Cat Power/ Chan Marshall- genius or fruitloop?

I think so far Myra Lee is my favourite Cat Power album, despite never hearing it before. I have What Would The Community Think, Moon Pix, and The Covers Record and I think I'd rank them so:

Myra Lee > What Would The Community Think = The Covers Record >> Moon Pix

I know a lot of people like Moon Pix best but I just don't get it. Am I alone?

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/08d7e6b5ae/kids-songs-with-cat-power

Well, good that she can laugh at herself,

It's not exactly funny though.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3FFkIIUkAA-L5O.jpg:small

finally, a definitive answer to the question in the thread title

Oh nooo

ummm... false?

no, wait, true - but correlation is not causation?

i give up

holy shit no!!!

chan :(

omg have you followed her on twitter, i did for a week or so

nope... fruitloop?

This (upthread) was clearly not watched enough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubigmaH2AOE

She's being funny come on.

Or is she?

doubt it

Genius

what kind of question is this, geniuses usually are fruitloops

Otm

wish she'd release a new album.

What would the community think and moon pix are such gorgeous albums... very vulnerable and spare and her voice is what I consider the perfect lullaby voice. For a while back in the mid 90s she was the coolest cat for me.

She kind of lost me after moon pix though... there were some good songs here and there but there was some sort of innocence lost after moon pix... maybe mine maybe hers ... at any rate I lost that connection to what she did afterwards. Those two still make me fall in love with her when I listen though.

Her cover of sea of love is so nice

those two are my favorite too

oh how time flies...

I dont know anyone in real life who knows her music and that makes me feel so alienated. I think they are pretty much classic albums and they were an important part of my teenage years so I want someone to tell me how much they love them and shaped them too but I’m all alone on this one. I have resigned myself into thinking I’m the only person in this city who even owns those albums.

no way those records are too popular there is someone out there

Not in the middle of mexico it seems :(

I might start printing out posters that read “have you heard me?” all over the city with the album covers and my phone number. Maybe there’s a soulmate nearby.

it's a good idea

hey Moka FWIW those records shaped me a lot too, with ya there

Those are the two, it’s true

You Are Free is also a very good record.

I really love her piano playing where she does a triad in the left hand followed by the same triad an octave up in the right hand on alternating weak and strong beats. It's really effective.

any of you know joanne robertson? she's pretty much a copycat but she's put out some great songs

Moka, you have a friend in Montreal if you ever visit!

I feel that way too about the power of Moon Pix to cement friendships.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2011/oct/07/moon-pix-cat-power

i love moon pix as well. you are free is great but moon pix is just The One. during the time that i was getting really into her music, our local cd store was awful and never had what would the community think, and napster didn't quite exist yet, so unfortunately i never really connected with it in the same way.

Thank you Ross and Sean!

Sean your experience with the album mirrors so much my own. If you change the age to 16 years and the location from canada to mexico I might as well felt like I was reading myself! Thanks for making me feel slightly less alienated... also your description about her late career is spot on. She’s in a happier place nowadays it seems and how can I demand she goes back to breaking my heart. Back then I just wanted her and myself to live through the melancholy and we have... most of time.

I love all her stuff. I guess I fall in the genius camp, because I find even her failures fascinating.

seems amazing and wonderful to me now that cat power releasing a video of her ambling through songs in front of some bushes for 40 mins felt like a significant cultural event to me at the time

You are not alone, Moka. My fave album of 1998 is Moon Pix. I discovered her on the tour for that album. She was mesmerizing.
https://musik.antville.org/stories/1133632/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv7UTCGD4hI

Alex: tuff choice between Mezzanine and Moon Pix for 1998... I love them both for very different reasons.

Flappy: oh wow she’s way too drunk or drugged in that performance. There’s still something endearing about her singing in that state but I would hate to be a musician trying to keep up.

i straight up love the redo of "metal heart" that she recorded 10 years after the original
her return from the abyss of self-loathing/depression/substance abuse was really inspiring to me and that song distills the essence of what i like about her and recontextualizes a song that used to remind me of sad/bad times into an anthem. i think she is a genius.

