Retrospective – The Best Of

‘Luka’ is one of the most seeringly moving songs about child abuse you’re ever likely to hear. It alone justifies the purchase of this collection of 29 thought-provoking tracks. Inevitably, you also get both versions of ‘Tom’s Diner’ as well as ‘Marlene On The Wall’, but that’s only the first course.

Often adding the raw edge of a Lou Reed to her acoustic-based approach, Vega has enjoyed a twenty-year career during which she has courageously challenged the limits of the pop song. (In fact, ‘The Queen And The Soldier’ does the same for folk.)

Few others of her genre would risk the industrial undertow that inhabits the lower depths of the manic ‘Blood Makes Noise’, or the unsettling dustbin percussion of the claustrophobic ‘Woman On The Tier (I’ll See You Through)’. ‘Tired Of Sleeping’ has all the class of a Paul Simon and ‘Calypso’ has a breath-taking Homeric scope. ‘Small Blue Thing’ brings inevitable, but positive, comparisons with Joni Mitchell. Solitude Standing’ (here in both studio and live formats) and ‘99.9F’ will be well familiar to the faithful.

Few tracks get the same treatment, yet they all remain anchored in her unmistakable delivery, a package containing a voice, six strings and more truth than you might want.