|
| Nine Objects of Desire |
Nine Objects of Desire begins with "Birth-day (love made real)," an energetic song which sets the erotic tone of the album. "Strap me down from wrist to heel / I wait to meet my love made real," Vega's lush voice informs us. The drama is heightened by a quick beat and an array of intertwining electric guitars.
But Vega is not solely interested in one kind of desire. "Stockings" is a surprising song about passion, in which Vega describes a female friend she is attracted to. "Do you know where friendship ends and passion does begin? / It's between the binding of her stockings and her skin." Vega's gift of making the ordinary extraordinary shines through, but what is even more striking about this song is how it delicately describes a strong passion, while also recognizing that the attraction will never develop into anything more.
The strange quality of Suzanne Vega's earlier albums has not been lost. In "Headshots" she explores how ordinary, everyday things can seem odd and supernatural. A poster of a boy's head catches her eye and she has a sudden, eerie revelation: "He's just a poster. But he's everywhere. A face under a street lamp ripped and hanging in the air." The low, smooth ribbon of her voice creeps under your skin, creating a ghostlike picture. "Tombstone," despite the title, is not quite as frightening. In her elusive way, Vega sings of her own tombstone, the afterlife, and eternal rest. The song has a lighthearted, bluesy tone created by acoustic bass, while the combination of keyboards and slide guitar add an eerie element.
A group of three songs about relationships is found in the middle of the album. In "Casual Match," Vega describes a relationship in which "the heat of love becomes the chill of doubt." In "Thin Man," she explains her strange relationship with a man who promises her peace, but she vows not to give in. "No Cheap Thrill" is perhaps the opposite of "Thin Man," in which Vega proclaims her great worth. She gleefully informs the man who caught her eye, "It will cost you, cost you, cost you / Anything you have to pay." None of these songs are particularly inspiring, and they break up the feel of the album in terms of sound and also in the overused subject matter.
Nine Objects of Desire includes two dreamlike ballads. In "World Before Columbus," Vega laments how it would be if her lover were taken away from her. "Every light that's bright would soon go dim / It would be as dark as the world before Columbus," Vega's sweet, throaty voice confesses. "Honeymoon Suite" describes how her new husband sees a hundred ghosts in the night. Vega combines images of angels and old deaths with the bittersweet reality that she has missed a decisive moment in her husband's life: "I must have missed that moment in the gateway of his mind," she decides. Nine Objects of Desire is worth buying, if only for these two simply elegant songs.
--Ana Vargas