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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Perfect Debut, September 9, 2001
Suzanne Vega personified the neo-folk revival with this beautifully crafted literate album. Vega carves out a niche that she alone occupies with her hushed and stacatto singing style that recalls beat poets and confessional singer songwriters of the Leonard Cohen variety. Vega's spare guitar accompaniment jars and cajoles the listener into ruminations on self, love, loss, uncertainty, destiny. Stand outs include "Marlene on the Wall" an urgent portrait of Vega's affairs of the heart, all conducted under the ironic gaze of the poster-sized Marlene Dietrich; "Small Blue Thing" self-examination in the palm of a hand; "Some Journey" a soaring reflection on missed opportunity; "The Queen and the Soldier" a picture of willful arrogance that recalls the rich storytelling tradition of the Child ballads; "Neighborhood Girls" hipsters who are gone gone gone. Tactile and visceral images are juxtaposed in a sensual lyricism that reveals Vega as a maturing self who is reflective, protean, and open. The production values underscore the quiet intensity and overall moodiness of the album. A stunning set of songs that still inspires and moves.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pure, clean, scary, January 10, 2002
Whenever I talk about this first album, fellow fans are quick to point out that Suzanne's voice is not yet properly trained, and that the production values are bottom-of-the-barrel. I agree, but I don't care. These songs have a clean, piercing purity which I think is sometimes lost in her later work. This is definitely her edgy-slightly-unhinged folk-singer face, so it may not be for people who prefer her more energetic or sound-oriented work. I also believe that the entire album is an associative poem, but this is still an unverified quack theory.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
crystalline masterwork, December 16, 2005
Suzanne Vega's debut is one of the 80's most overlooked and underrated treasures. Remarkably assured for a debut, the almost ethereal melancholy of this album denies any real comparison; it is unfailingly unique. Opening with "Cracking", a semi-spoken word piece piercingly scored with acoustic guitar and airy synthesizer, a tone is set that is mesmerizingly maintained throughout. The tone is crystalline, and its brittle beauty is remarkable in its timelessness. There have been some who have criticized the lush production and "new age" synth work, this criticism now seems dated itself; the instrumentation is utterly true to the spirit of the music and lyrics. In "Freeze Tag" the contrast of folk guitar and synth continues, again with haunting effect. "Marlene on the Wall" is almost lighthearted (in contrast), and "Small Blue Thing" does the remarkable trick of turning self-absorbed bathos into a gorgeous elegy. The three highlights of the album (besides the chilling "Cracking") are "Some Journey", "Straight Lines" and "The Queen and the Soldier". "Some Journey" is as erotic as anything she has done, and features some great Darrell Anger violin at the end. "Straight Lines" is a smartly unsentimental tale of a woman's suicide, with lines like "She is streamlined, she is taking the shade down from the light, to see the straight lines."
Finally "The Queen and the Soldier" is a straight up folk ballad that neatly sums up the dangers of love, while being opaque enough to be adapted to anyone's pain; brilliant. Suzanne Vega, in my opinion, never again reached the pure lustre of this jewel. It is a work that deserves to be considered genius.
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