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From: notes@mcgill-vision.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Re: Suzanne Vega
Message-ID: <320@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 18-Oct-85 12:58:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcgill-v.320
Posted: Fri Oct 18 12:58:44 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Oct-85 06:38:23 EDT
Sender: notes@mcgill-v.UUCP
Organization: McGill University, Montreal
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Nf-ID: #R:tellab1:-61800:mcgill-vi:4400121:000:2151
Nf-From: mcgill-vi!leei    Oct 18 11:40:00 1985


   I must admit that I haven't really heard any more than a small piece of
one Suzanne Vega song, but it seems to be a case of the US press praising
wildly a home-grown talent when someone doing much the same thing but in a
far deeper and altogether *better* way gets missed because he/she's not
American.  I'm talking about (and some of you will know this already) a
Canadian, Jane Siberry, probably the most original and amazing new performer
to take pop music as an approach in a long time.

With the release of her 3rd album "The Speckless Sky" about a month ago here
in Canada, she's finally made the critical waves all across our fair country
that she deserved for her first two albums.  As far as consistency of
excellence goes, I've never even heard of a performer who started a career
so strongly.  Through her first three albums there is not a single weak cut.
And when she's at her best she's brilliant.

The music is clearly built around the lyrics, yet it really can't be possible
to say that it is subserviant to them because it is just so uniformly inspired.
Beautiful and haunting are probably the best words that I could find to
describe both her poetry and her music, and when they come together they are
more than a match for anything that ever insinuated itself into your psyche.

I think its about time that I brought my copies of the albums into the lab
and wrote a more complete and detailed review, because I have a feeling that
you Americans out there need some educatin'.

BTW: Her first album 'Jane Siberry' is, as far as I know, not available in
the US, but it alone is worth a trip to the Great White North.  The others
(available in Canada through Duke Street Records of Toronto) are, apparently,
being distributed by Wyndham Hill (sp?) in the US.

She's also just passed through the US with a medium-sized performance tour and
is about to start (actually has already started) a big Canada-wide tour.  My
tickets for Sunday night at the Spectrum in Montreal are just burning a hole
in my pocket.

					Lee Iverson
					utcsri!mcgill-vision!leei
					Computer Vision and Robotics
					McGill University
					Montreal, PQ