Customer Reviews

Solitude Standing

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There are those who want fireworks, Kiss-style with their music. There are those who want depth and musical sophistication--and get into some cerebral art-rock like Pink Floyd, where excellence and excess aren't that far apart.

....And then there's just good music. Like Suzanne Vega. English majors everywhere probably drool over this album, since it's striking that strange but serene balance between elegant simplicity and artistic depth. No one else could tackle growing pains, domestic abuse, the inadequacy of words, the cheapness of exterior beauty, and countless other subjects with such an honest, unassuming style. Encounters with other devotees of this woman have proved interesting--usually female, usually of a slight hippie persuasion (not that this is bad!). However, I took a chance on this album and I promptly became a believer; it's hard not to. There's something about her music that is genuinely timeless, however much people might try to lump her into the Lilith Fair crowd. People will still be spinning "Luka" long after trends have come and gone. She's a true artist in the best sense of the word, and people of her honesty and depth are too rare in the music business.

Suzanne Vega never eclipsed this album and "Luka" (with "Tom's Diner" coming close second). If anyone tells you eighties were all about silly hairdos and empty, meaningless bubble-gum tunes, remind them of Suzanne Vega. Of course, you will need to buy this album to play it for them.

When you listen to the entire album, you will be surprised to find other very strong and captivating songs that you must have overlooked when "Luka" was topping the charts. "Gypsy" is one example - melodically accomplished, sensitive and pure.

Although most know Suzanne Vega for a song on this record ("Luka"), it's only one reason to add this one to your collection. _Solitude Standing_ is thoughtful, touching, elegant. From "Ironbound Fancy Poultry"'s use of chicken parts as metaphor for their sellers' dreams of freedom to the title track's quiet poetry, this is one of those rare recordings that is solid from start to finish. Highly recommended.

I've been listening to this album since the 80's, and Vega's unique voice and gripping lyrics still capture me and draw me into her world.
"Solitude Standing" is near and dear to me because of songs like "Luka", "Gypsy", and "Tom's Diner". Each song that she sings really tells a story about pain, love, love lost, and neglect.
Suzanne Vega keeps inspiring the musicians around her as well as her listeners.

"Luka" might have been the song that made most people aware of Suzanne Vega and this album, but it was not even close to being the best song on "Solitude Standing." My money is on the title track, but you can certainly have a different favorite. Vega gets characterized as a "folk" singer, which may or may not ring true, but it does remind listeners that this is one artist where you want to pay attention to the lyrics because they are the best part of her work and unlike some of her music they reflect her efforts alone. Just read the lyrics of "In the Eye," "Calypso," "Language," or "Gypsy." But again, for me it keep coming back to the title track:

Solitude stands by the window
She turns her head as I walk in the room
I can see by her eyes she's been waiting
Standing in the slant of hte late afternoon

And she turns to me with her hand extended
Her palm is split with a flower with a flame

Simply exquisite; and you do not need to get out the booklet to understand the words, which leads to this Final Thought: I always thought it was surprising that Vega received so much credit for brining the topic of child abuse to light with her music when Pat Benatar's "Hell is For Children" covered the same ground. But that just proves that once again with rock and roll too many just do not listen to the lyrics (remember Ronald Reagan quoting the lyrics to "Born in the U.S.A."?).

On Solitude Standing, Suzanne Vega layers catchier melodies and arrangements onto her verbally adept, absorbing songs, and the result is an album that is both her commercial and artistic peak.

Who can forget the quiet but involving melodies of "Luka"? One of the perfect pop songs of the '80s, with a moving, understated lyric, shimmering guitar accents and beautiful backing vocals by Shawn Colvin, "Luka" broke Vega's career wide open and turned this into a platinum album. As good as the song is, though, the title track "Solitude Standing" is even better -- building from an unusually tough bass line, Anton Sanko's evocative keyboards and a gorgeous, poetic lyric of almost mythical power ("Solitude stands by the window..."), the song makes perfect use of Vega's cooing voice to convey the ultimate low-lit, abandoned feeling.

