Track Listing

1. Polaroids
2. Tennessee
3. Tenderness On The Block
4. Round Of Blues
5. Monopoly
6. Orion In The Sky
7. Climb On (A Back That's Strong)
8. Set The Prairie On Fire
9. Object Of My Affection
10. Kill The Messenger
11. I Don't Know Why

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22824 in Music
• Released on: 1998-07-13
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Shawns finest
This was my first taste of Shawn Colvin after hearing a track of hers on a freebie magazine cd and to my mind Shawns best album ever (well to date).
There are no weak tracks on this album and with some fine muscians and guests playing on it, the whole cd is a masterpiece.Some fans say the album is a little over produced but i disagree and feel the instruments sound really great and well played.
Ok i,m a big SC fan............

Excellent, but a bit too anxious to please
There is a lot to like about this album, but I have always had reservations about it. This follow up to her fabulous debut, Steady On, tends to lean a bit too far towards commercial acceptability: it is a bit overproduced in places and two of the songs in particular, I Don’t Know Why and Climb On, are too desperately radio friendly, the former a saccharine ballad and the latter an over the top cheery pop song. That said, there are some great compositions here, the catchy Round of Blues, the fine Orion in the Sky and the straightforward but accomplished remake of Tenderness on the Block. Most importantly, Fat City contains one of her greatest (if not her best) songs—the biographical/story song Polaroids. This song shows you what a great songwriter she can be when she dares to escape the familiar verse chorus verse chorus structure.

Overlooked second album...
For the second release from Ms Colvin she has put together a steller cast of players, ranging from the likes of "Larry Klein" ("Joni Mitchell's" ex husband) who has produced most of the tracks and co-written 2 of them and adds his superb bass playing on most of the songs.
I defy anyone to listen to the closing lines of the song "Monopoly" "I would rather be anywhere than here without you" and not be moved.
"Bruce Hornsby" makes another guest apperance, again playing piano and this time also adding background vocals along with "Mary Chapin Carpenter" to one of the key songs on the album "Climb on a Back that's Strong".

The following track "Object of my Affection" if you listen to very carefully you can hear handclaps and extra pecussion this is "Joni Mitchell" adding some of her magic to the ambience of the track.

Another high point on this collection of songs is "Set the Parairie on Fire" which has a wonderful errie atmosphere, this is created by the sound of "Hammond B-3 organ" this played to great effect by "Booker T Jones" this is counterpointed by "Chris Whitleys" national guitar sound.
To close the album she sings one of her self penned songs called "I don't know why" a simple title for such a complex song which has been arranged by the keyboard player "Kenny White" the singing on this track is angelic sounding and closes this set of songs perfectly, heart felt songs for any music fan collection...