Tracy Chapman, "Tracy Chapman"
Ken has a feeling he could be someone, be someone
Ken’s Pitch:
They used to call surfing a fad back in the days when the Beach Boys still wore matching vertical-striped shirts. Then the sport decided to stick around and it became an institution. The pet rock was a thing for a while, but that didn’t have staying power so we can accurately call it (with hindsight) a fad. The same is true with those flip-up sunglasses everyone seemed to have in the ‘80s.
My esteemed EONS colleagues are in the business of helping businesses establish and communicate their brands in order to avoid being some flash-in-the-pan, or a one-trick pony, or…yup, a fad. I spend countless hours asking them both about particular campaigns I’ve seen on TV, or online, because for the most part, I just don’t get how some shitty products last forever, while other perfectly good, and some great ones, just fade into history.
And if you haven’t guessed already, that’s where Tracy Chapman comes in. She came on to the scene in the late 1980’s with a great origin story about growing up in Ohio, moving to MA and playing in the streets of Cambridge, only to be discovered by (then student at Tufts University) Brian Koppelman of The Wire and Billions fame. It’s sort of the musical version of the American Dream.
Chapman’s self-titled debut album is as gorgeous as it is poignant and powerful. It’s an old-school protest album set to contemporary acoustic blues and folk. Between her thoroughly satisfying guitar-playing and her sublime, clean vocals, tracks like “Talkin’ Bout A Revolution”, “Fast Car” and “For My Lover” became staples in everyone’s home either through their massive encased stereo, or through the radio waves in their cars.
Chapman had arrived, and she followed it up with several more excellent albums, but by the late 1990s, she had seemingly gone the way of the fidget spinner, relegated to the recycle-bin of musical history. And it doesn’t seem fair or just!
I don’t know if she just decided fame was too much, or if the industry shunned her for some reason, and I’m not even sure I want to find out. What I do know is that I just don’t hear enough Tracy Chapman these days and it’s kind of a shame.
This album has been on my list of albums I’ve wanted to pitch for some time. Since I made that list, Chapman achieved legendary status - with Luke Combs’ cover of Chapman’s “Fast Car”, she became the first black woman with sole songwriting credits on a No. 1 hit on the Billboard country charts.
So if her beautiful voice, her delicate guitar, or her eloquent and powerful lyrics aren’t enough for you, her glass-ceiling shattering accomplishments should be, because she is so much more than a passing shiny ball we all chase for 5 seconds.
CJ’s Response:
I love Somerville.
For those of you who aren’t from the 617, Somerville is a funky little city that borders Boston to the northwest. It’s an eclectic mix of young, single people and older, established families jam-packed into roughly four square miles. It’s got great restaurants, a surprisingly active nightlife and a little bit of an underdog chip on its shoulder.
I worked in Somerville’s Davis Square for a while and was a frequent visitor to Red Bones, one of the few legit BBQ places in New England. I was also a regular at the annual Mike and Spike’s Sick and Twisted Film Festival at the Somerville Theater (where Bruce Springsteen and U2 played some of their very first Boston gigs). It was at Mike and Spike’s where I saw a then unknown duo called Beavis and Butt-Head in their debut film “Frog Baseball”.
Somerville is fantastic.
Why am I talking about Somerville here? Well, Somerville is the home of Tufts University, where Tracy Chapman was studying Anthropology before her music career took off. Unfortunately, as Ken mentioned, Tracy was discovered on the streets of Cambridge.
And I friggin’ hate the pretentious, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, impossible-to-find-parking city of Cambridge.
So as far as I’m concerned, Tracy belongs to Somerville.
Like Somerville, Tracy Chapman’s debut album is full of hidden treats. Yes, there are the hits. But it’s some of the other tracks that really left an impression on me. “Across the Lines” is lush and heartbreaking. “Why?” feels like a Woodstock-era folk song updated with modern problems. And “For My Lover” is the runaway best song on the record. The more I spent with this album, the more it grew on me.
Which is exactly how I feel about Somerville.
Pitch Successful (Come at me, Cantabrigians. I’ll meet you in the Whole Foods parking lot. Near the ebike charging station. Across from the drum circle.)
Mitch’s Response:
To the reader it must seem easy: listen to a record, come up with a few jokes, dash off a couple of paragraphs, and wait for that sweet, sweet Substack cash to start rolling in.
If only it were so simple. I'm dealing with complex models here. Simulations. Algorithms. Differential mathematical equations that push the bounds of sanity by replacing numbers with letters. We're talking string theory and the invisible line between science, philosophy, and theology.
After all of my time in the lab this past week, I have come up with one inescapable conclusion: the people pretty much got it right about Tracy Chapman. She was justly celebrated for the three excellent songs on this album and justly forgotten for the rest of this filler-filled snooze-fest.
Let's start with the good: "Baby Can I Hold You Tonight" is a gorgeous, top-tier song. "Talkin' About a Revolution" and "Fast Car" are both excellent tunes even after being overplayed for years. I'll even throw the surprisingly sultry and jazzy "If Not Now" onto the good list.
The rest of this album, unfortunately, is as bad as a Brian Koppelman show entering its 8th season on Showtime, after all the main stars have quit, and we're somehow supposed to believe that Danny Bonaduce is America's greatest day trader when he isn't busy hunting great white sharks.
The absolute nadir of this album is the calpyso-reggae double shot that is "Mountains O' Things" and "She's Got Her Ticket". I imagine that some A&R person at the label (maybe Koppelman himself) asked Tracy to kick things up a notch, but to me it feels like someone decided to bust out a limbo bar in the middle of a UN conference on human trafficking.
I really tried to make the numbers work this week. I wanted to let Tracy in. I like her singing and guitar playing. I agree with her politics, even if she lays it on a bit thick. I love her origin story and I even liked the first 4 or so seasons of Billions. But when you have an album of 11 songs and 7 are skips, that's called an EP. The math just ain't mathing.
Pitch Failed (now where did I leave that shiny ball?)
Ken’s pitch was unsuccessful and Tracy Chapman is going to have to stay on the other side of the Charles River. What’s your take on Tracy Chapman and her debut album Tracy Chapman? What Top 20 album from 1988 would you have pitched? Please let us know in the comments section.
Other albums from 1988 we’ve covered:
Please join us next week as the EONS time machine jumps to 1985 with Mitch’s velvety pitch for Prince and the Revolutions’ Purple Rain.
I'm on #teamMitch here. The three songs he mentions are fantastic--especially, "Baby, Can I Hold You Tonight." Why that wasn't as big of hit as "Fast Car," I'll never know. The rest of the record never really landed with me.
P.S. Somerville sounds like my kinda town.
While average song length isn't the be all end all of a great album (see Abbey Road, depending how the "medley" songs are measured), the fact that two songs on Tracy Chapman weigh in at 2:06 or less and another four under 3:30 pretty much says it all that a lot of those songs are throwaways and it is more EP than LP (I give Talkin' Bout a Revolution at 2:41 a pass). Regarding the Luke Combs cover, it's too close to the original for my taste, just as soon listen to Tracy's superior warble. The woefully overlooked cover is Wyclef Jean's rappy version with Paul Simon's overdub anchoring it just the right amount to the original.