Beauty & Crime (2007)

N.Y. STATE OF MIND Vega carries a torch for a grittier Manhattan of days gone by on her jazzy Beauty & Crime

Her name rendered in an Art Deco typeface, Suzanne Vega poses on the cover of her Blue Note debut in a chic trench coat and bright red lipstick. Yes, Beauty & Crime is an album of torch songs — but the lover she's pining for is the NYC of her past, from the formerly gritty Lower East Side (''Ludlow Street'') to ''the 27th floor above the midtown roar'' (''New York Is a Woman''). The brushed drums and acoustic guitars of ''Anniversary'' allow her whispery voice room to breathe; elsewhere, club rhythms and stabs of violins conjure up an exultant roar of their own. A-
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