Suzanne Vega: Beauty & Crime
Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Jonathan Van Meter wrote in New York: "Informed by Vega’s post-9/11 New York, it’s a disarming and moving jewel box of a record. At only 34 minutes long … it moves so nimbly through its lyrical and musical ideas that you don’t quite notice its brevity. Produced by Jimmy Hogarth, the 31-year-old Scot who made KT Tunstall’s 2006 debut shimmer, Beauty & Crime was recorded in London with a full orchestra. (Tunstall sings backup on two songs.) Underneath all of those lush, gorgeous strings, Hogarth then layered the electronic beats, delays, fades, and distortions that lend the album its freshness and vitality. Vega’s voice … has become more knowing, more coolly assertive, with age. When she sings 'Pornographer’s Dream,' a bossa nova, she pushes herself outside of her natural key, and the effect is hypnotic. On 'Zephyr & I,' a song about Vega and a graffiti-artist friend of her brother’s hanging out on West End Avenue as they reminisce about the seventies, Vega’s voice goes so high and light that it seems to dissolve into pure effervescence behind the accompaniment of the lo-fi drums and guitar" ("Pop: Lady of the Canyons," 7/16/07).
Jonathan Van Meter wrote in New York: "Informed by Vega’s post-9/11 New York, it’s a disarming and moving jewel box of a record. At only 34 minutes long … it moves so nimbly through its lyrical and musical ideas that you don’t quite notice its brevity. Produced by Jimmy Hogarth, the 31-year-old Scot who made KT Tunstall’s 2006 debut shimmer, Beauty & Crime was recorded in London with a full orchestra. (Tunstall sings backup on two songs.) Underneath all of those lush, gorgeous strings, Hogarth then layered the electronic beats, delays, fades, and distortions that lend the album its freshness and vitality. Vega’s voice … has become more knowing, more coolly assertive, with age. When she sings 'Pornographer’s Dream,' a bossa nova, she pushes herself outside of her natural key, and the effect is hypnotic. On 'Zephyr & I,' a song about Vega and a graffiti-artist friend of her brother’s hanging out on West End Avenue as they reminisce about the seventies, Vega’s voice goes so high and light that it seems to dissolve into pure effervescence behind the accompaniment of the lo-fi drums and guitar" ("Pop: Lady of the Canyons," 7/16/07).
posted by casemusic at 10:04 AM
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