Cat Power/ Chan Marshall- genius or fruitloop?

She's no genius, and I think she's a little nuts. But, I like some of her stuff, she can be an interesting singer. I interviewed her a few years ago when she came to Nashville. She mistook my obvious Tennessee-speak for an "Australian" accent--invited me to visit her and introduce myself as "the Australian"--and she was, er, kind of sexy, in a bored-housewife kind of way, on stage, but meandering, unfocused. Another potentially good singer who never quite breaks through into anything I really want to listen to.

^v good post

^by a ripper of a mate

none of you break through into anything i'd really want to read but i do find you all kind of sexy, in an oblivious, entitled way

this is the second time i have seen "bored housewife" used as a pejorative in like a week
what's up with that!?

i straight up love the redo of "metal heart" that she recorded 10 years after the original

I thought I was the only one to like the Jukebox version of "Metal Heart"! I love how triumphal it is.

I love her but some of the things she posts on IG make me cringe (anti vaccine stuff, things about "earthing").

"this is the second time i have seen "bored housewife" used as a pejorative in like a week
what's up with that!?"

its easier to speak in cliches. you don't have to think as hard.

oh no, i adore it
i think i have even mentioned it on ilx before and people argued with me and said it was flaccid or something else totally untrue
i find the live versions of it electrifying but i like the recording too

this is the 2008 version from jukebox

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lofk956GM78

you don't have to think as hard.
may i request slightly harder thinking so the cliche doesn't sound so sexist?

i don't follow her on IG
would rather not know about earthing, whatever that is!

Yes, you're prob better off not knowing.

i mean she was relationshipped into scientology wasn't she? i don't think a person has to be perfect in order to be a genius. she has issues. who doesn't!

Of course not! The pseudoscience stuff is just one of my pet peeves, that's all.

here it is -- i still hope she continues to record it every 10 years. that means she's due! Cat Power - Jukebox

don't like the Metal Heart remake, but the original is one of my favourite songs ever so it's hard for it to measure up

The only time I've seen her live was on The Greatest tour. She was fairly confident on stage but they leaned too far into the whole soul revue angle and it ended up kind of jarring. I seem to recall the band introduced her as "the greatest soul singer in the world" which just...no

lol, agree - not the greatest soul singer in the world
i wish there were some comfortable middle ground to chill in between "i hate myself" and "GOAT"
i guess that doesn't sell though

none of you break through into anything i'd really want to read but i do find you all kind of sexy, in an oblivious, entitled way

― ogmor, Wednesday, April 25, 2018 11:00 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ogmor otm

I really like this cover of Hanging on the Telephone from a commercial she did. Wish I could find the full length version:

https://youtu.be/0X-5b5kuax8

The one time I saw her was a solo set at ACL Fest, You Are Free-era. At one point, she said something to the effect of "During this next song, I'm going to do something that'll [get my roadie on-stage]...it's his birthday and I want you to sing to him when he comes out." I don't remember how she got him out there, but he came and seemingly several hundred people sang "Happy Birthday".

I've never seen her live, but I've read that Chan once lipsynced to Smoosh onstage. I'd die to see that.

I saw her in '99 and it left little impression on me though I was a huge fan. I was living in NYC a couple of years earlier and wish I'd caught a show then but she wasn't on my radar yet

I was obsessed with her music '98-'01 or so, and I lived in Atlanta for most of that time so I saw her a play a lot. Several were of the wrenching, "this person seems unwell" variety, though tbh I was young and couldn't tell whether or not it was just debilitating stage fright or something scarier (the latter I realized later).

A bit later, I saw her in London and everyone sat on the floor and didn't make a sound, even shushing people, which was faintly ridiculous really. I think the best performance I ever saw was in ATL when she played during a screening of Dreyer's silent "The Passion of Joan of Arc," which was an inspired combination and not being the center of attention suited her well.

I'm sure I was at at least one of those shows with you Rob.

What always struck me was how good looking she was under that sheen of indie despair and drug use. The photos Richard Avedon took really brought that out.

i really like how rudimentary the piano playing is on "you are free" - reminds me of pj harvey's white chalk - clearly these were artists not operating within their typical wheelhouse and all the better for it

Also a shout out to Manhattan on her last album which is one of her best tracks. It's so simple in some ways but it has so much momentum.

