Our Bright Future

Tracy Chapman’s positive ideas

Despite the fact that this year it is exactly 20 years since the release of Tracy Chapman’s eponymous debut album many people still associate her name with the first single Fast Car. This unique performer is famous not only due to her inimitable deep voice and creating a few world hits but also due to her notable social activity that has changed the outlook and even life of many Americans. At the same time she has managed to find her own sounding from the very beginning performing beautiful and very soulful songs combining folk, rock and pop music elements. This year her eighth studio album Our Bright Future is released being the first one in the past three years and following the splendid 2005 record Where You Live. It goes without saying that Tracy has remained herself on the new creation, too, once again writing 11 amazingly heartfelt compositions about love and faith expressing her own positive ideas. Stylish, original and endlessly kind, Our Bright Future occupies a worthy position in Chapman’s discography and brightly stands out against the other pop works of the year.

A number of songs on Our Bright Future lead one to profound reflections

Absolutely all the songs that Tracy Chapman writes have a certain message in them and often it is clear at once but sometimes it leads one to longer and more profound reflections, the same goes about Our Bright Future. Here one can find some simple and unobtrusive melodies like the opener Sing For You, a tranquil composition and classic for Tracy love confession. A more serious track and definitely one of the record’s best numbers is I Did It All, a sort of conclusion making with the singer looking back and rethinking her life. Songs with some country elements Save Us All and A Theory please with an interesting combination of Chapman’s vocals with an instrumental background that cannot be heard often in her works as well as the title track Our Bright Future refined with organ and banjo. Ballad For A Dream pleases with wise lyrics that gives faith to everyone who doubts his or her strength, and although composition Thinking Of You is presumably one of the saddest on the album in the respect of lyrics it proves to be among the most contagious ones due to a catchy chorus. The sounds of rain can be heard on Conditional while Something To See rather reminds of a train’s measured movement with the accompaniment of which Tracy reflects on how many things are not yet known to her and how much there is to see. A philosophic song The First Person On Earth is another unusual piece by the unique artist, addressing some abstract person who has just appeared on Earth and does not yet know what pain, betrayal and desperation mean. The record closes on the same note with which it starts – a peaceful composition Spring pleases with both soft vocals, beautiful lyrics and an acoustic guitar caressing the ear.

A talented and strong artist

Naturally many of Tracy Chapman’s creations render happiness and confidence but there are rather sad and even desperate among them, too. The point is that the singer’s fine nature does not permit her close her eyes on all the negative things she sees around herself. There are some compositions with quite sad lyrics on Our Bright Future but they never create an oppressing atmosphere for the melodies and rhythm do not allow one sink fully into despondency. At the same time such a contrast never seems inappropriate, on the contrary, it all sounds quite harmonious. Yet it is very probable that only an artist talented and strong as Tracy is able to perform such tricks. Actually it is what she does best: express all the opposite emotions that co-exist within her soul and manage to reach the listeners’ hearts. She did that at the beginning of her career and continues until now when she is already 44 years old. This is the kind of music we usually characterize as time-proved which is why we can relax and being sure it will be the same wonderfully harmonious wait for her following masterpiece.