The Greatest

My sister, the advertising executive, posted a comment to my last blog with a blurb about Cat Power's newest album, The Greatest, from her magazine.

The saga of Chan Marshall continues. Though in fact, Marshall's career as Cat Power is two tales: one of a recording artist possessed of a knifelike haunting beauty, and another of a performer so stultifying that there's little to differentiate the songs from the diffident shuffling between them.

The tip-off that The Greatest could be Marshall's finest work is that, unlike her past three albums, its effect is not quite immediate. At first blush, the pairing of this shiveringly lovely singer with a couple handfuls of loose-limbed Memphis veterans (including Al Green's guitarist "Teenie" Hodges, who co-wrote "Love and Happiness") sounds aesthetically off. More a spectral presence than ever before, Marshall's spun voice seems to ema-nate from some other dimension, one where sadness and love supplant oxygen and carbon as base elements; but the spare swing and bounce of the opening track and (especially) the second song, "Living Proof," are nothing if not earthy. Still, it isn't alchemy that resolves this fundamental asymmetry—just a few listens. Singling out songs or lyrics seems silly; the record drifts along like a rootsy fantasia shot in one take, not a note out of place. And in the end, the Memphis connection is beside the point. The Greatest is simply Cat Power music: devastating and sustaining in equal measure, mysterious, affecting and knowing. Whether Marshall's new bandmates can spark her flatlining stage show is all there is left to wonder about.

Uhm, yeah, that was . . . interesting. I seriously have a college degree and no idea what that guy was trying to say, though he used some cool words. Not sure how any of that would help you decide whether or not to download Cat Power's newest album or go to see them in concert.

So here is what I would have written about the album.

The Greatest gives words to the spirit of a broken athlete, a faultering artist, or perhaps a shy singer and invisible guitarist. It is an album dedicated to the spirit of a person who has stood at the edge of greatness, but finds themselves at the end of a mediocre career just about to fade into the other side of life.

Chan's voice is pushed so far back into the mix of the music that it takes careful listening to tease out the words from the melody. It is almost as if she is disappearing from the songs, just becoming another anonymous piece of the whole. It is haunting in the way that running into the star quarterback from your high school football team in Wal-mart is haunting. The only semblance of the physical being, the thing of beauty and joy he once was, comes through in subtle flashes when he tosses toilet paper or tv dinners into his cart.

As a general rule, The Greatest seems to be about the settling of middle life. Everything is a bit muted. The album begins with the words, “Once I wanted to be the greatest. No wind or waterfall could stop me, but then came the rush of the flood . . . it laid me down.” The second song, Living Proof, accuses, “You are supposed to have the answer you are supposed to have living proof,” without ever kowtowing tonally to the weight of such a demand, it remains mellow, but upbeat, a new sound for Cat Power. The third song, Lived in Bars, reminds me of my mother telling stories of partying in the 70’s when she gets home from a dance at the VFW around the corner. It is a slow-dance-song about younger, wilder times. There is none of the grit of earlier works like Mr. Gallo and none of the unquenchable desire of Satisfaction or Still in Love With You (both covers). But it is just as moving and insightful in its quiet reflectiveness.

The exception to this formula on the CD is the song Hate, which is a suicidal cry, "please DON'T help me." I was a little disappointed when I read the liner notes. I thought the lyrics said, "There are no laws or rules to enchant your life," pure brilliance - there is no magic in the code of our lives. But according to the notes she is saying, "There are no laws or rules to unchain your life." Still moving, but you get the idea.

This brings me to another point - don't believe the liner notes. They are often misleading. One of the most amazing things about Chan's singing is her ability to be verbally ambiguous. Did she say, "Oh Chan or Ocean?" I believe this is intentional. I have a friend who caught an unadvertised show of hers down in Florida several years back. She spent the evening singing variations on one song. My friend described it as brilliant, like the Pieta, only more ephemeral.

This is the charm of Cat Power. It is alive and it defies category. There is no refrain, no sing-a-long predictability. It isn’t timeless or reproducible. The only thing you know for sure is that they are going to do something unexpected with the sounds that they make and the way they interpret the meaning of words. The Greatest is no exception.

Of course, that was probably way too many inches of copy to get into a hip-happening zine.