Suzanne Vega
Retrospective: The Best of Suzanne Vega (2003)

review by: Chelan David
Date: 2/1/04

When Suzanne Vega’s "Luka" broke in 1987, I found the song quite annoying. Attending high school in a white trash town in Kansas, I was too busy thrashing to Guns n’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction to contemplate Luka’s problems. Luka, the abused child who lived upstairs from me might have had problems, but dammit, "Paradise City" had a much better riff.

Other than "Tom’s Diner," a club mix by DNA featuring Vega, I never paid attention to her again until I heard she was performing at a Seattle Starbucks just a few blocks away from my apartment.

Curious about her fall from top-ten status to coffee shop performer, I decided to check out her show. Nursing a hangover from the previous night, I arrived too late to gain admittance into the 50-or-so person capacity venue and was relegated to standing in front of the building and peering in the window with a few other deadbeats.

The highlight of the show was when she sang "Tom’s Diner." As my fellow sidewalk slackers angled for position to avoid the mid-morning sun reflecting off the window, she glanced our way and with a smile breaking across her face she waved and serenaded us with "There’s a woman/On the outside/Looking inside/Does she see me?/No she does not/Really see me/Cause she sees/Her own reflection."

With this gesture she suddenly seemed like a real person and not a ghost from old radio past. At this moment I decided to revisit Vega’s catalog of music and picked up Retrospective: The Best of Suzanne Vega. This collection kicks off with my old nemesis "Luka" and tracks her career through 2001’s Songs in Red and Gray. The 21-track anthology includes some impressive works.

My favorite discovery on the album is "In Liverpool," a lush piece with a powerful chorus describing a boy who rings bells in a church, futilely attempting to rediscover a time that has already passed. "(I’ll Never Be) Your Maggie May" is Vega’s sharp retort to Rod Stewart’s ode about seducing an older woman.

"Tom’s Diner" brings back memories of my prized MTV Party to Go CD and after reading the liner notes I finally figured out what this song is about. According to Lenny Kaye, who produced Vega’s first two albums, it is about a disconnected male narrator who watches the passage of life outside a restaurant window, so overwhelmed by memory that he has to turn away, drink his coffee and move on with his daily life. Thank goodness for liner notes because all I remember is the pulsating drum beat and the do-do-do-do chorus.

Fortunately I can figure out what "Luka" is about without liner notes. This song has aged well and in retrospect it is clear this song helped open the door for other intelligent folk-oriented female musicians in the decade that followed.

If you are unfamiliar with Vega’s body of work, I would recommend this CD. It includes her few hits and culls the best songs from each of her six albums.

Suzanne Vega
Songs in Red and Gray (2001)

review by: Alexander Washburn
Date: 11/15/01

I love Suzanne Vega. So this review is a bias. She's never compromised her work, always presenting the songs that meant the most to her, the way she wanted to present them. She ditched commerical success because everyone wanted her to play 'Luka' or songs like it. Soon MTV was unplugging and everyone discovered music without all that distortion was cool. Vega was doing angry woman before Courtney Love had her first period. Before Portishead, Suzanne Vega captured that trance and electronic sound.

Now, while everyone is off trying to find something new, it's Suzanne Vega once again showing us that the less flash and more heart in music is a good thing. That you don't need more producers than album tracks.

Songs in Red and Gray is Suzanne Vega telling the world that if you didn't think the girl who sang 'Luka' would still be making records now that 'Luka' (hopefully) has all grown up and has kids of his own, you couldn't be more wrong.

We should thank Suzanne Vega for churning out consistently respectible music all these years. We should also thank her for never having starred in bad movies, released a sex book or marrying any member of Motley Crew.

review by: Alexander Washburn
Date: 3/28/03

Did you stop listening after Luka? Or did DNA's treatment of "Tom's Diner" turn you off? Most people did, including the resident genius radio programming directors. So, it's hard to lay blame if you've missed the fine bill of fare Ms. Vega has been churning out consistently since that 1988 breakaway hit. Those of you that missed the release date for 99.9F Degrees and didn't have time to catch the Nine Objects of Desire tour? Now you can make up for it, by picking up Vega's: Songs in Red and Gray.

A recurring theme of Songs in Red and Gray is Miss Vega's divorce – which left her as she says a widow who "knew the ship was empty by the time it hit the rocks." She weaves these true tails of sorrow with her normal quick wit on true pop songs like "(I'll Never Be) Your Maggie May" and "Soap and Water" where she begs to slip loose "of this wedding band." Even though the subject matter can be dark – the record doesn't feel dark. This is a mature record from a seasoned and respected songwriter. Vega's personal and musical maturity shows on tracks were she accepts and even shares the blame for her failed marriage singing on 'Widow's Walk' that "it's not the man but it's the marriage that was drowned."

Vega has never been afraid to run away from her folk singer roots and on this record is no different. From the eeriness of "Harbor Song" and "Priscilla" to the punk feel she gives "If I Were A Weapon," Songs in Red and Gray touches down on so many styles that it must have left her exhausted. This a valiant effort from a singer-songwriter that has gone regrettably unnoticed since her record Solitude Standing. Vega deserves cheers for consistently creating thought provoking music that has let her grow as artist while maintaining her integrity.