Cat Power - Jukebox

The Cat, but not the cream

It’s a shame that, as the title suggests, Chan Marshall has let herself become best known as a covers artist. Not to deny that she’s a reinterpreter of great prowess. It’s just that you can’t help but feel she’s opting for the safety of an established song rather than the nervy energy of new creation.

Thankfully, rather than the soul standards she revelled in on her last tour, she’s gone for a grittier selection, ranging from the inevitable (Dylan) to the obscure (Jessie Mae Hemphill). Amusingly, she opens with a self-referential take on the ultimate cover, New York, New York, which, almost incredibly, finds new life in the tired old words. Even so, fine, warm and aching as her takes on Ramblin’ Man and Billie Holiday’s Don’t Explain undoubtedly are, you long for her own voice, something with the edge of Fool or Say. We do get a less bleak, more muscular reworking of her own Metal Heart, but the one brand-new track, Song To Bobby, is fairly insubstantial, her star-struck account of meeting her hero, Dylan.

Doubtless, Jukebox will be the toast of the broadsheets, but for some, it’s merely a gorgeous stopgap till the next actual Cat Power album arrives.

3 stars 3 stars 3 stars

Matador | OLE7932

Reviewed by Emily Mackay
<< Back to Issue 346

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