(no subject)

[miko2]

Today's Song: In Liverpool by Susan Vega

Another cd on my list of cds I recently bought but need to listen to is Retrospective: The Best of Susanne Vega. I listened to it earlier this week all day at work.

I've always kind of been disdainful of Susan Vega. I think it's because Luka, while a good song, got supremely overplayed to the point where people made fun of it. In retrospect I still like that song a lot though. Then there's Tom's Diner with it's "doot doot doo doo, doot doot doo doo" refrain repeated ad nauseum with rather insipid lyrics (to me) -- I have always absolutely hated that song. I also remember that my friend Lori Bell thought Susanne Vega was deep and profound, and my other friend Darrell Divers made fun of her for that. Darrell could be pretty cruel, but without really listening to Vega much I kind of adopted his attitude that she wasn't much to listen to I guess. Mind you, Darrell liked The Fine Young Cannibals (Yuck! Double yuck!) and hated U2 so I'm not sure why I would trust his musical tastes on anything.

Finally there were her later hits, 99.9 Farenheit Degrees and Blood Makes Noise which I thought were nice pop tunes but never struck me as more that -- in other words, I liked them okay, but they did not prove to me that Susanne Vega was a great singer-songwriter.

Of course, as someone who loves Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Sarah MacLaughlan, Loreena McKennitt, and quite a lot of other female solo artists, I've always been aware that I might like Susanne Vega's other work, if I actually listened to it. So I finally broke down and bought this cd as part of my BMG Music Club membership.

(Which -- BTW -- was totally worth it. I got my cds, bought my one cd at the regular price, got four more cds for 11.97 shipping and handling only, and have already quit. Yay me!)

I was right that there's more to Susanne Vega than I had previously heard. She is a good singer-songwriter. Of the songs that were new to me on this cd, I think I like In Liverpool the best. But I also remembered that Left of Center was another hit of hers that I liked a lot.

Tom's Diner is still one of the most annoying songs ever written, though.

Susanne Vega - In Liverpool
Suzanne Vega - Left of Center