nine objects of desire
 nine objects of desire |
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THE BEAT by Seth Rogovoy WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Dec. 19, 1996 -- For this critic, at least, the year just past will be remembered as the Year of the Women, as the following list of the best albums of 1996 makes clear. It was a year when women's voices rocked hard, sang sweetly and purred suggestively, but mostly it was a year when women created groundbreaking works of musical art in the CD format, proving that there is still intelligent life to be had in the pop-song format. And for that I am grateful. The usual disclaimers apply. This list is meant to indicate the highly subjective preferences of one listener over the past year. These are the albums I returned to in those all-too-rare moments when I could listen to something for sheer pleasure, and not because I was writing about it on deadline. The difference between the Runners-Up and most of the Top 10 is practically nil. The absence of any album from this list does not imply a negative judgment -- it just as likely means I never heard it. I am only one listener with two ears; thousands of CDs were released over the last 12 months; you do the math. [snipped] 3. Shawn Colvin, "A Few Small Repairs" (Columbia) and Suzanne Vega, "Nine Objects of Desire" (A&M): Two of the most eloquent heirs of Joni Mitchell's legacy come up with their most eloquent statements about love and marriage in the '90s. Vega's is an edgy take on urban domesticity, while Colvin's is from the perspective of the aftermath of a breakup. Both are career-topping achievements. [snipped] [This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Dec. 19, 1996. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1996. All rights reserved.]
Boston Globe, 10/06/96 Their paths are forever linked. Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin were part of the Greenwich Village folk scene of the mid-'80s, becoming friends and touring partners. When Vega recorded her breakthrough hit, ``Luka,'' about child abuse, Colvin sang backup on it. Even today, they share the same management team and the same irreverent sense of humor. They're still friends - Vega sent flowers to Colvin when the latter got married, then Colvin reciprocated when Vega gave birth to a daughter, Ruby. The two singers have even released new albums simultaneously, though by coincidence. Most important, Vega and Colvin have in common their determination to expand the boundaries of folk music. They've taken their art fearlessly onto crossover turf, making each new album a must-listen for fans of cutting-edge singer-songwriting. Never mind if it's hard to describe the music: Vega and Colvin are equally hard to pigeonhole, and fans wouldn't want it any other way. ``We're living in a time, right now, where as long as you have the imagination, you can really do whatever you like,'' Vega says during a recent interview from her Manhattan home. ``I think my music has a certain distinctive sound, but I don't know how to describe it. I just play it and sing it.'' ``I don't know where I fit in today,'' says Colvin, who now lives in Austin, Tex. ``I just know that what's happened to [singers] like Sheryl Crow and Joan Osborne is good for the rest of us. And I don't think I'm as folkie as I've been made out to be.'' Both Vega's new album, ``Nine Objects of Desire,'' and Colvin's latest, ``A Few Small Repairs,'' are marvels of thoughtful, challenging music that tap deep emotions without falling into pretentiousness. And both CDs mark further progress in style: Vega probes a seductive, Latin-jazz lilt at times, while Colvin has reunited with producer/songwriting partner John Leventhal for piquant folk-rock, helped by a guest appearance from Lyle Lovett. The albums certainly share the honesty for which these singers are known. Some of Colvin's filigreed, electro-acoustic songs openly address the breakup of her marriage (``Get Out of This House'' does it playfully: ``I'm the queen of this castle ... go jump in the lake''), while Vega's tunes testify to her marriage's success. In fact, ``Honeymoon Suite'' was written during her Parisian honeymoon with Mitchell Froom, who also produces the album. Froom brings a high degree of sophistication to the task, adding a bevy of subtle references, from the Middle