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Music > Albums > Suzanne Vega - Retrospective - The Best Of Suzanne Vega (2003) Retail CD
added on April 27, 2008, at 08:35 by misty01

It's the rare singer-songwriter whose emotional confessions rise above bathos to find true resonance with their listeners; rarer still the one who can connect their audience with the plight of everyday strangers. Suzanne Vega not only managed that feat on her unlikely, child-abuse themed breakthrough hit "Luka" in 1988, but opened the door for a renaissance of intelligent, female folk-oriented music in the decade that followed. This 21-track anthology spans Vega's career before and since, a chronicle of cool, sharp-eyed detachment infused by a restless, oft-underrated sense of musical invention that spans club-mixes (the "Tom's Diner" here was originally a "pirate" dj mix by DNA that Vega wisely adopted), Latin jazz ("Caramel"), electro-percussive rhythm explorations ("Blood Makes Noise", "99.9F" and "Woman on the Tier" from the Dead Man Walking soundtrack) neo-classicism ("Small Blue Thing") and a sharp-edged pop sense ("I'll Never Be Your Maggie May", "Book of Dreams") that can't be denied. That it's all still clearly rooted in a diverse pantheon that includes Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Woody Guthrie is all the more remarkable. Rarities include "Left of Center" from the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, a live "Queen and the Soldier" and previously import-only "Rosemary". Also features all lyrics and the insightful recollections of Vega colleague/Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye. --Jerry McCulley

front 1305 x 1305 px

back 1635 x 1283 px

cd 1294 x 1316 px

cd_2 1287 x 1316 px