Cat Power/ Chan Marshall- genius or fruitloop?

FWIW, Matador also recently rejected a Malkmus album.

wait pavement went to the bahamas on matador's dime? is that real?

I'm playing "fact checking cuz" with some quick web searching, but all I'm finding are references to her interview.

Though here's Malkmus in 2001 (after Pavement's breakup), saying he's never been there:

Q: What do you do when you're not working on music?

A: "That's a good question. I hike, hang out, go see movies, eat, read, do yoga, go to the gym sometimes, tennis, go on vacation. I went to Hawaii for two months, that was great, (and) Southeast Asia. We like to go warm places; it's cold here. Maybe we'll go down to the Bahamas, Caribbean-type area. I've never been down there, maybe we'll try that. The Grenadines? That sounds good to me."

I know that none of the Pavement albums were recorded in exotic locations; they're not this dude - https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lenny-kravitz-on-recording-his-new-album-in-the-bahamas-249128/

Looks like Matador artists Fucked Up played the 2011 "Bruise Cruise" from Miami to Naussau: http://matablog.matadorrecords.com/2011/09/23/fucked-up-malkmus-jicks-this-weekend-in-nyc/

Sorry to derail (further), but this is a great quote from that Kravitz interview:

You put DJ Military, a local guy from Eleuthera, on your new song “Boongie Drop.” Did he freak out when he heard that Jay-Z is on that one too?
It’s like living in Mayberry. He said, “Yeah, cool, man.” That’s his whole reaction! I brought Mick Jagger there once. We went to a shack to get a beer, and they asked, “So, what do you do?” He was like, “I make music.” “What kind of music?” “Rock & roll.” “Oh, great.” Then the guy started talking about fishing.

I'm surprised by this from Matador and not to a degree. Running a label and selling music has been hard so I can't really denigrate them for asking for hits. On the other hand I can't imagine Cat Power albums are extremely expensive to produce and I'm sure they see a return on anything she put out with them.

just gonna say that imo Chan is bullshitting in much of the above. also, just to speak in general terms, when an artist cancels a giant tour for which they've hired expensive session guys, or doesn't make what they were supposed to make on a big tour, the label often is the one who absorbs the cost - which is then billable to the record that was gonna be promoted. in re: the cost of Cat Power albums to produce: studio costs are 1) the cost of the studio 2) the cost of the producer, engineer, mixer 3) the cost of the musicians you hire 4) travel & lodging & food for everybody. iirc she hired session guys for The Greatest, right? session guys cost MASSIVE DOLLARS. as do big studios. as can string arrangements depending on where/how you get em done. if you have your shit together, you can, in a big studio, finish three or four songs a day, cutting costs. I don't have any inside info on how many days it takes in a studio to do a Cat Power record, but Sun was recorded in four different studios, in Malibu, Silverlake, Paris & South Beach. Traveling internationally & working internationally jacks up the budget severely especially on the lodgings q usually. I can't speak to the other studios but the Paris one she picked is a huge destination studio that's been profiled multiple times by the NYT, the Fader, etc., people go there to make the records they submit to NARAS for consideration.

So my guess is that the budgets for these records are very large.

Even though “The Greatest” was getting good reviews, a tour in support of the record had to be postponed because of her problems. Her label, Matador, estimated that it lost more than $100,000 on marketing and promotion, paying her supporting band (including a onetime member of Al Green’s band) and canceled shows.

Once the tour got under way in April, Matador bought insurance to be on the safe side. But now that the tour is a success, and the album has sold more than 100,000 copies, Matador is rereleasing the record, with new album cover art and a new promotional push.

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/arts/music/20cat.html

a Matador executive playing her an album by Adele and telling her that that was how a record was supposed to sound

i find it hard to believe that anyone would do this, let alone someone from the label that released 'what would the community think'

...in 1996

the principal people involved are the same then as now

I haven't had much contact w/Matador offices since 2009 but back then I knew everybody in the office and I 100% do not believe that story, at all.

like, it is a lie, is my opinion.

So verdict is: fruitloop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na-TrimoFPU

Very good performance on Colbert.

album is good. not as great as Moon Pix, You Are Free, Covers Record, or the Greatest, but it's good. ON the whole it seems a little ... safe? Which is fine I guess because Sun is like the complete opposite of this and this album is better, certainly.

She has really polished her live act, she sounds really good in that Colbert.

I don't like that performance at all. It is boring and lifeless. Her erratic personality with the ups and downs which was always an important part of her performances seems to be completely gone. The voice as well sounds streamlined to me. It used to be so expressive, now it is totally controlled. I think I have lost all interest in her music. To be honest I already had given up on her after the Covers Record which I still liked because of the nudity of her versions.

Her erratic personality with the ups and downs which was always an important part of her performances seems to be completely gone.

this enrages me. she's healthier now. demanding & celebrating instability from performers for our own vicarious thrills is so fuckin gross.

otm

her erratic performances were not fun. I saw several of them. I left at least a few early because they made me too uncomfortable and they were, at times, frankly, scary. The first time I saw her (with the Dirty Three) she was charming, though obviously had some stage fright; the next few times were just...no. I'm really glad she's not in that space anymore. She's immensely talented. She deserves her success.

I shared dressing rooms with her during several of those performances. the way people romanticized & continue to romanticize that time & those shows makes me sick & is a major factor in how jaded I am about music criticism in general

https://www.thecut.com/2018/10/cat-power-wanderer.html
how has this not been posted yet?!

