Product Description

Suzanne Vega took a six-year break from recording before returning with her Blue Note Records debut, BEAUTY AND CRIME. Despite her new label's storied history as a jazz label, Vega's comeback album has even fewer jazz elements than her newlabel-mate Norah Jones. BEAUTY AND CRIME is a richly detailed, modern-sounding alternative rock record that touches on all previous elements of Vega's career, from the crisp folk-rock of her first two albums to the electronic sheen of 99.9DEGREES and the orchestral delicacy of DAYS OF OPEN HAND. Lyrically, the album is a love note to Vega's New York City roots, blending the autobiographical ruminations of "Ludlow Street" with imaginative explorations such as the romantic "Frank and Ava".

Track Listing

1. Zephyr & I
2. Ludlow Street
3. New York Is A Woman
4. Pornographer's Dream
5. Frank & Ava
6. Edith Wharton's Figurines
7. Bound
8. Unbound
9. As You Are Now
10. Angel's Doorway
11. Anniversary

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16588 in Music
• Released on: 2007-06-11
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Why the disappointment?
Depsite often being accused of "experimenting", and changing direction etc. Suzanne Vega in reality has actually been stylisticly consistent throughout her long career.

Her deceptively simple songs, guitar plucking and voice can seem to fit into many different kinds of landscapes and genres (folk, latino, pop/rock etc. As such, she has always been very vulnerable to the talents and imagination of her producers. Her "techno-fok" period with producer/husband Mitchell Froom in the 90s was seen as a hugs leap, when in fact Froom was just shedding an unusual light on Suzanne.

Beauty and Crime is not really a huge departure for her. The structure of her songs, her guitar playing, it's all very consistent with her early work. It's certainly better than her last offering - the mawkish "divorce" album "Songs in Red and Gray".

It's the production that occasionally lets her down. However the songs I feel are some of her best. "Aniversary" is simply beautiful.

I would recommend this album completely. It would not have the production edge of previous work, but ultimately Suzanne has always been about her, her voice and her guitar - and for me this proves she is still in the game.

Nostalgic album coloured by the spirit of New York
Suzanne Vega's seventh album is intended as a loving testimony to her hometown, New York. Urban and cultural references thicken the atmosphere: The record opens with a tale of a New York Graffiti artist on West End Avenue and rambles through Ludlow Street, where Vega's deceased brother used to live, to the 27th floor of a skyscraper. Bettie Page and Edith Wharton appear, Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner passionately fight and Olivia Goldsmith (a writer on natural beauty) lies under anesthesia on an operating table. References to 9/11 abound ("smoke and ash still rising to the sky" in New York as a Woman and there is "the dust and the dirt and destruction" of Angel's Doorway). However, crime isn't allowed to crush the atmosphere of love and nostalgia here.

Although her music has long lacked the bite and edge of the 1985 album that made her famous, favouring instead the unfailingly polite style that she has developed since, her voice is as warm as ever. Shafts of her songwriting brilliance shine through: Ludlow Street is "painted in nicotine"; "words / like darling and angel and dear / crowd my mouth / in a path to your ear" on Bound; and Edith Wharton's Figurines talks of "finances and fears / her face and what it's worth to her / in the passing of the years".

In spite of Vega saying she pushed herself out of her comfort zone in the making of the record (she does sing higher than usual), her sound does remain a touch too run-of-the-mill. The twin dangers of Suzanne Vega's music - excessive solipsism and an overly safe production style - can still be heard here. In the middle, where the New York concept is abandoned in favour of tracks which teeter on the tightrope of personal sentimentality (As You Are Now, addressed to her teenage daughter), or which throb with out-of-place beat programming (Unbound), the album does sag a little. In interviews Vega has said that she intended to make a modern classic with 'Beauty & Crime'. This album falls short of that, but her faithful following and fans of coffee-shop literateness won't be disappointed.

Standouts: 'Edith Wharton's Figurines', 'New York is a Woman', 'Anniversary', 'Ludlow Street'

Vega is back
After a long wait Suzanne Vega is back with her new album "Beauty&Crime" and without hesitation I can say that it was worth waiting for. This time Vega is sharing her city, New York, with us. And although we can say that the main theme of the album is NYC (something very specific) the lyrics are personal and universal at the same time. The highlights of the album (imho) are Ludlow Street (one of the best Vega songs ever in my opinion), Pornographer's Dream, Unbound, New York is a Woman and Anniversary. The only drawback of the record is it's shortness but as we all know quality is a lot more important than quantity.