Suzanne Vega is set to make a long-awaited return in May, announcing the release of her first album of new material in over a decade.
Titled Flying With Angels, the record is Vega’s tenth and arrives on May 2nd. “Flying With Angels is my first studio album of new songs in eleven years,” she said of the new LP. “Each song on the album takes place in an atmosphere of struggle. Struggle to survive, to speak, to dominate, to win, to escape, to help someone else, or just live.”
The record’s announcement has been accompanied by the release of its opening track, “Speakers’ Corner,” which itself features an animated music video by Michael Arthur. “A Speakers’ Corner is an area where free speech, open air public speaking, debate, and discussion are allowed,” Vega wrote on social media. “I guess we better use it now before we find it gone!”
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“That’s something you don’t want in democracy: the shutting down of the Speakers’ Corner where people get a say,” she continued in a press release. “This is a moment in time when people are saying a lot, but sometimes they’re not making sense or not telling the truth. People should be accountable for what they say. They can’t just lie. One would think that that would be self-evident.”
Flying With Angels is Vega’s first new studio release since 2016’s Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers, which was based on Vega’s 2011 play Carson McCullers Talks About Love, written about the titular American poet. Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles, her most recent album of entirely new material, arrived in 2014.
Vega’s new album also arrived almost 40 years to the day since the release of self-titled debut record. It reached No. 91 on the Billboard 200, though Vega made a marked improvement on that feat with 1987’s Solitude Standing, which peaked at No. 11. The album’s success was largely thanks to second single “Luka,” which gave her a career-best when it hit No. 3 on the Hot 100. Three years later, she returned to the top of the charts, landing at No. 5 with the DNA remix of her a cappella track “Tom’s Diner.”
Vega has also announced an extensive run of tour dates in support of the new album. She’ll launch her Flying With Angels tour in East Greenwich, RI on Thursday (March 6), with a total of 40 dates currently planned for North America, Europe, and the U.K. throughout 2025.