Eastern, Led Zeppelin-evoking string section on ``Stockings'' to the organ riff from the Santana-identified ``Oye Como Va'' on ``Lolita.'' Some of Vega's songs are downright seductive - not a trait typically associated with her cerebral, hyper-intellectual past. ``Usually I'm writing about battles that are going on between someone small and someone large,'' says Vega, who plays the Berklee Performance Center Oct. 27. ``But this one has very little of that, which was very weird for me. I was used to working my territory, and all of a sudden I find myself in a new one. I wasn't sure if people were going to like it or not. ``I think some people are relieved, actually,'' says Vega. ``Because I'm not throwing rocks at anyone. I'm not making noise. And it's not about anxiety or fear or mental illness or abuse. It's kind of a new area for me. I was worried that people might say, `Aw, she's not edgy anymore. She's happy now.' Which is true. I'm happier than I was, but I still think there's some edginess to it. I don't think I've completely blanded out.'' No, she hasn't. She's also created some great characters in ``Thin Man'' and ``No Cheap Thrill,'' which borrows the name of poker games (Lamebrain Pete and Butcher Boy), applying them to humans. And yes, in case you're wondering: ``I can play poker, and I can play pretty well,'' says Vega. There's no end to her talents. The same is true of Colvin, who stacks her disc with various songs of catharsis stemming from the collapse of her marriage (to her sound engineer and road manager). ``Things didn't work out in the relationship,'' she says simply. ``I'm a statistic.'' There are several memorable breakup songs (``Nothin' on Me'' states: ``Don't you try to save me with your advice or turn me into somebody else''), but also keen moments of self-reflection. The most affecting of these is the piano ballad ``If I Were Brave,'' with the cut-to-the-quick line: ``Would I be saved if I were brave and had a baby?'' It recalls what the protagonist in Bonnie Raitt's ``Nick of Time'' was no doubt thinking. ``Most of the women I know have had children by now,'' explains Colvin, who is 40. ``My dreams were kind of shattered. Clearly, I wasn't going to have a baby with this person. ... It feels like I watched the relationship happen in slow motion.'' But Colvin, who performs at Mama Kin tomorrow (it's a ``fan appreciation show'' in which people who can prove they've bought the new CD get in free) has come out the other side as a survivor. She expresses a firm sense of rebirth in ``New Thing Now'' (``God, I swear it's good to be back home, waiting for the next Rolling Stone''). She also concludes the interview this way: ``I just want to sound hopeful now.'' Submitted by Keith Sawyer
New York Post
NINE OBJECTS OF DESIRE Singer songwriter Suzanne Vega is in love. You can hear it in her music and her lyrics celebrating family life with her producer/mate Mitchell Froom and their daughter Ruby. But this isn't a wimpy dozen-song collection by a moonstruck folk chick. On "Nine Objects of Desire," Vega continues the musical direction she started with the techno/industrial "99.9F." Befitting the title, there is a sense of eroticism, as on the song "Stockings," and there is a mother's desire for good things to happen to her child, on "World Before Columbus." This time out Vega is tapping her own life for material, rather than extracting songs from life like a musical reporter. Some might miss the details from tunes such as "Tom's Diner," yet it's interesting to hear the once-androgynous talk-singer Vega sing so lustily in "Caramel." Submitted by Unique212@aol.com
MS Music Central 4 stars out of 5 r e v i e w Having experimented with cold, hard digital sounds and the canned rhythms usually found in faceless dance music, Suzanne Vega returns to the realm of the sensual on the astonishingly consistent 12-song Nine Objects Of Desire. She's breathing heavily again, issuing long, frustrated sighs and rueful sobs over acoustic-guitar chords. She's talking about the way things taste, the way sense memory comes back. As a lyricist, she's returned to monitoring the internal dialogue writing about a picture she can't shake from her mind ("Headshots") or the message implicit in a woman's choice of hosiery ("Stockings"). This is good news, because while Vega has always made intellectually interesting