"In the Eye" has Vega injecting a rock beat into a simple, defiant lyric; "Tom's Diner" is, of course, her most famous song, here in its original, wry a cappella version before DNA got its hands on it; and "Ironbound/Fancy Poultry" is luscious and pregnant with imagery.

If you don't have it already, get it -- a pop-music classic whose treasures are buried abundant and deep, Solitude Standing is an essential piece of music history and, to this day, sounds fresh and up to date.

This CD, Suzanne Vega's second, brought her commercial success through two of its best songs. Fans who are folk purists have something bad to say about everything after her first, eponymous, recording. Most of us, however, would never have heard that first recording if not for the success of this one, and it was successful for good reason. It isn't that the warmer sound or the use of distinctive instrumentation drew in fans, though some of the experiments with new sounds here seem to foreshadow her later work with Mitchell Froom. It's that Ms. Vega's poetry - and her lyrics truly are poetry - moved from the steady cool flow of her first album to include several truly outstanding songs like "Luka", "In the Eye", "Language", "Solitude Standing", "Ironbound", and "Tom's Diner", that jump out and grab the listener emotionally. And it's interesting to be grabbed so fiercely by such a tiny soft voice uttering such powerful words.

Where the a capella "Tom's Diner" has one marveling at Vega's descriptiveness again, as well as a simple but captivating beatnik beat, "Luka" and "In the Eye" are absolutely breathtaking in their quiet intensity. Reviewers here have diverse interpretations of "In the Eye", but I hear another abusive relationship in its worst moments as she calmly sings, "If you were to kill me now right here I would still look you in the eyes. And I would burn myself into your memory as long as you were still alive. I would live inside of you, I'd make you wear me like a scar." Her poetry acquires more feeling on this album, from my perspective. "Gypsy", though not the best song here, actually has warmth to it, something new to her repertoire at the time. "Solitude Standing" and "Language" are more her usual brilliant but cool and abstract use of language, discussed and quoted ad nauseum below, but absolutely lovely. Her descriptions of the urban landscape on "Ironbound" bring back vivid memories of neighborhoods I haven't seen in 35 years.

I rarely listen to this CD anymore, taken more by the sound of "99.9Fº" or the lyrics of "Songs in Red and Gray" when I'm in a Suzanne Vega mood. But this is a cohesive consistent beautiful recording without a bad song and many a great one, even by Suzanne Vega standards. Which is to say the lyrics are magnificent, the music lovely, and that it's miles above work done by any other singer/songwriter I can think of. And it's an obvious starting point for anyone interested in her work.

I've been listening to this album since 80's, and Vega's unique voice and gripping lyrics still capture me and draw me into her world.
"Solitude Standing" is near and dear to me because of songs like "Luka", "Gypsy", and "Tom's Diner". Each song that she sings really tells a story about pain, love, love lost, and neglect.
Suzanne Vega keeps inspiring the musicians around her as well as her listeners.

Suzanne Vega has been able to transcend categorization throughout her stellar career. In this early recording (1987), she treads the fine line between commericalism ("Luka", "Tom's Diner"), pop ("Solitude Standing", "In the Eye"), and pure musical genius ("Gypsy"). The sound is clean, mature, and haunting. The production of the recording is artful - Solitude Standing really should be listened to in its entirety to appreciate the segues between the varying moods. This is one of the finest recordings in the last twenty years - a must for your collection.

I bought "Solitude Standing" in 1987 after hearing "Luka,"a sad story about child abuse.I just loved this song the first time I heard it on the radio,and felt the pain of Luka.Suzanne has such a unique,soft singing voice,but its perfect for her writtings."Tom's Dinner" is one of her biggest hits,and its from the English group,DNA. Vega is just singing this song without music on the first cut,but at the end of the record there's fantastic music without vocals. The other numbers I enjoy are "Ironbound/Fancy Poultry,Gypsy," and my favorite,"Calypso." Suzanne's vocals are wonderfull on this number.When you listen to this record,you can tell alot of effort went into the making of "Solitude Standing."