256. Tracy Chapman, "Tracy Chapman"

 


I absolutely remember how inescapable this album was in, for me anyway, 1989 (even though it came out in 1988).  It was just everywhere, especially the first two songs, "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" and "Fast Car," the song that really launched Chapman into the stratosphere.  This album sold 20 million copies.

You have to remember that 1988 was an era of slickly-produced pop.  The Top 3 singles of 1988: George Michael's "Faith," INXS's "Need You Tonight," and George Harrison's "Got My Mind Set On You."  All perfectly fine songs in their own regard, but this album offered such a contrast to that highly-produced sheen that it was irresistible to people.

(Small digression, but I don't think I realized that "Got My Mind Set On You" was George Harrison, like George Harrison from the Beatles?! I think I just filed it in my mind under "mainstream pop" and didn't think about it.)

The first song, written when Chapman was just 16, paints a hopeful picture in which justice finally arrives:

Cause finally the tables are starting to turn
Talkin' 'bout a revolution
'Cause finally the tables are starting to turn
Talkin' 'bout a revolution, oh no
Talkin' 'bout a revolution, oh

Listening to this now is especially poignant, because maybe in 1988 things seemed like they were soon to change?  Some things changed, but some things stayed the same and some things got worse.  Income inequality is worse now, far worse than in 1988, and the only revolution anyone is talking about is dumb shit like Texas seceding (godspeed, Texas, make it happen).  

"Fast Car," the monster hit, is a more personal song, about the singer's plea to a friend?  A lover?  To take her in his/her car and drive away to a new life.  It's really a lovely song, built on a guitar riff that's utterly unique and familiar at the same time.  It's also incredibly sad.  We know that she isn't going anywhere, that the car isn't going to materialize, that she's going to be stuck in that life forever.

This is gonna sound shitty, but the album kinda tails off after that for me.  A lot of it comes across today as preachy and didactic in a way that it wouldn't if you were younger and still had hope, I guess.  But you really can't overstate how big this album was and how much it opened up the singer/songwriter genre.  You probably don't get Elliott Smith without Tracy Chapman.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? I think so, but probably not this high.

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