records, she lately has had trouble working her observations into pop songs with visceral impact. Here, the governing concept is retro-pop, and the groove is king. Backed by keening organs and a loungy, bossa-nova-friendly rhythm section, Vega and producer/husband Mitchell Froom try to link the metaphysical bent of her best work (her 1985 debut and 1987's Solitude Standing) with the spicier beats of 1992's 99.9F. She sings gentle mantras ("Casual match in a very dry field, what will be the season's yield?") in close-knit harmony and delivers the challenges of "No Cheap Thrill" with her trademark detachment. Throughout, Vega relies on swanky, stylized rhythms to help balance her grad-school insights. And this time, because the rhythms of "Lolita" and "No Cheap Thrill" are organic, she actually manages to create a vibe. In order to do this, she's pruned the lyrics down to their essence some of Desire's high points turn on simple, repetitive phrases and substituted riff-like hooks for the epic narratives of her early work. The change isn't complete ("Honeymoon Suite" tells an eerie story, and the sinewy "Thin Man" offers a nice character sketch), but Vega is most convincing when she's most disciplined as the reverie "Headshots" and the carefully developed metaphor "World Before Columbus" clearly demonstrate. Tom Moon submitted by Jenny Walter
USING HER COOL
Suzanne Vega Suzanne Vega emerged in 1985 as a brainy folkie who sang quirky, anecdotal ditties about everyday people on the street. The arrangements were simple: Ms. Vega singing, accompanied by an acoustic guitar. Her voice was frostier than a winter morning, but the cool was warmed by the music's simplicity and open spaces. This approach served her well on her self-titled debut, 1987's Solitude Standing and 1990's Days of Open Hand. But on her '92 release, 99.9 F, she made a radical change. Under the guidance of producer-husband Mitchell Froom, she increased the instrumentation and expanded her scope, dipping into new genres such as hip-hop and techno. On the Froom-produced Nine Objects, she keeps reaching, this time venturing into jazz and world music. The disc is a sophisticated mish-mash of sounds, something you can envision adults - or else maybe folks who collect furniture from the '50s - listening to. 'Caramel' sounds like 'Girl from Ipanema,' 'Thin Man' sounds like Steely Dan, and 'Lolita' is either an homage to - or blatantly rips off - Santana's 'Oye Como Va.' Ms. Vega is still heavily anecdotal - but she sounds less "talky." But in this case, more is less. The more instruments, genres and flashy treatments she adds, the cooler and more superficial her voice sounds. She remains the same chilled-out singer, spinning light and easy tales - which only makes you crave a bit of warmth and depth all the more. [Photo of Suzanne holding the apple. Caption: "Suzanne Vega ventures into jazz and world music on Nine Objects of Desire."] Submitted by Rob Walters
SPIN In the nine years since she hit with "Luka," a white-hot clinch of storytelling and melodic brilliance that knocked out highbrows and popheads, Suzanne Vega has worried about genre, about committing her songs to one lucid style. When DNA, certain she wasnt going to, refashioned "Toms Diner" into a perfectly content dance track, it was as if theyd made the remix for Vega fans impatient with this skittishness. The problem, at any rate, has preoccupied her as much as time or desire or love or identity or whatever. Vega's fifth album finds her still worried. She collaborates again with keyboardist, producer, and husband Mitchell Froom. In his previous work with Vega, Ron Sexsmith, and as a member of Latin Playboys, Froom has explored a homemade, localized, often creaky-sounding romanticism; he wants to reinvent the sound of lush. On Nine Objects of Desire, this means that Vegas vocals sometimes dont power through like a pop singers, barely commanding the tracks. The problems not out-of-the-loop dream--pop or crummy art-rock; its singer/songwriter over-thinking. When Vegas voice, a cool instrument flecked by tiny throaty imperfections, emerges on "Cara-mel" - a bossa nova by a woman with a striking, elegant, un-fussy yet familiar literacy - Suzanne Vega fans will cheer. And theyll keep cheering throughout "Thin Man," "Lolita," and "Honeymoon Suite." Still, what gives with this consistent reluctance