Cat Power: Covers (Domino/digital outlets)

 |   |  <1 min read

Cat Power: Covers (Domino/digital outlets)

Cat Power (Chan Marshall) passed this way with The Covers Record (2000), Jukebox and the Dark End of the Street EP (both 08).

Here she again repurposes others' diverse material: Frank Ocean's dramatically holy Bad Religion into downbeat electro-folk; Nick Cave's menacing I Had a Dream Joe throbbing with constrained tension; Kitty Wells' country classic It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels becomes noir dream-pop with pedal steel, her own Hate becomes the similarly downplayed Unhate, a respectfully soulful version of the lovely Forties ballad I'll Be Seeing You and, to much lesser effect, the Pogues' A Pair of Brown Eyes.

Cover albums are often career digressions, but for Power they've been important personal stops on her journey.

However here she doesn't offer great range or expression in interpretations which frequently render the songs anodyne. 

You can hear this album at Spotify here

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

The Soft Pack: The Soft Pack (Pod/Inertia)

The Soft Pack: The Soft Pack (Pod/Inertia)

And we thought Shihad had a controversial name post-9/11? This alt.pop four-piece based in Los Angeles – which has toured with the Breeders, Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party -- used to be... > Read more

Timothy Blackman: I've Never Lived (Home Alone)

Timothy Blackman: I've Never Lived (Home Alone)

Singer-songtwriter Blackman appeared at Elsewhere previously with his very interesting EP Modern Sprawl, and this is his short (half an hour) nine-song debut album recorded in  Berlin in... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

FRONTERA, a film by MICHAEL BERRY (Anchor Bay DVD/Blu-Ray)

FRONTERA, a film by MICHAEL BERRY (Anchor Bay DVD/Blu-Ray)

Many, many years ago I spoke with the man who was the head of Refugee and Migrant Services in Auckland. At the time I was writing articles about displaced people who were arriving in New Zealand... > Read more

BUNNY WAILER, REMEMBERED (2021): The last of the Kingston trio

BUNNY WAILER, REMEMBERED (2021): The last of the Kingston trio

The death of Neville Livingston at 73 – better known as Bunny Wailer – means there are now no surviving members of the famous Jamaican trio the Wailers. Bob Marley died in 1981 and... > Read more