"Dear Ms. Power, please sound more like Adele" - Cat Power - Artist Poll #99 - VOTING THREAD

1. CAT POWER TRACKS
Vote for up to 30.
Your ballot can be ranked, unranked, or mixed.

Ranked points scheme: 45, 38, 35, 32, 30, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2
Unranked: All tracks will be given 18 points (540 total points / 30).
Mixed: The sum of the ranked portion of the ballot will be subtracted from 540; the resulting difference will be divided by the number of unranked tracks, and that resulting quotient, rounded DOWN to the nearest whole number, will be assigned to the unranked songs.

"Metal Heart (Moon Pix)" and "Metal Heart (Jukebox)" will be considered different tracks, SO PLEASE SPECIFY WHICH ONE ON YOUR BALLOTS WHEN VOTING.

All songs from studio releases are eligible, INCLUDING the cover records. Hell, I'll even include songs that appear on compilations ("Come On In My Kitchen", "The Party"), soundtrack collabs ("Wish I Was Here"), and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".

2. CAT POWER ALBUMS
Rank up to 10 of them (including the cover records).

3. CAT POWER COVERS
Any cover, whether it's on an album of otherwise original material (e.g. "Keep On Runnin'"), is eligible.
The 30-second snippet of "Space Oddity" is eligible.
"Metal Heart (Jukebox)" I'm going to EXCLUDE -- you can't cover yourself, IMO.

Email your ballots to leeeee AT gmail dot com, with "ILM Cat Power Ballot" in your subject line.

Provisional deadline: 9 August

oh cool, didn't know this was up next

Yeah this will be good

dunno how to do this.

here's my list of cat power albums in order of favorite to least:

1) Moon Pix
2) Wanderer
3) The Covers Album
4) The Greatest
5) You Are Free
6) What Would the Community Think
7) Sun
8) Jukebox
9) Myra Lee
10) Dear Sir

hmm I guess I need to hear Wanderer!

agree w/the rest of that, I think

wanderer could drop I suppose over time but I've certainly loved it a lot over the last year.

Very excited about this! Gives me a good reason to revisit her whole discography.

Wanderer is excellent! akm save your ranking for your ballot!

Bumping for the weekend crowd.

Thank you Leee - hadn't seen this and um that's the next fortnight planned.

We can vote for live-only stuff as covers, right? I guess it wouldn't make sense to count WWU as an album but not voting for 'Carry On' in some way would feel super weird.

You've got me there: what is WWU?

This show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR47mOylp6w&list=PL_a3yRA347Qv1SRdPiq0ujlAkepms2fwk - it's from when she did this weird mini-tour playing in front of a screening of Dreyer's Passion Of Joan Of Arc and not let anyone applaud or anything and the whole second half is all one beautiful compelling blur the same key etc etc, so so so gooooooooood

Umm I have no idea what happened there but this playlist is it I think.

So that reminds me that I completely forgot about her version of "Wonderwall" on Peel Sessions, so, an amendment:

1. CAT POWER TRACKS
In addition to the studio tracks, I'm going to allow unreleased live songs so long as they're readily available for voters to hear (e.g. through Youtube).

WHAT WOULD ILM THINK?

Bump dangit, I know we've got Cat Power fans here.

What Would the Community Think means a lot to me

I listened to Moon Pix today and the task of ranking its tracks against the ones from You Are Free seems impossible.

To me her career really starts with You Are Free, like her songwriting hits a new level of mastery from then on.

I didn't like Covers as much as Moon Pix BITD so I slept on You Are Free... then I finally heard the title track and it blew me away

Wanderer is great! I have not followed her career very closely in the last decade, but i love this.

I have also never seen/heard "Speaking For Trees"

It's worth a look - basically en plein air recordings of her working through a bunch of her songs and covers with a Danelectro and a small amp. One of the better demonstrations of her raw talent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB0GDcOrOrM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VVO02A2XgM

I listened to Dear Sir and WWTCT for the first times, and I was surprised at how non-traditional the production sounds! Sun aside, she's gotten MORE acoustic over her career, which is an unusual career trajectory.

Started watching that "Speaking For Trees" video and it's giving me flashbacks about how frustrating it is to watch a live solo Cat Power show.

I like it much better if it's on in the background while I'm doing other stuff.

Bump!

Pitchfork revisited Moon Pix just in time for the poll:
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/cat-power-moon-pix/

Some irritating errors in that piece, especially about Jim White's drumming choices - it's so seasick and off because she recorded most of the songs before he and Mick arrived, without a click, so they had to play to the existing takes:

https://www.broadsheet.com.au/sydney/entertainment/article/how-part-time-melbourne-engineer-recorded-cat-power-classic

I probably have 2 Sun tracks in my top 10, pretty strong album really though I know she isn't happy with it.

wow i love the bug noises in those youtubes!! i had never heard of those recordings before, thank you for posting.

also, a moment to shoutout the jukebox version of "metal heart" because it really gets to the bottom of how it feels to have a metal heart long after the first time you noticed that your heart was made of metal.

Are there any other Cat Power fans on ILM that haven't weighed in here? Moka?

still time to vote, right?

Definitely! Deadline is still penciled in for August 9.

Awesome! Will send my ballot tomorrow!

Thanks!

Putting together a ballot now.

My guess is that Cat Power fans can be roughly divided along the lines of which version of "Metal Heart" they prefer... having discovered her later in her career (YAF), the pre-sobriety albums don't have any sacred text mystique to them, so I'm definitely skewing towards the more produced material.

Apologies in advance to the OG fans.

Deadline this Friday!

