Track Listing
1. Talkin' 'bout A Revolution
2. Fast Car
3. Across The Lines
4. Behind The Wall
5. Baby Can I Hold You
6. Mountain O' Things
7. She's Got Her Ticket
8. Why
9. For My Lover
10. If Not Now...
11. For You
Review
This is another one of those albums that I have been aware of since it came out and my father got in on vinyl. And it is one that although it has dated a bit, it is still thoroughly enjoyable. Not just that, but an album that opened doors for the huge number of female singer/songwriters to come in the 90s.
Where the album is most dated is on the tracks that use some kind of synth, fortunately, the best and most successful track, Fast Car, is free of it and in fact the whole album would have benefited from a little less production. A guitar and her voice is really all that is needed here, and certainly not synths. This is, however, the 80s.
The lyrics take little vignettes for most of the songs, most of them are really good, although Tracy seems to offer not solutions for most of the problems she deals with, but sometimes raising awareness is better than nothing, and in a time of mass-manufactured pop wide appeal singers with a message were indeed rare.
Track Highlights
1. Fast Car
2. For My Lover
3. Talkin' Bout a Revolution
4. Behind The Wall
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Tracy Chapman was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album and "Fast Car" gained Chapman an award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 31st Grammy Awards in early 1989.
In 1989, the album was rated number 10 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the the "100 Greatest Albums of the 80's." In 2003, the album was ranked number 261 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. According to Media Traffic Tracy Chapman is the 74th most successful album of all time.
Fast Car:
3 comments:
This list is starting to become depressingly familiar. No more surprises, methinks. Shame.
no more surprises?
there are just as many new finds in the 90's as there are in the 60's and things that have been overlooked for years. The only difference is that the 90's are more recent so all the other albums surrounding them seem like old news.
I agree with Tommy here, there are going to be plenty of things I never heard of, or heard of but never listened to coming up. Even even if they are not surprises there are some good things on their way before we finish the 80s as well.
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