It’s a shame the rest of the album is mostly an uncommitted muddle. On her 1989 “Crossroads” album, Chapman responded to her sudden stardom with palpable bitterness. Peppered with white devils and people trying to steal her soul, the album was uncomfortable even to listen to. “Matters of the Heart,” by contrast, is as comfortable as a lukewarm bath. “Music,” Chapman says, “just does what most art should do, which is challenge people and give them contexts for issues.” But the album doesn’t do this; instead, it ambles from end to end without landing on any salient specifies. As the album title suggests, Chapman here lays off some of the global political topics for personal ones. But even on these, she comes off guardedly impersonal. Platitudes like " It’s time that we/ Make a space in our hearts / And open our eyes" or “We lose old memories/But dreams are what life’s worth living for” feel not only obvious but ungenerous. To be an effective singer and songwriter, she has to give us something. On the album’s final song, the title cut, she laments, “But I asked before/ Your reply was kind and polite/One wants more/When one’s denied.” With an album like this, one wants a lot more.
