Amazon.com: New Beginning: CDs & Vinyl (original) (raw)

To say that “New Beginning” is my least favorite Tracy Chapman album is kind of like Santa Claus saying that Blitzen is his “least favorite” reindeer. Yo, Santa! Ya’ can’t fly that big sled loaded down with gifts for the good children of the world without the whole reindeer crew. It’s about ohana, bearded big man: in the family of humanity, no one gets left behind, and no one gets forgotten. Flying reindeer – and Tracy Chapman albums – very much included.Dasher won’t fly without Dancer. Try getting Donner to pull her weight without the electric energy of her trusted companion, Blitzen. And Vixen don’t prance without her beloved Prancer by her side. Rudolf, that red-nosed little cutie, he couldn’t pull the whole sled by himself even after twin quad espressos. It’s a team effort! You don’t deliver all those Christmas presents without everyone playing a part.This, in essence, is exactly how I feel about Tracy Chapman’s fourth solo album, “New Beginning.” It’s one of her eight astounding solo albums, all works of art in their own right. Without this 1995 effort, one which earned Tracy her fourth Grammy award (she collected the first three with her stratospheric solo debut album, featuring “Fast Car”), there would have been no “Telling Stories,” or no “Our Bright Future,” which remain imo her most fully-realized and heart-wrenching, soul-enriching efforts of musical majesty.But the thing about Tracy is that, whatever her intense romantic struggles and tormented spiritual doubts, whatever amount of trauma she endured as a child and adolescent, whatever she may have felt as a scholarship student and struggling artist in Boston before she landed a contract with a major record label like Elektra: Tracy bleeds sonic sensationalism out of every pore and core of her body. She hears things that others don’t. She writes songs and then drills down on them until she’s landed on the essence. And she respects the music. She’s a solo artist, but her studio recordings are done with top-tier players who add impressive sounds and tonalities to her own singing and playing. Scottish small pipes and whistle? Check. Violin and cello? Check, check. Organ, piano, keyboards, percussion, guitar, and bass? Check, check, check, check, check, and … check. Wait! Why not a didjeridu also? Why not! Check. Backing vocals by the band as well. Nice to work with such talented people. Tracy has a knack for that, it seems.Listen to these tracks in a quiet, contemplative space. Pour a cup of single origin, fairly sourced and traded coffee. Make some multigrain toast with organic garden tomatoes and locally sourced goat cheese. Clear the room. Reboot the mind and clear your short-term memory cache. Keep the lyrics sheet handy and consult as needed to really hear Tracy’s words. Then, use your ears to focus on the textures, rhythms, and delicious tonalities of each song.Try to keep your attention fixed straight to the end, past the Grammy-winning single, “Give Me One Reason,” and the two after that. There’s a bonus track not listed on the liner notes, so keep listening once Track 11 ends. Don’t try to interrogate Tracy too much about what she meant with all those words. You know: who tore up whom; who messed up the best thing that they ever had; who gave up on true love to pursue something far less meaningful simply because it felt right at the time. Tracy’s life in the end is Tracy’s life: she sings about it only to help the rest of us put our own passing struggles in a wider frame. Who hasn’t hurt just a little bit while growing up? Which of us has always struck solid gold when it comes to love?Tracy gets it. She wants us to feel her pain, sure. You cannot listen to “Remember the Tinman” – easily the best written and most powerfully poetic of the album – without sensing that someone close to her was deeply, indelibly hurt and that this wound somehow prevented Tracy herself from healing or easily moving on, for decades. But I feel after multiple listenings to this album that Tracy always wants us to know that she’s still there, still standing, still ready, and still trying to start anew, to truly make a new beginning. All those pictures of flowers and things in bloom in the soils outside of Santa Cruz, those fruits and vegetables and flowers are for real. Life does go on in cycles and circles. And spirit glows faintly like starlight in the early morning fog even in the darkest days of winter. Save a place for us, Tracy, in your heart. You keep singing, and we will come to meet you in whatever way we are able.So, don’t tell me that I don’t like “New Beginning.” Because I do. I really do. These five stars are for real. Tracy can ride in my reindeer sleigh anytime she wants. I’m pretty sure that Father Christmas would agree.