Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman

THE REVIEW

...Together we can get somewhere / Anyplace is better / Starting from zero got nothing to lose / Maybe we'll make something / But me myself I got nothing to prove...

It's morning; I wake up. A dazzling sun dryly warms my skin, so full of chills.
Oh, what a beautiful day! What else to do but spend it with friends in front of a beautiful landscape.

I call Luca, Angelo. Meeting in 30 min. I go to take a shower.
15 min later the phone rings: "Eh, Bibi how are we going to do with our outing? It’s pouring outside!" Me: "What?".
Oh yes, it’s pouring outside. Goodbye to our outing!
Disappointed and embittered by this weather that changes "mood" and is never as you expect, I start channel surfing: mtv; mtv usa top 20. After the first half of the "show," doubts begin to arise: but do the new singers of black music sell their music, sell their talent, or do they sell their bodies and are nothing less than a futile product of the music business that takes us for ignoble fools ready to devour the first - apparently delicious - dish that comes our way?
Appearing sexy is not an option: it is an obligation. Dressing or not dressing makes no difference but if you're not dressed... it's better!

Practically the opposite of this Prima Donna: she is not beautiful, she's not tall, in terms of look she's definitely out, and she surely never was, is, or will be the new Naomi Campbell!
She has only a Voice, her guitar and the seven notes!

It was way back in 1988, the world was conquered by rock-noisy bands like Def Leppard, Poison, when at just 24 years old a woman with a delicate but powerful voice made herself known, with an album that proved to us that pop could still move and conquer, sweeping away all other artists from the scene and selling in a little over a year more than 9 million copies worldwide.

It was an album so bright that it overshadowed all the others: 11 songs and 36 minutes of harmless melody and pure poetry. She sang the battles of her life, both socio-political ("Talkin' About A Revolution") against poverty and racial segregation, and concerning family disorders ("Across The Lines", "Behind The Wall") and love that changes existence ("For My Lover").

Tracy Chapman (the album) is the first work of a "black folk artist," which reminds me of my bitter afternoon: it may seem predictable, but you never know how the next track will be. Mrs. Chapman was definitely right when she said: "...I had a feeling that I belonged / And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone..."