Tracy Chapman – Tracy Chapman (1988) CD Album
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Tracy Chapman – Tracy Chapman (1988)
Tracy Chapman is the debut studio album by Tracy Chapman, released in April 1988 on Elektra Records and produced by David Kershenbaum. The album sold over 20 million copies worldwide, spent three weeks at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart and won four Grammy Awards — Best New Artist, Best Contemporary Folk Album, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. Chapman — born in Cleveland, Ohio and educated at Tufts University on a scholarship — had been discovered busking on the streets of Boston, and her debut album arrived with a directness, political urgency and musical simplicity that was completely at odds with the polished pop production of the late 1980s mainstream. The album's breakthrough moment came at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in June 1988, when Chapman stepped in as a last-minute replacement for Stevie Wonder and performed to a global television audience of over 600 million people. Fast Car — which had reached No. 5 in the UK and No. 6 in the US on original release — returned to No. 1 in the UK in 2023 when Luke Combs covered it, making Chapman the first Black woman to have a No. 1 country single in the United States.
Highlights
- Fast Car — One of the great American songs of the late twentieth century; a narrative of poverty, aspiration and the slow erosion of hope, told with a precision and emotional honesty that gives it a literary quality rare in pop music. Its return to No. 1 in the UK in 2023 — 35 years after its original release — is a testament to the timeless power of Chapman's songwriting.
- Talkin' Bout a Revolution — The album's opening track and its most explicitly political; a simple, acoustic song with a lyric of social uprising and economic justice that captures the album's political spirit with complete directness and gives it one of its most immediately recognisable and enduring moments.
- Baby Can I Hold You — The album's most melodically generous and emotionally direct ballad; a simple, heartfelt love song that demonstrates Chapman's ability to move from political urgency to intimate vulnerability with complete ease, and one of the most immediately replayable and emotionally affecting songs on the record.
- Behind the Wall — The album's most formally distinctive track; performed entirely a cappella, with no instrumentation whatsoever, the song addresses domestic violence with a stark simplicity that gives it a power and directness that no conventional arrangement could have matched.
- Mountains O' Things — One of the album's most musically rich and lyrically complex tracks; a song about materialism, aspiration and the gap between dreams and reality that demonstrates the full range of Chapman's songwriting ambition and gives the album one of its most musically satisfying and intellectually engaging moments.
CD Details
- Title: Tracy Chapman
- Artist: Tracy Chapman
- Year: 1988
- Label: Elektra Records / Warner Music
- Producer: David Kershenbaum
- Format: CD Album
- Tracks: 11 (inc. bonus track)
- Barcode: 075596077422
Condition
Condition: Good/Good — see our Condition Grading Guide.
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