to stalk out into the wild, well-explored, perhaps vulgar but possibly effective fields of genre? Take "Lolita," for example. Why does the rhythm track commit neither to drone nor techno nor warmth? Why do the bass interludes never go really into Latin pop or sound--track sweetness or Miami disco? On "No Cheap Thrill," whose chorus actually sort of rocks, Vegas narrator warns that shell brook no cheap thrills. Nine Objects of Desire adopts a similarly stern attitude: Vega and Froom hold their noses at cheap thrills, eager to substitute not necessarily expensive thrills, but (ah) deeper ones. Their record works, even occasionally wins, on these terms. Without them, however, it might smoke tables everywhere. JAMES HUNTER Submitted by Jenny Walter
Suzanne Vega: 'Nine Objects of Desire' by Jon Pareles Birth and death, yearning and loss - Suzanne Vega takes on the big subjects on "Nine Objects of Desire" and comes up with her best album. In the past, Vega has used her cool, breathy voice to keep her distancce from the stories she tells, cloaking her emotions with character studies or elaborately balanced metaphors. Now she has grown bolder. While the songs are no less exact in their choice of word, tune and taxture, this time Vega has decided to reveal more. When she chants, "Observe the moment when the heat of love turns to the chill of doubt" in "Casual Match," it seems she's finally observing herself. And in the sound of the songs, she no longer shies away from having fun. The album opens with the raw-voiced "Birth-day," about the anticipation and harrowing pain of childbirth. It ends with "Tombstone," a quasi-blues about mortality, and "My Favorite Plum," a waltz in which Vega contemplates a very sensual fruit: "see how it lays languid and slow." For much of the album, she grapples with temptation; in "Caramel," a bossa nova with the elegance of an old-fashioned pop standard, she warily tells someone, "I know your skin/I know the way these things begin." The music produced by Vega's husband, Mitchell Froom, follow through on the sonic experiments of Vega's previous album, "99.9 F." Where Vega's settings used to be pristine, Froom brings all the right kinds of clutter, whether it's a whistling synthesizer in "Headshots" or eerie out-of-tune keyboards in the enigmatic "Honeymoon Suite." In "Stockings," about a lesbian flirtation, Vega sings, "The gin and tonic makes the room begin to spin"; suddenly, fast drumming and a swirl of quasi-Indian strings carry the tune into some imaginary seraglio. In other songs, the singer evades a seductive Mr. Death ("Thin Man," a cha-cha with muted Steely Dan horns), urges a young girl not to beg for affection ("Lolita," with ominous percussion and a Santana-like repeated organ note) and plays a poker game laced with double-entendres ("No Cheap Thrill," with a hook that echoes Madonna's "Material Girl"). Vega's new songs acknowledge the disruptive power of desire. And her music, liberated from too much solemnity, finds giddy epiphanies in the disruptions themselves. Submitted by Keith Sawyer and Unique212@aol.com
SUZANNE VEGA: NINE OBJECTS OF DESIRE Suzanne Vegan musiikillinen tie on kaihtanut alkujaankin kaupallisia horhotyksia, mutta nykyaan hanen musiikkinsa kulkee hyvin omia latuja. Nine Objects of Desire on niin Suzannen nakoinen kuin vain voi. Mm. folk- ja jazzsavytteisista savellyksista koostuva levy on herkka ja kiehtova. Erikoiset rytmikuviot ja hyvin akustisvoittoiset sovitukset antavat kokonaisuudelle sopivan loppusilauksen. Soundien rosoisuus on omiaan, liian sliipattu lopputulos olisikin karistanut huomattavan osan levyn karismasta. Suzannen makenkahea aani on myös niin lumoava, että levy kiehtoo joka kuuntelukerrralla enemman ja enemman. Taku
SUZANNE VEGA: NINE OBJECTS OF DESIRE Since the beginning Suzanne Vega's musical road has avoided commercial tricks but these days her music pretty much goes on its own route. Nine Objects of Desire is so much Suzanne Vega as it can be. The record consisting of folk and jazz compositions is sensitive and fascinating. Special rhythms and very acoustic arrangements give the record the final touch it needs. The roughness of the sound is good since too much producing would've killed a lot from the charisma of the record. Suzanne's "sweet" voice is also so charming that the record gets better each time you listen to it.
