Suzanne Vega IS ALSO A DOWNTOWN CULT hero, but it's a mighty different cult: her early neo- beatnik folk sound and earnestly poetic lyrics brought comparisons with Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. In 1987, a wan, disturbing tune about child abuse ("Luka") even made Vega a temporary pop sensation. But 1990's arty Days Of Open Hand disappeared quickly. Then came an accidental disco hit: A British techno-pop duo called DNA stole the vocal from Vega's talky "Tom's Diner" and remixed it to a dance beat.
Vega's excellent new album, 99.9 F (A&M Records), shows that "Tom's Diner" encouraged her to experiment. All sorts of percussion, industrial gongs, metallic clanks, steel drums percolate behind Vega's rich tales of love, loneliness, drag queens, and illnesses both phy- sical and spiritual, with Vega's plain, deadpan voice the perfect foil. Not coincidentally, 99.9 F is produced by Mitchell Froom, who did Los Lobos' Kiko, another joyous welter of textures.
"Blood Makes Noise," with David Hidalgo's wobbly electric guitar, sounds playful at first, but the l;yrics sketch a dark rhyme, perhaps about AIDS: "I think that you might want to know/the details and the facts/But there's something in my blood/Denies the memory of the acts." The song "In Liverpool" explores a shimmering, dream-pop corner of the Beat- les' hometown; "99.9 F" has a David Lynchian chorus, with Vega's voice fed through a synthesizer; "Fat Man and Dancing Girl" mixes hip-hop scratching, a chimp's squeak, and church chimes (and it works). "(If You Were)In My Movie" is a sexy flirtation. The single misstep is a song that conjures frightening memories of Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
No matter how eclectic the instrumentation, Vega keeps the songs intimate. And she hasn't forgotten haunting short stories - "Blood Sings" brings her back to warm acoustic guitar for a meditation about a dead uncle she resembles but never met: "How did this come to pass?/How did this one life fall so far and fast?" Complicated questions, ele- gantly asked.
Well, well, Ms Vega has taken her meatless guitar down from Greenwich Village to Merseyside.
In Liverpool is classic Suzanne fare: a wonderful, lilting, hot-and-cold melody that weaves its way through your aural arteries and contracts the heart. Here, and in the supporting numbers from the back catalogue - Some Journey, The Queen and the Soldier and Luka - her sparse but eloquent, steely-soft acoustic guitar work is at its best.
SUZANNE VEGA: In Liverpool
(A&M)
Let's face it, fabulous French chanteuse Suzanne Vega from l'Hemel Hempstead hasn't
made a decent record since DOA remixed "Joe Le Taxi". However, thsi is OK. Suzette
gets all lyrical about Liverpool, a funny subject for a Frenchwoman, but it has that Gal-
lic moodiness that made Catherine Deneuve so, erm, Gallic and moody in Belle De St
Trinians. And Mirelle Mathieu. You thought I'd forgotten about her, didn't you?
I'm trying to say I quite like this but Suzanne Vega records have to be loathed, it's NME policy. So ignore the lilting, hot-and-cold melody and the way it turns a steely eye, rem- iniscent of Costello's "New Amsterdam", on the spiritual home of Jimmy Tarbuck. In- stead, sort out your sock drawer. Unless you're a Levellers fan, in which case, unfurl your collection of grubby and faintly slimy toe rags.