Never really liked her live. She expected too much from a scenester type crowd that would show up.
In the mid 90s, along with Will Oldham, I remember thinking she was ushering in some new kind of dissonant blues.
A top 50 artist for me. Love a bunch of her albums:

Myra Lee (1996)
What Would The Community Think? (1996)
Moon Pix (1998)
The Covers Record (2000)
You Are Free (2003)
The Greatest (2006)

POX:
We All Die
Still In Love
Good Clean Fun
Nude as the News
American Flag
Colors and the KIds
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
I Don't Blame You
Shaking Paper
Living Proof

One of my most uncomfortable concert experiences was a somewhat recent double bill of Cat Power and Rufus Wainwright, who were supposed to perform in that order but got switched because Chan showed up late, and a handful of biddies in the front row did nothing but loudly complain throughout the Cat Power set about how awful and depressing it all was. We could hear every word so I assumed she could, too. I felt so bad for her but she kept going like a trouper, and it was a great set.

one of the most influential american vocalists of the 21st century. for better or worse. worse. but that's not her fault.

The Covers Album seemed major at the time, and I might prefer it to her originals.

most of her albums, except maybe the very first, were critically well received. allmusic gives them all 4 - 4 1/2.

some notes on WWTCT:

- Michele Romero of Entertainment Weekly gave the album an A-rating, writing that Marshall "raises goose bumps on What Would the Community Think with bluesy, traumatized songs on which she whispers laments over a spare arrangement of guitar and drums

- Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield called the album "leaner and tougher" than her previous release, adding: "It's a quiet album, but the songs get more powerful the closer you listen, as Marshall testifies to her unbearable longing for an unbearable love."

- Music critic Mark Groescher wrote of the album: "Listening to What Would The Community Think is like watching a friend on the verge of losing her mind. It is a wild and sometimes disturbing ride, but it is completely honest. And like any great blues album, it is contagious."

- Biographer Elizabeth Goodman referred to the album as Marshall's "most violent, angry work, a deranged epic filled with sadness, guilt, and defiance."

- Allmusic's Heather Phares says "An intimate, personal album, What Would the Community Think makes imperfection beautiful and turns vulnerability into musical strength."

I like the earlier albums more because they're raw and less lush and beautiful sounding. There's less reverb on her vocals.

I feel like a sham Cat Power fan since I've tried a number of times to get into Moon Pix to no avail. "Cross Bones Style" is great, but the other tracks don't move me.

if "Metal Heart" doesn't move you then you must have...uh...a metal heart

I like the Jukebox version!

oh well then you're beyond help

Come on! That version is beautiful and I hope she re-records it every 10 years for the rest of her life.

metal heart is the essence

saw an amazing show by Cat Power last night in PDX. This was my 3rd show of hers and I don't think I have ever seen her as comfortable on stage before, and she sounded amazing. setlist was pretty close to this one:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/cat-power/2018/astra-berlin-germany-53960fe1.html

Today’s email from Matador (25% off sale)(the “Nearly 15%...” line has a strikethrough):

As we reach the end of 2018, it would not be an exaggeration to say we’re in the midst of many difficult moments in human history. The icecaps are melting. America is on the brink of a constitutional crisis. You can’t walk 15 feet in any major metropolis without breaking your neck on a discarded scooter. Your personal data (including everything we collect in this campaign) is being used for nefarious means. Nearly 15% of the public believes we actually told someone to “sound more like Adele.” Nearly $40 million was spent to produce “The Hurricane Heist”

lol

hahahaha

Good Song Exploder podcast about "Woman":

http://songexploder.net/cat-power

she was completely amazing tonight in Oakland. Now I feel like I've slept on her live performances for the past few years. This was kind of beyond great.

Cat Power/ Chan Marshall- genius or fruitloop?

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNoj4oXvQI8

that ending <3