Suzanne Vega

Suzanne Vega is an American songwriter born on 11 July 1959 in Santa Monica, California. One year later she moved with her mother and her stepfather to New York City, where she grew up in a socially problematic area. At the age of nine she began to write poems; she wrote her first song at 14. Later she attended the New York High School Of Performing Arts (the school from the film and musical Fame), where she studied modern dance.

Music, however, was her first love. While she was an English literature major at Barnard College to the Columbia University, she performed in Greenwich Village on small venues. In 1984 she got a major label record contract. Suzanne Vega writes music mainly to her guitar and "nontrivial" texts.

In production the songs are arranged for full band. Suzanne's debut album Suzanne Vega was released in 1985 and well received by critics. The songs are straightforward and oppose the "bigger is better" slogan in the center of the 1980s years. They are also not typical protest songs, but introspective, in the manner of the singer-songwriter movement of the 1970s.

The follow up, Solitude Standing (1987), contained two successful singles: "Tom's Diner" (a hit when remixed by the group of DNA) and "Luka". "Luka" is written from the point of view of an abused child - uncommon for a pop hit. The music is more strongly pop-oriented compared with their first album.

The third album Days Of Open Hand (1990) represented a change in style. The music and text are dream-same: deep emotions go around mystic symbolism of the lyrics and the music became experimental. The album lacked hit single material and is best considered as a whole. One of the songs talks about Suzanne's encounter with her father, which she hadn't seen since she was little.

1992 saw the release album 99.9F. The album consists of a eclectic mixture of folk music, dance beats and industrial music. This gives a sunny tendency to the work in contrast to the previous album. The songs are short and the lyric style compressed.

Album number 5, Nine Objects Of Desire, appeared in 1996. The music varies between frugal, simpler style with the industrial production of 99.9F. This album has the theme of the movie The Truth About Cats And Dogs: Caramel. It also has Dead Man Walking, a song from the soundtrack of a movie of the same name.

September 2001 saw the release of a new album, Songs in Red and Grey, whose subject matter deals mainly with Vega's divorce from her ex-husband, record producer Mitchell Froom.

She has a little daugther, Ruby Froom.

Further information: the official Suzanne Vega website. In addition there is a fan mailing list, in which Suzanne Vega participates.