SUZANNE VEGA: NINE OBJECTS OF DESIRE Suzanne Vega on todennakoisesti yksi aikamme tarkeimmistä lauluntekijoista. Neitokaisen musiikki on aina korkeatasoista, sanoitukset alyllisen provosoivia ja sovitukset vahintaankin kekseliaita. Taiteilijan eteerisen aanen tenhosta kertoo luonnollisesti jo sekin, että eras Vegan kaikkien aikojen suosituimmista lauluista ei savellysta kaipaa. Nine Objects of Desire sisaltaa 12 toinen toistaan mehukkaampaa raitaa. "Headshots", "Stockings", Casual Match...Kappaleita on turha edes yrittaa laittaa paremmuusjarjestykseen, sillä suosikkibiisi vaihtuu joka kuuntelulla. Yleensä se merkitsee kestavaa musiikkielamysta. Suzannen aviomies, tuottaja Mitchell Froom, seka taman hoviaanittaja Tchad Blake ovat hekin jalleen ylittäneet itsensa. Nine Objects of Desire on kaksikolle tyypillista erittain tyylikasta ja omintakeista tavaraa. 99.9°F:n urbaani ja saroinen ja teollinen aanikuva on korvattu orgaanisemmalla groovailulla ja pintakasitelty mm. trumpeteilla ja klarineteilla. Mitaan ei jaa epaselvaksi. Kiitos ja kumarrus.
SUZANNE VEGA: NINE OBJECTS OF DESIRE Suzanne Vega is probably one of the most important songwriters of our times. This young lady's music is always high quality and the lyrics smart and provocative. The arrangements are very clever to say the least. Naturally somenthing about the artist's powerful voice tells the fact that one of Vega's most popular song of all times needs no musical instruments on the backround. Nine Objects of Desire has 12 trax and each is "juicier" than the other. "Headshots", "Stockings", Casual Match...There's no need to try to put the songs in some special order according which one you like because your favourite song changes each time you listen to the record. This usually means a long lasting musical experience. Suzanne's husband, producer Mitchell Froom and his recorder Tchad Blake have also excelled themselves. Nine Objects of Desire is typically elegant and unicue music. 99.9°F's urban, angular and industrial sound has been replaced with more organic groove and the surface has been touched by trumpets and clarinets. Nothing remains unclear. I thank and bow. Submitted and translated by Matti
Creative Loafing (South Carolina)
Record Reviews: The old saying about marriage changing a person must be true, because Suzanne Vega's become a new woman since tying the knot with her lover, producer Mitchell Froom (Crowded House). What was once catty and cool - detached - in Vega's music is now warm, even intimate. Her matter- of- fact storytelling continues in the grand tradition of "Luka" and "Tom's Diner" (you'll hang onto every word of "Headshots" and "Stockings"), but her voice is less pretentious, less cloying. Little talked about is Vega's consistent experimentation, which has led her from waifish folk pop ("Left Of Center") through hip-hop remixing ("Tom's Diner") and spare, electronic rock ("99.9F"). On Nine Objects Of Desire, Vega moves into husband Froom's territory - atmospheric music, played on touchy-feely instruments (conga, flute, strings) - and succeeds in recreating herself as somewhat of a vocal ingenue; in "Caramel", she's a Brazillian samba queen; in"No Cheap Thrill", she's a pop chart navigator.
