Tried & True: The Best of Suzanne Vega (1998)
Rating: 6/10.
For those about to sit in the diner, drink coffee & read the funnies...
Suzanne Vega salutes you!
It's hard to imagine that large group of people who made Suzanne Vega, the folk-pop princess of the late '80s, such a big hit in the midst of the glam-metal and rap deluge. I mean, where are they now, those precious, poetically-inclined music listeners? Oh right, they're waiting to get the new Jewel record.
Some credulous people no doubt believe that Suzanne Vega is somehow responsible for the apparently abberant '90s fascination with solo female artistes and their work... as if "Luka" had set some kind of precedence. I got two words for them: Joni Mitchell. Or as Joni would say, "Me! It was me! I was the first woman poet with a guitar, I started it all, I'm the original... me, me, me! I wrote 'Both Sides Now', dammit! Everybody else just rips me off... I get no respect... no respect at all!"
Perhaps all too appropriately titled then, is this collection of 17 of Vega's best - well-mannered, articulate poems set to charmingly simple melodies, and delivered in Vega's almost inconceivably airy voice. Compared to the likes of Joni-come-latelies like Liz Phair, Ani Difranco and even Alanis, Vega now sounds just this side of ornamental. Pretty but also pretty inconsequential.
The hip-hop beats of DNA's take on "Tom's Diner" (the image of Vega dancing in the video still makes me shudder), and the 'industrial' veneer of the songs from 99.9F are more arty experiment than musical direction, but on the whole, Vega's forte of plaintive folk-pop is well-represented on this collection. Listening to it, it's hard to mistake TRIED & TRUE (like Vega) for being anything but a footnote in the book of popular music history.
Gerald Tan 1998
Comments about the Album or Review
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Visitor's Comments:
FROM: Egbert.Neumueller@tmt.de (Egbert Neumüller)
FROM: oneddlebug@aol.com (Cameron)
FROM: joseff@mindspring.com (Josef Ferguson)
FROM: jPoofter@yahoo.com (J.J.)
DATE: Mon, 12 Apr 1999
SUBJECT: vega-mitchell-comparison
COMMENTS: Mr. Ferguson, please don't write about people or things you don't know! Why
throw all your sixties-hate upon somebody who in that decade only made two
records, compared to five in the nineties, not to mention the dozen in between?
You're really going a bit fast with your condemnations, using fucking
meaningless words to disqualify anything you don't like or don't understand. On
the other hand, you're right, the reviewer's "footnote"-judgement is sort of
arrogant, too.
J.J., what is "disgusting" in that well-known comparison wich is not of the
reviewer's invention, but a critics' commonplace? At worst it's a bit unfair,
since Mitchell has 35 years' experience against 15 on Vega's side. And because
Mitchell has worked in musical styles that Vega has not (yet?) been in. If you
see "Tried & True" as a masterpiece, no problem. What evil has the "old bitch"
done to you?
DATE: Fri, 9 Apr 1999
SUBJECT: love the album!
COMMENTS: I just bought the newest album (greatest hits) about a month ago and I love it!
I have been a fan since the 80's when I was a little too little to appreciate
the music both lyrically and musically, but now I love to listen to the albums
and try to imagine what the songs are about! Of coarse when I was little--my
favorites were Tom's Diner and Luka. As of now, my favorites are songs like
Gypsy, Cheap Thrill, and Columbus. I don't think there is a song that I really
don't like--they each have their own message, beauty, or simplicity to them.
DATE: Tue, 5 Jan 1999
SUBJECT: Your reviewer is an asshole
COMMENTS:
"...it's hard to mistake TRIED & TRUE (like Vega) for being anything but a
footnote..."
In case you haven't noticed, your precious Joni Mitchell isn't getting really
regular rotation even on those sorry-ass Oldies stations.
I'm really pretty fucking tired of the "hip" opinion among reviewers that things
are not done as good today as they were done thirty years in the past. Let me clue you in...
For the most part, the movies, books, music, and televison of the sixties were
all shit. Almost all of it falls into one of two categories.
1) Stiff, sexually-repressed hold-over bilge from the stiff, sexually-repressed
50's, or...
2) Disconnected, non-sensical crap from the disconnected, non-sensical 60's.
(People who use a lot of drugs are NOT creative. They only think they are. To every one
else, they look and write and sing and act like people who use a lot of drugs.
Get a grip. Get a life. Get over yourself
DATE: Sat, 19 Dec 1998
SUBJECT: S. Vega Revue
COMMENTS: You suck. The greatest hits album is a nice little collection for true fans and
comparing her musical style to Joni Mitchell is disgusting and a cop out. Does
every female who breaks new ground with a guitar have to be put in a line up
with that old bitch? Whatever...why waste good web space, bastard!
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