Beauty & Crime

Beauty & Crime is the seventh studio album by singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega. It is her first album of new material since 2001's Songs in Red and Gray and her first for Blue Note Records. It was released on July 17, 2007. Beauty & Crime won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, on February 11, 2008. It was dedicated to Tim Vega, Suzanne's younger half-brother who had died in 2002.

Beauty & Crime
Studio album by
Suzanne Vega
ReleasedJuly 17, 2007 (2007-07-17)
RecordedNovember 2006 – January 2007
StudioGreat City Productions and Sear Sound Studios, New York City; Jimmy's Studio and Olympic Studios, London, England
Genre
Length33:58
LabelBlue Note
ProducerJimmy Hogarth
Suzanne Vega chronology
Retrospective: The Best of Suzanne Vega
(2003)		 Beauty & Crime
(2007)		 Close-Up Vol. 1, Love Songs
(2010)
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic84/100[1]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
Entertainment WeeklyA−[3]
musicOMH[4]
PopMatters[5]
StylusB[6]
Under the Radar[1]
USA Today[7]

Development

After lukewarm commercial success for her last two albums, Nine Objects of Desire (1996) and Songs in Red and Gray (2001) A&M Records ended their contract with Vega with the release of the more commercially successful hits package Retrospective in 2003.

Vega embarked on an extensive tour and performed songs from Beauty & Crime in their early forms, including "Unbound", "Edith Wharton's Figurines", and "New York Is a Woman".

The album was recorded in New York City from November 10–27, 2006, with additional recording in England in January 2007.

Track listing

All tracks written by Suzanne Vega.

  1. "Zephyr & I" – 3:10
  2. "Ludlow Street" – 3:16
  3. "New York Is a Woman" – 2:54
  4. "Pornographer's Dream" – 3:23
  5. "Frank & Ava" – 2:38
  6. "Edith Wharton's Figurines" – 2:23
  7. "Bound" – 4:43
  8. "Unbound" – 3:34
  9. "As You Are Now" – 2:20
  10. "Angel's Doorway" – 2:55
  11. "Anniversary" – 2:57
Bonus track (Japanese edition)
  1. "Obvious Question" – 1:50

Personnel
  • Suzanne Vega – acoustic guitar, vocals (all tracks)
  • Gerry Leonard – electric guitar (1, 2, 5 to 11), acoustic guitar (4, 5, 10)
  • Lee Ranaldo – electric guitar (1, 2, 10)
  • Martin Slattery – piano (3, 4, 7, 10), flute (9), brass (3), reeds (3)
  • Samuel Dixon – bass (2, 3, 6, 11) live bass (8)
  • Tony Shanahan – bass (1, 5, 9, 10)
  • Mike Visceglia – bass (4)
  • Graham Hawthorne – drums (1, 3, 5, 6, 9 to 11), live drums (2, 7, 8)
  • Jimmy Hogarth – percussion (1 to 5, 10, 11) electric guitar (1), acoustic guitar (11)
  • Doug Yowell – drums (4, 6), percussion (4, 6)
  • KT Tunstall – background vocals, vocal arrangements (1, 5)
  • Ruby Froom – background vocals (2, 8)
  • Beccy Byrne – background vocals (8)
  • Emily Singer – background vocals (8)
  • Anthony Genn – background vocals (11)
  • Philip Sheppard – cello (1, 6, 7)
  • Matthew Ward – violin (1, 7)
  • London Studio Orchestra – strings (2, 4, 7, 9) led by Perry Montague–Mason
  • Pete Davis – programming (2, 4, 7, 8, 10)

Production

Notes

Vega wrote following comments on the album's songs:

  • "Zephyr & I": a conversation between the graffiti artist Zephyr and myself, West End Avenue remembered
  • "Ludlow Street": for my brother Tim who lived there, memories of parties and rehab
  • "New York is a Woman": New York personified as a woman who has had a hard time but is still beautiful
  • "Pornographer's Dream": what would he really desire?
  • "Frank & Ava": a couple who gets along in bed but not out
  • "Edith Wharton's Figurines": women past and present, how we suffer for beauty
  • "Bound": a love song to my husband
  • "Unbound": a spiritual song about a plant
  • "As You Are Now": to my daughter, who is a natural treasure
  • "Angel's Doorway": A cop is stationed at Ground Zero and his wife wants him to leave his clothes at the door. Also about troops returning home.
  • "Anniversary": The anniversary week of 9/11 a year later in New York City
  • "Obvious Question": about alcohol and the damage done (this track is only available on the Japanese import CD)

Charts
Chart performance for Beauty & Crime
Chart (2007) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[8] 302
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[9] 31
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[10] 69
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)[11] 13
Czech Albums 37
Estonian Albums 9
French Albums (SNEP)[12] 52
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[13] 81
Italian Albums (FIMI)[14] 74
Polish Albums (ZPAV)[15] 49
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[16] 79
UK Albums[17] 127
US Billboard 200[18] 129
US Billboard Comprehensive Albums 140

References
  1. "Beauty & Crime by Suzanne Vega". Metacritic. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  2. Allmusic review
  3. "Beauty & Crime - EW.com". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 23 January 2009. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  4. "Suzanne Vega - Beauty And Crime - Albums - musicOMH". musicOMH. 10 June 2007. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  5. PopMatters review
  6. "Beauty & Crime". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  7. Reviewed by Elysa Gardner, USA Today: Suzanne Vega, Beauty & Crime: * * * (out of four) Epistle to city. The veteran troubadour's latest is a predictably smart, vaguely haunted love letter to her lifelong home, New York City. From tautly driving tunes such as "Zephyr" and the single "Frank & Ava" to moodier, more bittersweet fare, Vega evokes the grit and grace of her stomping grounds. And the crisp economy of her singing and writing have never been more welcome.
  8. "Response from ARIA re: ARIA chart history for Suzanne Vega, received October 31, 2017". Imgur.com. Retrieved October 31, 2017. N.B. The High Point number in the NAT column represents the release's peak on the national chart. This history only contains data from the commencement of the ARIA-produced chart in mid-1988.
  9. "Ultratop.be – Suzanne Vega – Beauty & Crime" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
  10. "Ultratop.be – Suzanne Vega – Beauty & Crime" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
  11. "Suzanne Vega: Beauty & Crime" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
  12. "Lescharts.com – Suzanne Vega – Beauty & Crime". Hung Medien. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
  13. "Longplay-Chartverfolgung at Musicline" (in German). Musicline.de. Phononet GmbH. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
  14. "Italiancharts.com – Suzanne Vega – Beauty & Crime". Hung Medien.
  15. "Oficjalna lista sprzedaży :: OLiS - Official Retail Sales Chart". OLiS. Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
  16. "Swisscharts.com – Suzanne Vega – Beauty & Crime". Hung Medien. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
  17. Beauty & Crime UK albums chart peak: "Chart Log UK 1994–2010 > V – Vybe". Dipl.-Bibl.(FH) Tobias Zywietz. Archived from the original on October 16, 2015. Retrieved October 30, 2015.
  18. "Suzanne Vega Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
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