Much is owed to Froom and his mixing partner Tchad Blake; Nine Objects Of
Desire would most likely not have been as lush without them. But what is
owed to Suzanne Vega is the respect a brave, innovative singer desrves. - Submitted by Sharon Jennings
Fall Folk Preview for Boston Phoenix In the same way that Bob Dylan broke the mold for guy singer/songwriters, scattering the pieces for a thousand would-be Dylans to pick up and play with, there probably never will be another female, confessional singer/songwriter who can match Joni Mitchell line for line and note for note. Among women currently performing, the two who probably come the closest to approaching Mitchell's ideal are Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin, both of whom owe not a little to their progenitor, both of whom have taken their inheritance from Mitchell and invested it in new ways and means of production, and both of whom have new albums coming out this month that are their best in years. Vega's Nine Objects of Desire (A&M), out this week, is a celebration of feminine sensuality, obviously inspired by her marriage to her producer, Mitchell Froom, and the birth of their first child, Ruby. From the opening track, "Birth-Day," to the closing, "My Favorite Plum," Vega explores the gamut of desire in her most direct manner yet. Not that Vega has gotten all warm and fuzzy on us. Far from it. Hers is an edgy, urban sort of domesticity that finds as much to fear in the comfort of connubial bliss as to cherish. Leave it to Vega to kick off her new CD with the line, "One thing I know, this pain will go," a reference to childbirth. Her other direct take on motherhood, "World Before Columbus," is a reverie not about its joys but about the horrors that await should her child be whisked away from her prematurely. If anything, marriage and motherhood only seem to have raised the stakes in Vega's anxiety department. "Thin Man" is a cheery, pop-jazz dance with the Grim Reaper, and all you need to know about "Tombstone" is in the song's title. "Lolita" scolds a budding street-girl to go back home and take off her mother's black dress, and "Honeymoon Suite" is a tragi-comic look at the Froom-Vega's nuptial night in a Paris hotel, when the groom experienced a rather strange sort of headache. Yet in spite of this subject matter, Vega never succumbs to morbidity. She is saved by a playful streak that comes through in Froom's industrial- folk atmospherics _ less intrusive here than on the previous 99.9 and in the frank sexuality of "Caramel," a jazzy bossa nova, "Stockings," which explores the sexual tension underlying female friendship, and "My Favorite Plum," which if I read it right, ain't about no fruit that grows on trees. Ask Froom. On A Few Small Repairs(Columbia), due out later this month, Shawn Colvin gives us the news from the aftermath of a broken union. The album has already been called her "Court and Spark," but in its chronicling of the stages of separation, pain, grief and recovery, "Blood On the Tracks" might be a more apt reference. Whatever it is, there's no doubting that on her first album of original songs since 1992's Fat City, Colvin has come up with a searing portrait of alienation and divorce. The album reunites Colvin with John Leventhal, who produced her stellar debut, Steady On. Eschewing the slicker folk-pop arrangements of her more recent efforts, Leventhal opts for that debut's rootsier, folk-rock approach, albeit with an expanded palette that allows for mandolins and harmonicas to mix it up with some soulful horns and even some fuzzy electric guitars on "Get Out Of This House," the best put-down song Tom Petty hasn't written in years. By pushing their own work beyond what has come before, Vega and Colvin have just made it all the more harder for the "next Suzanne Vega" or the "next Shawn Colvin" to arrive on the scene, what with the originals still here and still making vital, provocative and compelling music. Vega will likely perform at the Berklee School of Music in late October. According to her management, Colvin may drop into town before the end of the year to celebrate the new beginning represented by A Few Small Repairs. [Excerpted from an article that first appeared in the Boston Phoenix on Sept. 12, 1996. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1996. All rights reserved.] [Editor's note - see also - Seth Rogovoy's Website: http://www.berkshireweb.com/rogovoy]
Entertainment Weekly Building on the sonic experiments of 99.9F, Vega and husband/producer Mitch Froom have returned with her finest album, a stunning collection that's simultaneously sensuous and thoght provoking. The albums 12 songs--which find an erotic charge in subjects ranging from childbirth to death--are constructed from the groove up, enlivened by Vega's coolly knowing vocals, as well as instrumental flourishes that often recall Revolver-era Beatles. It's a long way from "Luka", but Vega has managed to remake herself as the most consistently challenging and exciting singer-songwriter working today"....Grade: A Submitted by Scott Braddock
