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Retrospective: The Best of Suzanne Vega
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 ?88, 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" deejay 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
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Tracks| 1 | Luka | | 2 | Tom's Diner - DNA | | 3 | Marlene On the Wall | | 4 | Caramel | | 5 | 99.9 Degrees Farenheit | | 6 | Tired Of Sleeping | | 7 | Small Blue Thing | | 8 | Blood Makes Noise | | 9 | Left Of Center | | 10 | (I'll Never Be) Your Maggie May | | 11 | In Liverpool | | 12 | Gypsy | | 13 | Book Of Dreams | | 14 | No Cheap Thrill | | 15 | Calypso | | 16 | World Before Columbus | | 17 | Solitude Standing | | 18 | Penitent | | 19 | Rosemary | | 20 | The Queen And The Soldier (Live) | | 21 | Woman On The Tier (I'll See You Through) |
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