*** SUZANNE VEGA “Days of Open Hand” <i> A&M;</i> ; <i> Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to five (a classic).</i>

If Vega’s two previous albums were anthropologist’s notebooks, her third is pages from her diary. She’s still making analytical observations, but now they’re about herself. The result is her warmest and most involving work, with music to match (jaunty folk-pop making up the first half of the album, a more meditative atmosphere filling the second).

The album is filled with apparent clues that Vega herself found something lacking in her old approach, from the eye- and album-opening “Tired of Sleeping” to the amputation analogy of the almost rocking “Men in a War” to “Those Whole Girls,” in which she sounds as if she wants to be one, not just watch them. And in “Big Space” she directly addresses her own formerly restricted nature.

It seems she’s found that the best perspective comes from being on the inside. It suits her well.