"KATSO!" #38 16.-22.09.96 Nine Objects of Desire (A&M) 4.5 stars out of 5 possible "SUZANNE VEGA ja tuottaja MITCHELL FROOMIN avioliitto toimii seka kotioloissa etta levytysstudiossa. Enkeliaanisen Vegan savakkyys laulunkirjoittajana saa taydellisen vastakappaleen Froomin musiikillisesta mielikuvituksesta ja tyylitajusta. NINE OBJECTS OF DESIREN voimakkaat elementit ovat Vegan aani ja Froomin taiten ja monipuolisesti kayttamat kosketinsoittimet. Aanimaisema on Froomille (joka on kunnostautunut myos CROWDED HOUSEN tuottajana) tyypilliseen tapaan hieman tumma ja taytelainen. Lukuisat tyylitellyt yksityiskohdat paljastuvat parhaiten kuulokekuuntelussa. Tunnelmat vaihtelevat teravasta popista (No Cheap Thrill) bossanovaan (Caramel) ja kitaravalssiin (Honeymoon). Vaikuttavin esitys on paatoskappale My Favorite Plum, jossa popballadi kohtaa kamarimusiikin ja ehtii matkalla flirttailla 60-lukulaisen brittibluesin kanssa." JUKKA VAANANEN [the translation, from Matti...] SUZANNE VEGA'S ja producer MITCHELL FROOM'S marriage works both at home and in the recording studio. Vega's angel voice and energy gets a perfect match from Froom's musical imagination and good sense of musical style. The strong elements of "Nine Objects of Desire" are Vega's voice and Frooms well and in a versitile way used keyboards. The musical landscape for Froom (who has made good work as a producer for CROWDED HOUSE) is typically a bit dark and rich. Many stylish details reveal themselves when listening to the music with headphones. The mood changes from sharp pop (No Cheap Thrill) to bossanova (Caramel) ja guitar-waltz (Honeymoon). The most impressive performance is the last song "My Favorite Plum" where a pop ballad meets chamber music and on its way has time to flirt with the british blues from the 60s. Translation by Matti Kolari
Los Angeles Times By Elysa Gardner
***1/2 Maybe it has something to do with her falling in love and becoming a mom over the past few years, but Vega has never sounded warmer, wiser or sexier than she does on this album. Certainly, her musical partnership with husband-producer Mitchell Froom--whom Vega married after they worked together on her last LP, 1992's "99.9F"--has been a factor in her growth. While Vega has always had a flair for graceful melodies and intelligent lyrics, her early work could seem a little fragile and studied in its folky starkness. With its brash, techno-savvy arrangements, "99.9F" was a sonic blast of fresh air. On "Nine Objects," Vega and Froom retain that quirky, adventurous spirit while opting for softer textures that enhance the vibrant sensuality of her new songs. Though the overall flavor of these tracks is decidedly post-modern, they're also steeped in musical tradition. "Caramel" has a bossa nova feel, with lilting flutes and muted trumpets adding nuance. "Stockings," a witty reflection on the frustrating art of flirtation, is also exotic and rthythmically compelling, with a Middle Eastern string arrangement dancing coyly around the chorus. Elsewhere, as on the gently radiant ballad "World Before Columbus," the singer digs deeper into her folk roots, but her delivery seems newly ripe and passionate. "I wait to meet my love made real," she sings on the thumping "Birthday." But, in fact, Vega sounds less like a lady in waiting than a woman in all her glory. Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). Copyright Los Angeles Times
Submitted by Brian Rose
The Sunday Republican Suzanne Vega, "Nine Objects of Desire," (A&M) ***1/2 [out of 5] When she penned lyrically captivating songs like "Marlene on the Wall," and her breakthrough hit "Luka," in the late '80s, Suzanne Vega seemed like she'd get locked into the stereotypical singer/songwriter trap that held back so many of her predecessors. But later albums like the industrial and techno-tinged "99.9" [sic] showed she's equally adept at a multitude of styles, and "Nine Objects of Desire" unveils even more new dimensions of the artist. Produced by Vega's husband and primary collaborator Mitchell Froom, it spans a broad spectrum of styles, from the funky cool grooves of "Tombstone," to the bossa nova styled "Caramel," and the scorching and somewhat dissonant noise-fest of "Birthday (Love Made Real)." Not only do the suits fit, they also feature some of the ginest singing of Vega's career. She's especially mesmerizing in the erotically charged "Stocknigs," the acoustic beauty "World Before Columbus," and the lyrical delight "Thin Man." This one's a welcome return for a first rate songwriter who's getting better with time.
Submitted by Peter Schindelman
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