective compilation and I've seen her live 3 times. I'll visit this thread a lot.

 

I heard Marlena on the radio and I was hooked, I didn't care how the album was.
Marlena is a great song, bundles of emotion all tied up with a symbolic picture on a wall.

This lp is full of great melodies and some unusual lyric turns (It's a one time thing, it just happens..........a lot). I never liked Queen and the soldier, but otherwise it's almost perfect. The arrangements are so exact and precise, like some sort of glass crystal. Her voice wasn't thrilling but the arrangements just seemed so perfect.
Underrated: Freeze Tag Very moody, even more than Small Blue Thing

 

Suzanne's debut was very much of its time, with a new age-y sound. Even better was "Left of Center," one of my favorite songs by anyone, with bonus points for having Joe Jackson on piano.

 

Looking forward to this.




(^ My prized copy of Sessions At West 54th, which SV signed on 2/26/2000 after her show at the Stephen Talkhouse.)

.

 

Suzanne Vega has such a poetic force, and that lush evocative breathy voice

Her first album was a revelation for this 24 yr old at the time

Small Blue Thing was such an incredible intimate piece

 

I was 10 years old when I got hooked on Suzanne's music. I remember it well. I watched her performance at the 1988 Grammys and I loved Luka the second I heard it. -Being the age I was I didn't really pay attention to the lyrics and I think my dad explained the backstory to me later on. Anyway I begged my parents to buy me the Solitude Standing album and I loved the heck out of it, the title track and In The Eye in particular. Of course as I got older her lyrics started to resonate more with me and only added to my enjoyment of her music. I've bought every single album she's ever made and I've seen her live 2 times -2002 at London's Sheperd's Bush for the Songs in Red & Gray tour and again in 2005. This time it was just Suzanne and Mike Visceglia on bass and I got to go backstage and talk to both of them and it was awesome. I was asked if I wanted to be on the guest list for the next show in a city nearby but I had work commitments I couldn't get out of...

I cannot name a favorite album... to me her albums have a character all of their own and I can't say which one I like better and I like both her folk-type stuff and the more experimental things she did with Mitchell Froom. Because of this thread I'll go revisit the first album and see if I can add anything else...

Great idea for a thread!

Richard.

 

By all means.....I don't have that.

 

Did you pick up her collected lyrics and poetry book that came out around '99 or so? It is excellent.

 

No I never got that.
Something else to add to the list !!
Please discuss this when we hit that time frame.

 

I have never heard a single album by Suzanne Vega to be honest. In fact, I think I've heard "Luca" (spelling?) and that's it. "Luca" is her, right?

 

Will do!

"Luka" was her biggest hit in the US pop charts, but I suspect you have heard "Tom's Diner", "99.9 degrees F", "Left of Center", "Tired of Sleeping" and "Caramel" and not realized it was her.

 

"Left of Center" = definitely. Not sure about the others, though.

 

It's "Luka," but no harm done.

She's sure to appeal to anyone with a taste for singer-songwriters like Paul Simon, Richard Thompson, etc. She may come across a bit prim if someone is enamored of singer-songwriters more in the John Hiatt or Townes Van Zandt mold. She doesn't rock. The overall impression one would get from her work is that of exquisite, deliberate craft.