Suzanne Vega - Beauty & Crime
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Free Music Notes for Beauty & Crime
Free Music Review: I must confess.........
Hit: 5 Stars
....that I was previously unfamiliar with this fine singer...some orbits don't cross. After noticing the cover in stores [what normal guy wouldn't?]. I decided to try it, and was delighted. This whole wonderful album is a collection of love songs to a lady at once beautiful and ugly, seductive and dangerous, named New York City.
Suzanne Vega is a New Yorker; I am a Southerner; we ALL feel the pull of home, even when we are aware of the ugly parts. Miss Vega has used her fine, clear, voice, and great song-writing ability, to create a loving tribute...
The album has no title cut; "New York Is A Woman" has a line about beauty and crime, which New York sure has; my own Richmond does, too, but in The Big Apple, it's writ large..."Ludlow Street" is about the eternal nature of love, and the pull of home...NYC is certainly a "Pornographer's Dream", outward beauty that may be nice to look at, but is deadly to touch..."Frank & Ava"...younger folks may not know about the star-crossed love of Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra, but the love of a person for either another person, or for a city, can sometimes go bad. [Maybe I'm taking the metaphor too far, but sometimes good things come from the pain of a bad love, like some of Sinatra's best work]. Naturally, "Anniversary" is about 9/11, the remembered pain, and the refusal to stay down.
This is a fine record, beautifully presented, and sung, with superb instrumental back-up, and recorded sound. If you are already one of Miss Vega's fans, you know this; if not, prepare for a very pleasant introduction.....
Free Music Review: I knew a plant whose roots were bound and returned into the ground.
Hit: 4 Stars
After reading many of the reviews here I see that Vega has few fans anymore. It's rather disappointing since she is such a great storyteller. I think she's one of the best songwriters in terms of evoking a mood and something to think about. "Beauty & Crime" is a good album, not her best, but Suzanne Vega on a bad day is 100 times better than millions of artists on a good day. I have enjoyed all of her albums, my bias. So, "Beauty & Crime" has several songs that grew on me like "Zephyr & I", "Ludlow Street", "New York Is A Woman", "Frank & Ava", "Edith Wharton's Figurine" and "Unbound". Unlike other reviews I choose not to see "Beauty & Crime" as an ode to New York. There are songs about other things than New York here.
Vega blends jazz, avant garde, pop with a range of arrangements on "Beauty & Crime". It's never boring, though Vega could stand to vary her singing style from song to song. Personally, I think her best work was when she was most experimental like "99.9F" and "Nine Objects Of Desire", but I also appreciate "Songs In Red And Gray", her self-titled debut, "Solitude Standing" and "Days Of Open Hand". I've listened to her music ever since "Left Of Center" from "Pretty In Pink".
"Beauty & Crime" is worth buying if you really like Vega, and if you don't, just download the tracks you do like. Here's to another 20 years of Vega songscapes.
Free Music Review: Worth the wait
Hit: 5 Stars
"Beauty & Crime" is a real work of art, proving that Suzanne Vega still has the rhythm and style she made her signature in the mid-80's. "New York is a Woman," essentially the title song, is a gem of feeling that sets the tone for the whole album. Free Music Review: great stuff
Hit: 4 Stars
I remember her earlier albums in the eighties - this one just as good; has a more optimistic note to the words and music. Very enjoyable to listen to. Well worth getting if you've ever liked Vega's other stuff.Free Music Review: Introspective and Lyrical - per as usual
Hit: 4 Stars
Suzanne Vega's first song that caught my attention, and charmed me, was "Calypso." And what particularly hooked me was how she managed to take the story of the Sea Nymph Calypso (a slightly-alarming one-dimensional fantasy dreamed up by Greek males) into a song about a strong, proud, self-aware woman who controls her own destiny.
That same gently self-aware and self-confident femininity comes across on this album. The most interesting song in this vein is "New York is a Woman." It's a love song to a city Suzanne Vega is describing as both supremely confident and supremely feminine. At least that's how I hear the song.
I also like the delicately-crafted beauty of the music itself. Some of the songs are particularly lyrical. At work, I found myself humming phrases from "Ludlow Street" and "Edith Wharton's Lovely Figurines."
So long as you enjoy the singer-songwriter genre, and enjoy Suzanne Vega's distinctive voice, you should really enjoy this album.