Tracy Chapman

Suzanne Vega was only the tip of the iceberg. Vega hauled the female-singer-songwriter
genre into the Eighties, sold records, even got on the radio and on MTV. She was
successful because she made smart music, not because she looked good in a miniskirt or
sold herself in shopping malls or had a smart man in the shadows. But you could still
pigeonhole her: you know, another sensitive, poetic girl singer. So now it's time... More >

"Fast Car" is so far-seeing, "Mountains o' Things" so necessary, that it's doubly annoying when she puts her name on begged questions like "Why" and "Talkin' Bout a Revolution." Maybe I should be heartened and so forth that Intelligent Young People are once again pushing naive left-folkie truisms, but she's too good for such condescension--even sings like a natural. Get real, girl. (Grade: B+)