Product Description

Preoccupied with the big questions--who are we, why are we here, and what the hell do we do now--Mary-Chapin Carpenter struggles to find her own PLACE IN THE WORLD and in the process touches on the things that bind us all together. Bridging the gap between contemporary country, pop and post-Joni Mitchell folk, Carpenter's music is an adult-alternative radioprogrammer's dream. She crosses over to all of the above audiences, as well as the caught-in-the-middle, baby-boomer nation for which she speaks so eloquently in songs like "Hero In Your Own Hometown" and the title tune. "Hero" is a summing up of how far she and her generation have come; "A Place In The World" wonders where they will go next.
Not that Carpenter over-intellectualises. She's equally capable of spinning out a simple, infectious pop tune like "I Want To Be Your Girlfriend" or an uptempo rocker like "Keeping The Faith". Whether longing for escape in "What If We Went To Italy" or celebrating newfound love in "Let Me Into Your Heart", Mary-Chapin Carpenter's well-crafted compositions and straight-ahead vocal style make it clear that even if she has yet to find her PLACE IN THE WORLD, she knows all the right places to look.

Track Listing

1. Keeping The Faith
2. Hero In Your Own Hometown
3. I Can See It Now
4. I Want To Be Your Girlfriend
5. Let Me Into Your Heart
6. What If We Went To Italy
7. That's Real
8. Ideas Are Like Stars
9. Naked To The Eye
10. Sudden Gift Of Fate
11. Better To Dream Of You
12. Place In The World

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38964 in Music
• Released on: 1999-08-30
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Mary left the melody behind
As another reviewer has commented, MCC is trying very hard on this album to fit her words to music, something she usually has no problem with. Here it doesn't quite work and familar themes are trotted out - "Her In My Hometown", "What If We Went To Italy" - but without the love, the emotion and the downright heartbreak of some of her earlier (and indeed, later, work). The lyrics do not sit easily on the melodies here. It is all pleasant enough, but the telling thing is, for me, that this is the one MCC album I rarely play. There is not a song on here one would consider up there with her best, and, believe me, there are many contenders on other albums.

That is all I can say, really. There are six better offerings from Ms.Carpenter to choose before this one.

Evergreen
MCC has a happy knack of belting out great music, both fantastic ballads and upbeat rockers. Not content with the brilliance of 'Stones In The Road', she went on to record this corker of a record with such varied highlights as the title track, The Better to Dream of You, Naked to the Eye and What If We Went to Italy. Brilliance at work.

Something missing
MCC's Stones in the Road is one of my favourite records of this - or any - genre. A Place in the World doesn't begin to measure up. It's hard to say what's missing, but I think the problem is that she's concentrated too hard on the words and forgotten that these are meant to be *songs*, rather than just poems with an accompaniment. The tunes here seem unimaginative and forgettable.

I saw MCC on her Party Doll tour in 1999, and in a two-hour set, she played nothing from this album. Perhaps she recognizes that it's not up to her usual standard.