I love this:

But the rejection galvanized her. “The 70-year-old me, whom I have yet to meet, was like, You ain’t got no time for this shit. You fucking fuck those motherfuckers. You got your kid here. Keep working, do what you do. Life will continue. You’re going to be okay,” Marshall explains.

Maybe the songwriting has gotten blander than what she did on the 90’s but I prefer this level of professionalism and overall healthiness in her than those erratic, trainwrecked performances that were very common in her 20+ years ago. She was miserable and as someone who went to one of her concerts, it also made for a terrible listening experience. Most of the people in the concert I went to wanted their money back. I didn’t ask for my money because I felt really bad for her but it was really not a good show.

at the time I certainly didn't think I'd be going to see her again in 2018, in fact I probably doubted she'd be around by now.

I mean I prefer it in the live performances. I too prefer the music from way back then.

Chan is in general a very frustrating vocalist for me because I really love her voice and she is easily in my top 20 but I rarely find her musical choices interesting.

listening now, this album sounds great!

People who loved older Cat Power performances simply for her 'erratic personality with all the up and downs' just like to jerk off while watching women fail on stage, don't they? I thought we moved past that.

Anyway, the new album is giving me strong Covers Record / You Are Free vibes in how understated and stripped down it is. I was actually surprised how stark it sounds after the messiness of Sun and the lushness of The Greatest. Not breaking any new musical ground, sure, but I like it and I can see myself coming back to it a lot in the upcoming months.

I feel like that whole attitude is just the logical end-point of the whole fetishisation of imperfection/fragility/precariousness you get in some indie rock circles. As an aesthetic preference it's defensible (even if it's one I think is mostly lame) but when you're extending that to behaviour that's a product of obvious mental illness... I mean that's just grim.

I don't remember anyone saying "wow Elliot Smith is so much better now that his sets are a goddamned drugged up mess"

contemplating the fragility of existence always makes me horny

the idea that women artists aren't sufficiently fascinating unless they are figuratively bleeding on stage has always burned me up.

32 minute radio show from today. Music and interview.

https://www.kcrw.com/latest/live-on-mbe-cat-power

^ Thanks, this is awesome! A Cross Bones Style / Nude as the News mashup!

Also a p4k feature

https://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/the-music-that-made-cat-powers-chan-marshall/

I feel like that whole attitude is just the logical end-point of the whole fetishisation of imperfection/fragility/precariousness you get in some indie rock circles. As an aesthetic preference it's defensible (even if it's one I think is mostly lame) but when you're extending that to behaviour that's a product of obvious mental illness... I mean that's just grim.

― Matt DC, Friday, October 5, 2018 7:08 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

definitely this but also the age old cliche' spouted by lots of non-hardcore music fans I've met who believe one must SUFFER for their art, which is total nonsense.

I fell in love with Myra Lee and Dear Sir without really knowing anything about her (or drugs, illness) in the dial-up era, I still vastly prefer everything through You Are Free to anything after.

I don't see her substance abuse or mental health as integral to what made those albums great, though. The issues probably also robbed of us good live versions of that era, which is tremendously sad to me. She's said that "He War" was supposed to be a Stonesy rave-up (and performed it live that way, I guess?) but I've never found anything recorded in that style.

I still vastly prefer everything through You Are Free to anything after

this record led me to You Are Free last night, which I had somehow never heard in full, despite the fact that I love Moon Pix and WWTCT? is one of the most important albums in my life. fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. I actually did get a bit of a Stones vibe from the jagged syncopated riff in "He War."

you are free is my #1 cat power pick, other than Moon Pix

Never would've expected Autotune on a Cat Power song, but then I would've said the same about drum machines prior to Sun (an album which I really like, seems the ILM massive sniffs at it).

I really like most of Sun but the three songs in the middle (Always on My Own > Real Life > Human Being) are basically subpar outtakes compared to the rest. They really drag the album down and mess up the flow in my opinion, whereas one of the best tracks from that era (Back in the Days) is just an iTunes bonus.

You Are Free always felt underrated to me. It’s easily one of her most solid records if not the most solid. It loses steam on the second half (“names” being a highlight amidst them) but the first 8 songs are amazing.

I don’t remember where I read that she doesn’t sound as comfortable on a piano as on a guitar but oddly enough I think most of her best performances are usually behind a piano and You Are Free’s best cuts are all piano-based imho.

It’s not my favorite album of hers but individual tracks are amongst my favorite Cat Power songs. There’s some beautiful moments in there that she hasn’t rivalled anywhere else in her work.

I feel like that album is peak Cat Power and everything after it marked a descent. I like hearing the way up, those albums before it, but the albums after it not so much. I have not lost interest at all though she’s always been worth following.

New record still hasn’t won me completely but I think her voice sounds incredible and the whole thing is very tastefully done. It might just be the wrong time of year for me to listen to it.

I wouldn't say You Are Free is underrated. It was kind of a breakthrough album for her

Isn't You Are Free the only one that's been semi-canonised?

I love old school CP (haven’t heard “Nude as the News” rhapsodised, to me it’s breathtaking) but I will rep hard for the title cut of The Greatest - conventional, sure, but the vocal is one great melancholy bruise and it wrecks me every time.
But of course Moon Pix is the colossus.