Beauty & Crime

Beauty & Crime
Studio album by Suzanne Vega
Released	July 17, 2007
Recorded	November 2006 – January 2007
Studio	Great City, New York City Sear Sound, New York City Jimmy's Studio, London, UK Olympic, London, UK
Genre	Folk rock pop
Length	33:58
Label	Blue Note
Producer	Jimmy 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
Source	Rating
Metacritic	84/100 [1]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Entertainment Weekly	A− [3]
Evening Standard	[4]
The Line of Best Fit	55% [5]
musicOMH	[6]
PopMatters	7/10 [7]
Stylus	B [8]
Under the Radar	7/10 [9]
USA Today	[10]

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.

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^{[ citation needed ]} 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)

12. "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

• Jimmy Hogarth – producer
• Cameron Craig – engineer
• Emery Dobyns – engineer
• Tchad Blake – mixing engineer
• Bob Ludwig – mastering engineer

See also

• List of songs about the September 11 attacks

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) [11]	302
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) [12]	31
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) [13]	69
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista) [14]	13
Czech Albums[ citation needed ]	37
Estonian Albums[ citation needed ]	9
French Albums (SNEP) [15]	52
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [16]	81
Italian Albums (FIMI) [17]	74
Polish Albums (ZPAV) [18]	49
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) [19]	79
UK Albums [20]	127
US Billboard 200 [21]	129
US Billboard Comprehensive Albums [ citation needed ]	140

References

1. "Beauty & Crime by Suzanne Vega". Metacritic . Retrieved June 3, 2016.
2. AllMusic review
3. "Beauty & Crime - EW.com". Entertainment Weekly . Archived from the original on January 23, 2009. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
4. Aizlewooda, John (June 8, 2007). "CDs of the week". Evening Standard . Retrieved May 2, 2025.
5. Dowdall, Andrew (June 26, 2007). """". The Line of Best Fit . Retrieved May 2, 2025.
6. "Suzanne Vega - Beauty And Crime - Albums - musicOMH". musicOMH . June 10, 2007. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
7. PopMatters review
8. "Beauty & Crime". Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
9. Beauty & Crime is an effective meeting point between her folky organic side and more experimental bent, and is populated with her strongest melodies since the dazzling "Nine Objects of Desire." [Summer 2007, p.91]
10. 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.
11. "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.
12. "Ultratop.be – Suzanne Vega – Beauty & Crime" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
13. "Ultratop.be – Suzanne Vega – Beauty & Crime" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
14. "Suzanne Vega: Beauty & Crime" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
15. "Lescharts.com – Suzanne Vega – Beauty & Crime". Hung Medien. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
16. "Offiziellecharts.de – Suzanne Vega – Beauty & Crime" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved August 7, 2024.
17. "Italiancharts.com – Suzanne Vega – Beauty & Crime". Hung Medien.
18. "Oficjalna lista sprzedaży :: OLiS - Official Retail Sales Chart". OLiS. Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
19. "Swisscharts.com – Suzanne Vega – Beauty & Crime". Hung Medien. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
20. 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.
21. "Suzanne Vega Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved June 8, 2014.