Our Bright Future

There is so much to love about this album--but it doesn't quite reach Tracy's highest standards of excellence. Tracy Chapman has one of the most distinctive and warm voices in music, and from a straight vocal standpoint, everything is as beautiful as it has ever been. Her vibrato is as strong as ever, no hint of effort on her part. Every note seems channeled from some inner well of grace. Her intonations are perfect--floating over her guitar at moments of emotional delicacy, punching on the beat when she decries injustice. Her lyrics are poignant, insightful, but not searing. She no longer sounds as angry as she once was, but just sadder. This is perhaps understandable--she is more than 20 years on from where we first her Talkin' 'bout a Revolution, but I know that the fire that she has showed in the past is still there, and I was hoping for a little more to rise to the surface.

This is not an album that you can get on the first listen, and indeed, the melodies improve and stick in the memory more with repeated spins, but there is nothing here that will even rise as high as "Bang Bang Bang" in terms of memorable tunes.

Ultimately, if you are a fan of this amazing lady, then you are going to enjoy this disc a lot. If you find that the last several of her discs have started sounding similar one to another, then this disc will hold no surprises for you. I don't think that is a bad thing, but it is a true thing. Tracy has been our travelling companion for two decades, reminding us of how love hurts but is still worth it (mostly), of how America has some real wonders, but how we have a great responsibility incurred by simply living here, and how sometimes people are not what they seem. She was right then, she is right now. This is a good disc, a warm disc, but a sad disc. On Conditional, Tracy sums up exactly what is required to love this album well: "There are strings attatched/tied to me/I want something back/if you agree/to be in love with me". If you agree to give back the effort it takes to love these songs, they will deepen for you and make this disc something to keep warm by this winter; if you give it a cursory listen, you might miss the point entirely. I know that Tracy can do better than this, but for now, this is a beautiful interlude, and I look forward to seeing more from her in the future.

At 44, Tracy Chapman has written another of her archetypal protest songs, one which makes its point eloquently but is delivered in somewhat sleepy fashion.
The title track turns out to be more bittersweet than its title suggests - the full lyric is "our bright future is in our past". The tastefully downbeat arrangement defuses the angry, questioning lyrics, robbing them of potential power and turning what could have been a trenchant anti-war song into a downcast acceptance of the inevitable.
"Something To See" is another protest song that doesn't protest too hard.
Unlike Sam Cooke on A Change Is Gonna Come, Chapman does not sing with passionate conviction. Even though it is all there in the lyrics, she never strays from her trademark mild delivery.
It's been 20 years since "Fast Car" first alerted the world to Tracy Chapman.
Eight albums later, not a lot has changed. That voice is intact, although her lyrical concerns are now more focused on love. A posse of veteran players ensure that "Our Bright Future" has a professional sheen, everything tasteful and underplayed. This type of well-mannered pop/folk is perhaps not to everyone's taste, but if you are in a quiet mood, these sweet and earnest melodies might touch a lost.
With a lush production by Larry Klein (frequent musical collaborator, and ex-husband, of Joni Mitchell, and producer of female singers like Holly Cole, Mary White, Shawn Colvin, Julia Fordham and Madeleine Peyroux), the result could easily be predicted.
Despite the optimistic-sounding title, Chapman has not come over all saccharine, though.
Her strident earnestness has been tempered, leaving a wry warmth that turns even such political numbers as "Something to See (No War)" into something intimate and beguiling.
A highlight is the older-and-wiser sigh of "A Theory". This is actually a pretty witty number, in which Chapman woos a potential lover using cerebral terminology ("in theory I could propose and in theory you could affirm that you were meant for me").
Yes,songs namecheck Katrina, Obama et al - but there's also a playful, reflective quality as Chapman looks back at the way music has shaped her life. She is terrific on obsessive love, while on "Conditional", a riposte to commitment-phobes, she rails, "There are strings attached... I want something back".
The arrangement has a light, jazzy feel with sashaying clarinet and tinkling piano.
"Our Bright Future" is a potentially stimulating album, but it has been rendered in a gentle hush-and-rustle soothing manner that it will eventually wash over the listener when it could have better expressed the challenges of these particular, difficult times.

Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964

When I say I'm a Tracy Chapman fan, that's an understatement. The last time I saw her was in Tucson for the Westward Swing Vote. She was, once again, amazing. I think I'm simply the fan of Tracy and her guitar. I think her past two albums, Where You Live and Let It Rain are my all time favorites and I haven't loved one of her albums that much since Crossroads. They both left me singing the tunes and every song had such an emotional message that made me think. I was INCREDIBLY excited for Our Bright Future and I can't figure out what happened.

Every song blends into the next and they all sound the same. It has many religious undertones, which is fine if I wanted a Christian album. Her voice is IMMACULATE and still gives me goosebumps. I guess I miss the variety of all her songs on an album. The same thing seems to be said on most of the songs on this album. I do like I Did It All and Conditional but I can't find my place in the others because they all sound the same. This is SO hard for me to say. I guess I miss those heart wrenching and simplistic acoustic songs like The Promise, Be Careful Of My Heart, Don't Dwell, Goodbye, In the Dark, The Love That You Had, or For You. They were greatly missed on this album and that is classic Tracy. I still plan on going wherever she is close to KC but I hope she does much from her past albums. Still love her!

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