Suzanne Vega - 99.9F°

A review of the 1992 album 99.9F° by folk artist Suzanne Vega

By Evan Ferstl

Folk rocker Suzanne Vega first caught the general public's attention with "Luka," easily one of the most refreshing hit songs of the late 80s. Her early career got driven by acoustic arrangements with some New Wave sprinkled in. In 1992, her fourth album, 99.9F°, featured the most overt production on a Vega album to date, adding a fascinating industrial edge to her folk overtures.

Vega always had a melancholy streak, but 99.9F° is its breed of dark and uncomfortable. This aurora isn't immediately apparent upon first listen, but the more time you spend around these songs, the more starkly disturbing the picture becomes. After a couple listens, the refrain from the opening track, "Rock in This Pocket (Song of David)," which goes "If it's the last thing I do/I'll make you see," becomes the mantra of the album: a haunting threat to Goliath from a narrator who has gotten fundamentally wronged. Themes of anger, nervousness, and resentment crop up throughout, with Vega assuming the role of a disillusioned and abused narrator reflecting on the past, trying to reconcile her current state of distress. "In Liverpool" is one of Vega's most pleasing pop anthems, but since the song describes someone "throwing himself down from the top of the tower," it doesn't exactly lighten the mood. The title track, a mellow, eerie song that gives off vibes of both seduction and warning, is the album's highlight. 

99.9F° is a front-loaded album, as the first six songs are each singularly better than any of the last six, but don't stop listening halfway because there's plenty of enjoyment and intrigue to be found in the back half as well. In Vega's accomplished career, 99.9F° is undoubtedly a high point.