Neither do I. Suzanne Vega's debut LP has found critics clutching at only vaguely applicable reference points, none of which really convey the essence. She can sometimes hint at the above-named yet her best work is highly individual. In it is a chillingly fresh, icy perspective. Here is person-orientated material which casts new, strangely 80s views as it charts ascents and descents through states of emotional ennui.

Suzanne began writing songs at fourteen (she's now 25); penning silly countryish songs to amuse her younger brother and evolving these compositions in a traditional folksy vein. But in 1979 she visited England. In Glastonbury she designed costumes for a mediaeval pageant play (haven't we all) and remembers:

"I was really struck by some of the kids in London. At that time it seemed the punk thing was really alive and it was alive in a different way in England than the US. In the US, it was very chic. In England it seemed more a way of life.

"I started to think differently after that trip and I started listening to different kinds of music. Like Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. It was the first time I could really get into what they were saying. Before I just felt it was a load of noise."

It was then that she wrote 'Cracking' which opens the album. 'Cracking' has a crisp coldness which sets the nerves on edge, establishing a haunting tension through imagery and feeling and by its refusal to follow a traditional structure.

It was a big deal when I wrote that song, a kind of turning point. It was the first time I'd tried to write something that wasn't verse-chorus-verse-chorus and something that didn't have a specific melody. Also I tried to write it through the voice of someone who was in a state of shock."

Electric cherie. But much of the album veers away from what Suzanne calls her "cold themes" and into "courtship games" and "straightline themes". Overall she aims to "make people think about themselves or move them in a certain way. Say things that people have felt but don't know how to express. I them to feel some recognition. That's how I felt growing up listening to Paul Simon."

She claims her songs are "personal not as personal as people might think. I have a lot of control when I write but they're all about feelings that I've had some point."

On stage she appears with a band, a ensemble who only become fully apparent on the LP's closer, 'Neighbourhood Girl'

"It's more exciting live. There's more feeling of immediacy although I've always had mixed feelings about playing five. Sometimes I'm happy to be there, other times I wonder how I happen to be singing about the most personal parts of my life to a group of strangers."

Isn't this something you'll get used to?

"No!"