The high hanging fruits 4 Out Of 5 Stars
For a Greenwich Village folkie, Suzanne Vega was one restless woman. Following a love of Nine Inch Nails, she made the "Industrial Folk" (her term) of "99.9 F°" and followed it with this, a slightly more subdued but no less adventurous album. "Nine Objects of Desire" runs the gamut from more industrial (the opening "Birthday") to the jazzy "Caramel" and the dreamlike finale, "My Favorite Plum."
The highlights are, as is typically with Vega's best work, the lyrics. The erotic "Caramel" uses an old standard form of substituting a candy for desire, but she stakes her own territory with the arrangement. "Honeymoon Suite" describes an enigmatic dream encounter her husband had, and includes the beautiful descriptive couplet "When we sleep so close together/that our hair becomes entwined." I have also always loved the teasingly fun way she mixes gambling metaphors on "No Cheap Thrill" with casual romantic encounters. When it comes to these kinds of lyrical puzzles, Vega has few equals.
It's interesting to note that many of these songs seemed rooted in the relationship with her then husband, producer Mitchell Froom. I say this mainly because her next album, "Songs in Red and Grey," was less 'produced' and a heck of a lot more straightforward lyrically, and took five years to appear after this one. Taken as a pair, however, "Nine Objects of Desire" and "99.9 F°" make interesting bookends in Vega's always intriguing career.
No comments:
Post a Comment