For the second straight review we get a record that failed to impress enough to stay in the collection. As Bad Santa teaches us – they can’t all be winners.
Disc 1856 is…Nine Objects of Desire
Artist: Suzanne Vega
Year of Release: 1996
What’s up with the Cover? It would appear we are the apple of Suzanne Vega’s eye.
Could the apple be one of the objects of desire referenced in the album’s title as well? It would be on brand for the apple, that known agent of temptation.
How I Came To Know It: I discovered Suzanne Vega through my friend Greg, but this album was one of a trio of used CDs I picked up a couple years ago at the local record store, presumably when someone parted with their CD collection.
The Great CD Purge of a few years ago has mostly ended, but every now and then I find some good stuff when yet another person decides to let a streaming service’s algorithm tell them what they should listen to. Their loss – my gain.
How It Stacks Up: I have four Suzanne Vega albums. I had reserved third spot for this record but having now listened to both it and her 1985 debut (reviewed back at Disc 1655) I’m afraid the earlier record edges it out leaving “Nine Objects of Desire” newly ensconced in fourth.
Something had to be last – I just wasn’t expecting it to be this…
Ratings: 2 stars
Sometimes you can groove yourself right out of a good song, and on “Nine Objects of Desire” this happens just one too many times to be forgiven.
My favourite Suzanne Vega album is “99.9 F” (Disc 456) which has no "Luka" and no "Tom’s Diner," but does find Vega leaving behind the stark folk-pop feel of her earlier albums and embracing a more electronic dance type of sound that is surprisingly refreshing. “Nine Objects of Desire” is the follow up to “99.9 F” and doubles down on this approach. Based on an early and offhanded listen I was drawn in by the similarity of its vibe. Unfortunately, Vega then took a turn for jazz lounge that often left me stranded.
There are good signs early, notably “Headshots” which like a lot of Vega’s songs, takes a slice of life or image and muses on that topic. In this case the headshot of a model in an add for…headshots? Cue deep thoughts. It isn’t about a lot, but it has that same mid-tempo techno-adjacent backbeat that I loved on her previous record. Kind of danceable, but mostly for swaying a bit, and ordering a martini.
However, it isn’t long before we see things taking a turn toward Sade. If you like Sade (and many do) this will not trouble you in the least, but reader, I must here admit that Sade is one of my least favourite recording artists of all time. It is the kind of music where unwary but promising songs are jumped by the twin goons of pretention and jazz (n.b. not actual twins, but hard to tell them apart in a smoky bar).
These two well-dressed hooligans take an initially groovy tone like “Caramel” and rough it up with meandering self-conscious stuff that I imagine boring people play at their dinner parties. I can’t know for sure, because I don’t attend boring dinner parties. Dinner parties, yes please, just not boring ones, and definitely not ones where they are playing Sade on their Bluetooth speaker. Or if they are playing it, that I remark on just how little I like it (I have a hard time holding my tongue in the presence of Sade).
But I digress.
Back to the record, which isn’t always a fail. “Stockings” has a lot of the same troublesome elements present on “Caramel” but does a better job of shaking off the bad influences. Once again, we’ve got Vega going on about a single image (woman working at her stockings) and takes it to a place of deep whimsy and character development.
Unfortunately for every song that lands this delicate and delightful chemistry, there are two more that meander without aim, and get swallowed up in the excess production.
For all its techno-flavours, “99.9 F” maintains the simple charm of Suzanne Vega’s earlier records. With “Nine Objects of Desire” she doubles down on layers of sound that drown many songs that, handled just a bit differently, could be great.
I will note that I did like “Nine Objects of Desire” a bit more on each listen, which is a good sign, but it still wasn’t enough for me to decide to keep it. I hope it has better luck in its third home, wherever that is.
Best tracks: Headshots, Stockings
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