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Track Listings
| 1. Undertow |
| 2. When Heroes Go Down |
| 3. My Favorite Plum |
| 4. Solitude Standing |
| 5. Cracking |
| 6. Last Years Troubles |
| 7. Solitaire |
| 8. Tombstone |
| 9. Blood Makes Noise |
| 10. 50-50 Chance |
| 11. Penitent |
| 12. Straight Lines |
| 13. Pornographers Dream |
| 14. Instant of the Hour After |
Product Description
Review
What Love Songs does, however, is remind us what a brilliant vocalist and songwriter Vega has been. --Mojo Magazine on Vol. 1
Vintage Vega still runs smooth…Vega lived up to her rep as one of our most important singer/songwriters with intelligent, crafty lyrics hitched to music that is not only memorable but also hummable --NY Post on Vol. 1
a beautifully rendered career retrospective… New York Times on Vol. 1 --New York Times on Vol. 1
Vintage Vega still runs smooth…Vega lived up to her rep as one of our most important singer/songwriters with intelligent, crafty lyrics hitched to music that is not only memorable but also hummable --NY Post on Vol. 1
a beautifully rendered career retrospective… New York Times on Vol. 1 --New York Times on Vol. 1
CD Description
In 1985, singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega released her stunning self-titled debut album. 25 years and 7 million albums sold later, Suzanne is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant songwriters of her generation. Now Suzanne is reinterpreting a majority of her catalog in a close and personal manner, creating 4 new thematic albums that will be released over 2010-2011. States of Being has Suzanne revisiting her most haunting songs. Suzanne used to call these the Mental Health songs. They express a state of mind, but also more than that; Suzanne says, they are descriptions of a place deep inside. Anyone can feel like the narrator in Penitent, or Cracking, depending on your mood. Vol. 3 also includes a brand new song, a collaboration with Duncan Sheik from Suzanne s upcoming play, Carson McCullers Talks About Love. New acoustic recordings, featuring Brooklyn Rider Includes new never released track co-written by Duncan Sheik
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Songs may be timeless, but musical production is all too much of its time. In this third volume of principally acoustic re-recordings, Suzanne Vega again restores to pristine, contemporary state the next quarter of her 25 year creative output.
If you have already listened to Volumes I and II, then just order this and get on with enjoying it. The beautifully proximate sound, the emptied accompaniments, the attention to clarity and detail is all here. By comparison, the original versions seem to be very much of their time.
If you haven't listened to Volumes I and II, then you may be wondering why you would want to invest in a 're-record'. But this is no ordinary re-record. There were four amazing things about Suzanne Vega's work. First the songs themselves, which open up vistas rarely seen in any kind of music. Then there's the collaborations with other musicians. Then there's the marvellously articulated bright, wintery guitar work. And finally there's her voice -- at its best when it's just on this side of break-up, giving an unforgettably intimate interpretation to the songs.
All of these were present in the earlier albums, but they were all to some extent masked. The vocals were softened a little by the 1980s production (though it was very clean for its time) of the original self-titled album. Orchestrations began to encroach from the second, masking the distinctive guitar work.
In all three of the close-up albums released thus far, everything but these four elements has been stripped away, matched with an in incredibly close, intimate, principally acoustic sound. Where other instruments are present -- such as the bass on Blood Makes Noise -- the other musician(s) are allowed their own distinctive voices, and what emerges reveals more clearly than ever before how playing with Vega inspires others.
I love every song on this album -- including songs such as My Favorite Plum and Pornographer's Dream which I didn't 'get' the first time around. However, the stand-outs for me are 50-50 Chance -- where the slightly lush strings of the Days of Open Hand version have been replaced with a more discordant arrangement where you can almost hear the rosin on the bow -- Undertow, and, achingly clear, Cracking, which was the first song on the first album, and the first Vega track I ever heard. The new song, Instant of the Hour After, written as part of her recent play Carson McCullers Talks About Love, is also pretty amazing, and reveals one final thing: in polishing her old work to perfection, Suzanne Vega has not lost her touch for the compelling lyric.
Oh, go on, just order the CD!
If you have already listened to Volumes I and II, then just order this and get on with enjoying it. The beautifully proximate sound, the emptied accompaniments, the attention to clarity and detail is all here. By comparison, the original versions seem to be very much of their time.
If you haven't listened to Volumes I and II, then you may be wondering why you would want to invest in a 're-record'. But this is no ordinary re-record. There were four amazing things about Suzanne Vega's work. First the songs themselves, which open up vistas rarely seen in any kind of music. Then there's the collaborations with other musicians. Then there's the marvellously articulated bright, wintery guitar work. And finally there's her voice -- at its best when it's just on this side of break-up, giving an unforgettably intimate interpretation to the songs.
All of these were present in the earlier albums, but they were all to some extent masked. The vocals were softened a little by the 1980s production (though it was very clean for its time) of the original self-titled album. Orchestrations began to encroach from the second, masking the distinctive guitar work.
In all three of the close-up albums released thus far, everything but these four elements has been stripped away, matched with an in incredibly close, intimate, principally acoustic sound. Where other instruments are present -- such as the bass on Blood Makes Noise -- the other musician(s) are allowed their own distinctive voices, and what emerges reveals more clearly than ever before how playing with Vega inspires others.
I love every song on this album -- including songs such as My Favorite Plum and Pornographer's Dream which I didn't 'get' the first time around. However, the stand-outs for me are 50-50 Chance -- where the slightly lush strings of the Days of Open Hand version have been replaced with a more discordant arrangement where you can almost hear the rosin on the bow -- Undertow, and, achingly clear, Cracking, which was the first song on the first album, and the first Vega track I ever heard. The new song, Instant of the Hour After, written as part of her recent play Carson McCullers Talks About Love, is also pretty amazing, and reveals one final thing: in polishing her old work to perfection, Suzanne Vega has not lost her touch for the compelling lyric.
Oh, go on, just order the CD!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is such a fantastic thing that Suzanne Vega has done.
To reinterpret ones own songs is taking a risk but she achieves a
superb outcome and the album stands alone or as part of her body of work.
To reinterpret ones own songs is taking a risk but she achieves a
superb outcome and the album stands alone or as part of her body of work.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
yet another superb reworking of classic tracks. Undertow awoke all the memories of first listening so many years ago. I'll never tire of listening to this work! SV rules!!!
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