I saw her solo circa You Are Free in an art gallery where she I think was not in a good way and played three songs in a row on her Danelectro then three in a row on piano then back and forth, with barely a break or any talking. Then I saw her later on The Greatest/Jukebox era soul revue thing where she seemed in way better form. Musically I preferred the former but it felt a bit weird enjoying it even then. I think if I was older, I would have felt even more uncomfortable.

saw her twice circa moon pix; one time was a complete shambles that was embarrassing to witness, the other was utterly riveting and fantastic

iirc having jim white glowering behind her was beneficial to the latter; glad they are working together again

I'm not a production guy or someone who thinks about it much but Sun is one of the worst-sounding records I think I've heard. Whatever she does next I hope it isn't with whoever produced that. I was sure it was etienne de crecy but google isn't showing up results for that.

it was Philippe Zdar who mixed it, that's what I'm thinking of.

Horrible.

iirc her label more or less compelled her to work with a producer just to finally get the record out? not sure how it came to be zdar tho

saw her twice circa moon pix; one time was a complete shambles that was embarrassing to witness, the other was utterly riveting and fantastic

the Moon Pix era show I saw was riveting for the first half and a disaster for the 2nd

I hadn't heard the album or anything and was like "wtf is going on here"

you don't have to think as hard.
may i request slightly harder thinking so the cliche doesn't sound so sexist?

ha. well, she seemed like someone who was happy to putter around the house, but was still a bit bored by the end of the day, so she gets a little drunk and then tries to sing and can't quite cut it. she wasn't very good. I think this could apply to men as well.

She had a lot of nice things to say about Teenie Hodges, so she's got good taste in guitarists.

when a 46-year-old bored housewife claims she's recorded "nine feminist bangers," i pay attention

in other words, she was unprofessional.

I like all of her albums, really. You Are Free is my favourite. I rate Sun quite highly too - anyone else have anything nice to say about that one?
Both of her covers albums are pretty great as well.

The Greatest might be my least fave, it sounds a little cheesy at times. I've only seen her once, it was either the tour for that album or one shortly thereafter, where she played a lot of songs from it with a band, and I didn't think much of that concert at all. I had understood that she has a reputation for unpredictable live shows but that time sounded very formulaic to me, lacking heart, with a band that sounded like a bunch of studio players without any passion.

Unfortunately, I can't help but get a gnawing demon in my head whispering "Vaccine truther!" whenever I think of her these days. Luckily I manage to silence that demon enough to subsequently still enjoy listening to her records.

Edd you're coming off a little patronising in your comments - I don't know you of course, but I'm letting you know how it's coming across. Whatever her difficulties Marshall is a serious artist with a significant body of great work and deserves respect.

Wait... Chan is a scientologist nowadays!? Sigh noone’s perfect

I don’t want to know don’t tell me

It’s weird if they wanted to push her voice as soul but then again not sure what tag genre it fits? Blues mixed with slacker indie from the early mid 90s... slacker blues maybe... but soul idk...

Edd are you serious man? christ

I don't see a big difference between unprofessional and highly erratic performer. There's plenty of musicians I love that I have no desire to see live again (Westerberg & Lucinda jump to mind pretty quickly).

Pretty big Sun fan here as well-Manhattan, Nothin But Time in particular are gorgeous.

Sun is exceptional.

I saw her once on a bill with Sleater-Kinney when I was in high school, she performed (I thought pretty well) for 40 minutes or so, not really engaging much with the audience, then said “knock knock,” we answered “who’s there,” and she walked off stage.

xp Jukebox is maybe her only bad album, and even that one has "Metal Heart"

She was one of the best indie artists of the late '90s and early '00s and I've kind of been puzzling over why her stature has fallen so much in recent years, but reading through some of the comments in this thread it's like, oh yeah gross sexism

xp lol, that's pretty good

i saw her solo in 98 or 99 and she did not seem to be in a very good place, but when she sat down at the piano and played "i found a reason" ... wow.

yeah her version of that song is so devastating

my fave memory is of seeing her at Bumbershoot in 1999 maybe a year after that Moon Pix tour, the Covers album hadn't come out yet and slowly figuring out that she was playing "Satisfaction" w/o the chorus totally gave me chills

haha, literally listening to Jukebox and thinking how great the Dylan cover is in particular.
I love the two 'Memphis'records (Greatest/Jukebox).

I've seen her play live twice, both times had a...rollercoaster quality if you will.

teenie hodges is basically god