Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega - Music & Performance - CD

Vega's debut album marked a turning point, both for singer-songwriters and for female artists. Inspired more by the dark, poetic visions of Leonard Cohen than the hippie goddessisms of Joni Mitchell, she brought to the public an awareness that acoustic guitar-based music could be arch, urbane and artful. She also proved that, in an exceptionally male-dominated era, women didn't have to be either wallflowers or sexpots to make their artistic statements.

Though she receives sympathetic backing from Jon Gordon, Michael Visceglia and others, Vega's guitar and voice are at the heart of the arrangements. It's that focus on the song that allows the stark, angular lyrics of "Small Blue Thing," "Straight Lines" and "Undertow" to make their unpretentious poetry heard. And it's Vega's unique, vibrato-less delivery (a combo platter of Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson) that gives perfect voice to these songs of urban rootlessness and spiritual ambiguity.