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Vega’s second album fulfilled the promise of the first one’s “sound” and was her most commercially successful, featuring the suprise hit Luka. While that’s the obvious highlight, there are a few other gems waiting to be discovered, like the audacity of Tom’s Diner, the note perfect Gypsy, and the slighly spooky Solitude Standing.

Vega is again backed by notably excellent jazz-rock-folk musicians, namely backup vocalist Shawn Colvin, guitarists John Gordon and Mike Shulman, and bassist Mike Visceglia.

Tom’s Diner

= 4 stars

If you mumble the melody “I am sitting in the morning…” to pretty much any thirty something they’ll know the rest. This tune about people-watching at a West side diner (actually Tom’s Restaurant) inspired one inventive “reimagining” in particular. In its acapella original form, it’s nearly too naked to listen to. But I’ll grant it five stars for audacity, how a chord progression is suggested at through the melody alone, and it’s noteriety as test audio for the development of the MP3 file format.

Here’s the DNA remix that later introduced many to sampling and genre-crossing. Today it seems rather tame but at the time it was… well… either this or C&C Music Factory.

Luka

= 5 stars

Among the best songs Vega ever recorded, there’s a genuine band feel, and when the Byrds-like guitars chime in after the chorus it’s a magic, uplifting feeling of hopeful contrast that the song’s negative subject matter benefits from.

Ironbound / Fancy Poultry

= 5 stars

What I love is how two songs blend together forming a medely of sorts - the “bound” of the first expands into the “freedom” of the second.

In The Eye

= 2 stars

Something about the pulsing, jumpy beat never quite meshed with the subject matter for me.

Night Vision

= 3 stars

This seems to contemplate the silence after a romantic interlude, as activity fades to darkness. It changes substantially on the line “now I watch you falling into sleep” (1:27).

Solitude Standing

= 4 stars

Beneath a folk-song melody, the shuffle and spiky guitar chords finding unusal notes is a real treat. The magic is the overlapping Fairlight keyboard forming a nearly Bachlike sound, ticking percussion, and one bass descent in particular. The video is a truly dated oddity, featuring the perms and fashions of the 80s.

Calypso

= 4 stars

This is written from the point of view of a character in Homer’s Odyssey.

Language

= 2 stars

Acoustic guitar and voice, with Vega’s voice intertwining an arcing melody. At (1:56) the song changes into a different chord progression that I actually prefer to the song itself.

Gypsy

= 5 stars

A Dylan-like folk tune that I wish Vega did more of - but it’s nearly impossible to follow up this sort of perfection.

Wooden Horse (Kaspar Hauser)

= 2 stars

Kaspar Hauser was a found “wild child” who due to his upbringing was illiterate. His only posession was a wooden horse. Eventually it was learned that he was raised in a dark cell. This song probes the mystery but isn’t really compelling until you know the story or perhaps have seen the movie.

Tom’s Diner (Reprise)

= 3 stars

Here’s the missing accompaniment to the opening version, tinkling like a Tim Burton movie. I think I prefer the imagined one in my head.

Intra Album Rank-O-Rama: 3.6

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