This is a collection of Suzanne Vega's love songs from her studio albums, rerecorded with little instrumentation beyond acoustic guitar. The production on most tracks is as intimate as the technology will allow, with an absolute minimum gizmo-ification to distract us from the singer. Even Marlene on the Wall, the stand-out pop hit from her first album, has had the production style cut right down, although this is more of a band number than the utterly close-up rendition of Gypsy just before it. But everything has been left in as much as possible, including the chair squeaking at the end of Marlene on the Wall, and a slightly warbly top note on Gypsy, which makes a nice contrast in these days of Auto-tune.

Overall, the pace of these songs is slower than on the early studio albums, and there is more space for expression, as Vega introduces pauses before some lyrics, as she did in some of the later albums. She has also developed a bit more huskiness, which makes this yet more human and personal.

Someone once said to me that Suzanne Vega's first album was the best, the second was the second best, the third was the third best, and so on. I don't necessarily agree with them, but it's certainly true that the production became progressively more complex with each of the first four albums, and stayed 'polished' on the rest. This album strips everything down to a simplicity which goes beyond the debut. Hearing all of these tracks from different periods with one minimalist style really does make me want to hear absolutely everything done in this way. I'm looking forward to the next three.

The outstanding guitar work on most of the tracks is Vega's own. Gerry Leonard is in with electric guitar on some tracks, and Zak Soulam provides acoustic on Caramel, with acoustic bass on many of the tracks from Michael Visceglia. There is no percussion, except for some finger clicking and clapping. This works very well, because Vega's own picking style is so percussive that nothing else is needed.

I was a little nervous about buying this album. Most artists who revisit their old material do it either as tragedy or farce. This, though, is utterly compelling, and I find myself enjoying tracks from the later albums which I didn't really enjoy in their original release -- especially the closing track, Bound, which, in this production, declares its strong musical affinity to Small Blue Thing, the opening track.

If you like Suzanne Vega, especially if you like the first couple of albums the most, this is one to get, and cherish.