Solitude Standing by Suzanne Vega

Solitude Standing, Suzanne Vega's second album, came out on A&M in April 1987, and it's the record that carried her hushed, folk-inspired songs onto the radio. Lenny Kaye produced it, keeping the arrangements crisp and uncluttered so that cool, careful voice sits front and center.

"Tom's Diner" is sung a cappella, nothing but that voice in an empty room, while "Luka" wraps her calm delivery in a bright pop setting that makes you lean in close. The rest keeps that quiet intensity, folk songs with a pop gleam. It's the most successful and most acclaimed album of her career, platinum in both the US and the UK and a number two album in Britain. "Tom's Diner" had a second life, too: DNA remixed it into a dance hit in 1990, and the original recording was used as a test while the MP3 format was being developed, which earned Vega the title of "The Mother of the MP3".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.