That MP3 collection you cherish so dearly owes a small debt to Suzanne Vega. A CD version of her song “Tom’s Diner” was used by German audio engineer Karlheinz Brandenburg to refine the compression used in MP3s, and she is even sometimes referred to by the guilt-edged title “the mother of the MP3.”
So, there you have it music industry execs, Suzanne Vega is partly responsible for your demise. But that hasn’t stopped her from touring and recording—and she has an album or reworkings of her classic songs available now titled Love Songs. Vega performed a version of “Caramel” on the show, which originally appeared on the 1996 album Nine Objects of Desire, and is delivered in a stripped-down acoustic format below. But the real draw here is a web-exclusive version of “Tom’s Diner” with the Roots, which you can see above.
I could watch the Roots play lady marmalade and it would still be solid.