BoDeans - Black And White (1991)

After moderate sales on their first three albums threatened to forever classify them as an alternative band, the BoDeans started tackling bigger themes on Black and White, produced by Prince-sideman David Z. The band hardly sounds like the roots-oriented band of their previous efforts, and Sam Llanas and Kurt Neumann sound more ambitious as songwriters. So "Black, White and Blood Red" is about more than race, the same way the anthemic "Naked" is about more than sex, the same way the hooky "Good Things" is about more than some guy who can't meet a girl. Black and White is about using individual problems as analogies to social ones. It's also about loneliness and hardship. It also didn't sell that much better (if any) than the first albums.