Can You Love One?
Original Facebook post here.
Today's whole-album listen-through: Suzanne Vega. I would love to report that this 1985 debut by this soft-spoken New York bard totally holds up and affirms her place in the pantheon of latter-day neo-folk singer/songwriters. But while the songcraft is mostly strong and the mood reliably intimate, the mid-80s production really gets in the way of my enjoying the replay: the synth patches and the hollow-sounding drums, in particular. What I was able to latch onto, at least intermittently, was the subversive quietness and blankness of her voice, and her angular, harmonic-spiked guitar work. At her best here, she shows her signature talent of cloaking disturbing, often violent imagery and sexual politics in a veil of soft, cushy, inviting tuneage. "Marlene" is still the pinnacle but I did enjoy hearing the attached song as well as "Some Journey." (I feel duty-bound to add that her subsequent albums sound much better, though I also need to confess that great-sounding or not I never played any as frequently as this one; the force of this introduction was that strong, and that's worth something. Also: when I saw her live at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix--reviewing for The Arizona Republic--I was struck by the grit and sinew of her sound, which had clearly been buffed away from this record.)
Comments:
Today's whole-album listen-through: Suzanne Vega. I would love to report that this 1985 debut by this soft-spoken New York bard totally holds up and affirms her place in the pantheon of latter-day neo-folk singer/songwriters. But while the songcraft is mostly strong and the mood reliably intimate, the mid-80s production really gets in the way of my enjoying the replay: the synth patches and the hollow-sounding drums, in particular. What I was able to latch onto, at least intermittently, was the subversive quietness and blankness of her voice, and her angular, harmonic-spiked guitar work. At her best here, she shows her signature talent of cloaking disturbing, often violent imagery and sexual politics in a veil of soft, cushy, inviting tuneage. "Marlene" is still the pinnacle but I did enjoy hearing the attached song as well as "Some Journey." (I feel duty-bound to add that her subsequent albums sound much better, though I also need to confess that great-sounding or not I never played any as frequently as this one; the force of this introduction was that strong, and that's worth something. Also: when I saw her live at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix--reviewing for The Arizona Republic--I was struck by the grit and sinew of her sound, which had clearly been buffed away from this record.)
Comments:
Amy Salloway Her
first two albums were, and still are, part of the soundscape of my life
- that's how much I've played them. Really "99.9" and "Days of Open
Hand" too.
Chris Coffman Did you listen on vinyl? I have found early transfers to digital were not done well and the recordings sound very thin
Gary Kout Serious
synchronicity across the miles between us, Rob. I just listened to that
album yesterday! First time in, oh, 10 years? Either a harmonic
convergence between us or my Spotify activity showed up on my FB page
and gave you the idea, except it didn't.
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