I promise I'll get one in

"it's giving me flashbacks about how frustrating it is to watch a live solo Cat Power show"

i saw her last year and she was great and not frustrating at all, it was a real surprise to me, since I hadn't bothered to see her in over 10 years due to too many weird shows around Moon Pix era.

Just listened to Sun, and boy, it hasn't aged well.

How many covers can we vote for?

I have sent mine! Please let me know if I didn't ducked it up.

The Metal Heart original on Moon Pix is imho the superior version by far but I'm clearly biased as I love that album and I wasn't a big fan of Jukebox.

This live version of the song (previously shared on the main CP thread) is not mixed very well but it's an interesting, more electrical approach that I would have loved to hear in the studio instead of the jukebox version. I think they were actually going for a similar vibe in the album as this live performance but the production brought it down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGP3KirGqsY

For covers, you can vote for 5-10.

I have received ballots from Moka and enochroot! No shut out, hurrah!

voted albums and tracks. Don't think I have time to throw a covers ballot together, on the other hand I have 6-7 in my top 30 anyway.

From wanderer I loved “in your face” while revisiting for this poll. Has a sort of latin blues vibe that has me wondering what would be of her if she was more influenced by say, Tom Waits than Dylan.

"Horizon" was the one that really grabbed me from that album, auto-tune and all.

Wanderer is pretty good, wasn’t feeling it as much when it came out but it might be one of his best albums in retrospective, it seems she has finally found a good middle ground in her sound.

I wish there was a decent recording of the re-worked version of 'The Greatest' she did on the Sun tour.
I love it.

I wish she had worked with Dave Grohl previous to “you are free”. His drumming on “shaking paper” is great although the actual song is not that great but he could have killed on a song like “cross bone style” or “nude as the news”.

been going thru her records bc of this poll

how tf did i not love "Free" the first time i heard it?

Any more ballots? Do people need a deadline extension?

shit!
can I send mine tonite?

I'll get one in tonight as well

flappy, np! The original deadline is tomorrow so you'd actually be early, though considering how few ballots I've gotten so far (only 4!), I'm probably going to extend.

sent!

Ballot sent!

sent

As it stands, we only have 7 ballots (not including me), so I'm extending the deadline to AUGUST 16. If yall could ping/poke/nudge other known Cat Power fans, that'd be awesome!

Not to name names, but I'm naming names! People who've posted in this thread but who haven't sent in a ballot include (apologies if I list anyone who already voted -- I wasn't able to x-ref your ballot to your ILX name):

akm
La Lechera
kornrulez6969
campreverb
MatthewK
Gravel Puzzleworth

i am going to need the extra time and might be able to submit a ballot but i am not promising anything
busy season for me, got all kinds of obstacles in my way before i have time to dedicate to remembering which cat power songs were my favorites. i am not a very thorough fan -- i like what i like a lot, but don't know that much. maybe there are tons more cat power songs that i like and don't even know it yet!

Ah got it LL! Do what needs doing, this is just a fun diversion so if it doesn't fit into your situation ATM then no worries!

this is sort of my situation too -- i know the middle albums very well, kinda hesitate to vote and skew the poll away from things i might learn about from y'all

alright alright alright alright

but also LL said it for me

this is sort of my situation too -- i know the middle albums very well, kinda hesitate to vote and skew the poll away from things i might learn about from y'all

I totally understand being a conscientious voter, but if you have opinions, they're just as valid as anyone else's! I mean, we're all licensed music snobs, that's how we got the invite to ILM, right?

full disclosure: I did not listen to "Wanderer" before voting, and did not include any tracks from it on my balloe

leee I sent in a ballot. I wrote a quick note about the formatting being off.

thanks for extending the deadline, leee. i will definitely vote, somehow totally forgot about it.

Bumping for the new week! Remember, new deadline is this Friday! Let's get some more ballots in plz.

ballot sent!

Got another ballot! Come on get a few more in!

I've sent ILX mails to a few people (akm, Gravel, kornrulez6969) who've posted in this thread!

submitted a ballot despite never having heard the first two records. it was really good to listen to some of these songs again

You Are Free came out when I just got out of the psych ward In college. That is my favorite Cat Power record. Such a unique sound, that record is.

I need to get a few things ready so if you haven't submitted a ballot yet there's still time he!

Status update: I need to get my act together and do the necessary collation and double-checking, which I'm not sure I'll be able to swing during the week. So anyone who wants to submit a ballot still can until I get things properly set up!

Reviving my love for You Are Free was the best part about voting, although as my daughter would say, I'm a Moon Pix stan first and a human being second.

Still accepting ballots.

Going to try to get my act together this weekend, for people scoring at home.

So here's a question for the heads: Myra Lee and Dear Sir both have "Rockets," and I can't really hear a difference between the two. Did Chan just release the same song twice?

The albums were recorded at the same time so I've always assumed they're (subtly... as in I can't tell either) different takes.

ogmor, I emailed a few points of clarification for your ballot.

FYI, I'm going to consolidate all votes for "Rockets" as a single entry, since I can't hear differences between the two versions on Myra/Sir.

And since some people have asked, I'm hoping to get the tracks rollout started Monday.

do you really want to separate different versions of the songs in the roll-out? i thought you just wanted to consolidate all songs and then give the breakdown by version. otherwise songs with several versions have a handicap, i think.

agree with Alex

I did specify that Metal Heart would be counted by version, with the intention that other songs with multiple versions would also be counted separately. Consolidating them doesn't make sense to me, since different arrangements effectively make them new songs, but if enough people think that's a bad idea, I'm open to changing the policy.

VOTING CLOSED!

You Have Seen Some UnbelievaPOLL Things - ILM Artist Poll #99 - Cat Power Results