Cat Power
The Greatest (Matador)
By Ling Ma
Published: January 24th, 2006 | 12:02pm
The first Cat Power song a friend of mine ever listened to was “Maybe Not,” off 2003’s You Are Free. We listened to it seven times in a row one night, and in the end, he concluded that he couldn’t stand Chan Marshall’s music because of her inconsistency — the choppy rhythm of her piano, the occasional stuttering of her voice, the redundant chorus.
The Greatest is the Cat Power I think my friend would most like. It is her most accessible record to date, and not only because it is the most genre-specific. The lyrics are more plainclothes straightforward as are the album’s sentiments and tone. It is with polished execution, rhythmic consistency, and technical refinement that Marshall reverts to soul and blues. Collaborators include guitarist Mabon “Teenie” Hodges and bassist Flick Hodges, both of whom were musicians on Al Green’s ’70s albums.
Though not a greatest-hits compilation, a retrospective tone is present here. On the album-opener and title track, Marshall sings, “Once, I wanted to be the greatest,” as curtain after curtain of jaunty piano chords fall over her lyrics, gently punctuating a slow resignation. That same tone is echoed in “Lived in Bars,” a look back at a different lifestyle, where Marshall recalls, “We've lived in bars and danced on tables / Hotel trains and ships that sail.”
While Marshall’s voice has morphed into various incarnations through her seven albums — from searing shrieks to snatches of soft spoken word — the steadier pacing of The Greatest showcases Marshall’s voice itself. Noted more for her songwriting abilities than vocal virtuoso, her soft, creamy rasp, like battered egg yolks, should not be overlooked.
But beyond that, The Greatest is a mid-career pause for Marshall to survey the landscape left in her wake and to figure out where else to go. Though soul and blues has always tinged her music, the fuller embrace of these genres here may be temporary — a means to play with simpler and more traditional song structures.
In earlier albums Dear Sir and What Would the Community Think, Marshall has often sounded as if she were in the grip of a quiet, personal psychosis, falling under the repetitive spell of her own self-hypnosis. For every overextended repetition or drone-y riff that has bordered on lo-fi lethargy, she has eventually pulled a dramatic compositional shift, sometimes when you least expect it. In Dear Sir’s “Rockets,” she sets an intimidating series of jagged, tearing-at-the-seams drums against smooth planes of vocals. In What Would the Community Think’s title track, she lets her voice languorously swoop in amid drones of bass and quivering guitar feedback. Both instances exemplify Marshall’s tendency to juxtapose the dull and the punishing with the lush, the extravagant, the outright beautiful.
The Greatest doesn’t carry the same dramatic shifts as Marshall’s earlier work, but for critics who see her early albums as fractured, inconsistent, and incomplete, The Greatest will sound like the best thing since sliced bread. It is an easy and beautiful album, full of sonorous and playful moments. Still, Marshall has never proven herself faithful to more traditional song structures or polished execution. At times, a glimpse of her earlier tendencies rears its head, such as in “The Moon,” the most underwhelming song on the album that’s set to a lone, repetitive chorus. The arduous lyrics hark back to the Southern gothic literary tradition; its crisp images and dark, epic sentiments so wistful and chilling that they could have been exhumed overnight from a Faulkner novel: “The moon is not only beautiful / It is so far away / The moon is not only ice cold / It is here to stay.”
It’s a testament to Marshall’s ability that one of the most melodically dull songs on the album also happens to be one of its most compelling, though it requires listening stamina. In the next line, she questions a friend or lover, but inadvertently addresses the listener. “When I lay me down / will you still be around? / When they put me six feet under ground / Will big bad beautiful you be around?”
Issue #35
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