Hard and Fast

Tracy Chapman

At 24, Tracy Chapman's voice — androgynous, gruff and tender — made a strong first impression, and her lyrics warranted the attention paid to them. She came off hard and soft at the same time, whether she was lamenting a broken heart, a broken home or a broken political system.

Tracy Chapman Tracy Chapman (Elektra, 1988)

Tracy Chapman Our Bright Future (Atlantic, 2008)

Though the world's taken a few steps forward and a few steps back since then, Chapman's worldview remains remarkably unchanged. Aside from "I Did It All," a sort of Sex and the City waltz, her most recent work is cut from the same cloth she's been using for so long. Our Bright Future tempers her disappointment with hope: The title track is drenched in doubt, but the ending's open to the possibility of positivity. Her love songs are full of muted longing and tender regret; her political songs pray for a mercy she doesn't necessarily believe in. The high point, "Thinking of You," rejects the laws of physics in favor of irrational obsession and dwells in the rut of what could have been. That groove's well worn, and with good reason. Even when her words look toward the sky, the gravity in her voice and her stance on the cover — her sixth downcast gaze in eight albums — betray Chapman's true orientation.

It's been almost 20 years since we first saw her looking down from her self-titled debut, but it retains its righteous outrage. From the rousing determination of "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" to the quiet vulnerability of "For You," every song is a knockout. "Fast Car" and "For My Lover" are heartbreaking stories with sharp hooks; Chapman doesn't romanticize poverty or romantic failure, but she depicts socially insecure people with dignity.

Not all of the arrangements have aged well; "Mountains O' Things" is built on dated synths, and the electric sitar is a bit much on "Baby Can I Hold You." But when Chapman sings, none of that matters. (And on the a cappella "Behind the Wall," an indictment of domestic violence and hypocritical police, she doesn't need any instruments to induce goosebumps.) As long as some people have something others don't — money, power, love — Chapman's songs will be doing them justice.

(m_fine@citypaper.net)