And in this corner...

Let me spare you the drama--it was never going to be a fair fight. I mean, it’s called The Greatest for goodness sake. The name of the band is CAT POWER. And just look at that cover. How are you going to beat that? How are you not going to get K.O.’d? The Greatest also has horns, and I’m telling you that if I’m voting, nine out of ten times the horns are going to win.

But let’s talk a little about Past is Prologue:

This is an ambient album or a downtempo album, I think. Who am I kidding? I have no idea what downtempo means. I did end up really liking this recording even though the first couple songs didn’t do much for me. I knew that Cat Power had the advantage, so I decided to do what I could to give Tycho a handicap. For starters, I listened to it intently—no spider solitaire, no chores, no playing with Wendell. I just sat there and listened to it. I realized about half way through that this may have actually put it at a disadvantage. This is probably great music for studying, doing chores, making love (well, maybe not), or falling asleep to, but I just didn’t find it interesting enough to sustain my attention. That’s not to say it’s bad. Really, I don’t think it’s any better or any worse than the handful of ambient albums I already own. At its best, like on the eponymous track “Past is Prologue”, it reminded me of Four Tet. In some places it also reminded me of Boards of Canada. I like Boards of Canada, but I find their music makes me feel down. For some reason, their sound reminds me of watching cartoons on Global TV. Up in Canada, on Sunday or Saturday afternoons, Global would replay episodes that had been on the previous Saturday morning. For some bizarre reason, though, the colors were faded and it made the Care Bears and Inspector Gadget look like the most depressing images on earth. I realize I’m way off topic, but I’m trying to give you an idea of where my mind wandered off to while listening. Also, Past is Prologue has a track called “PBS”, which relates somehow in my mind. All in all, this is a good, solid ambient album. I bet Jeff would like it.

Back to CAT POWER:

I may disagree with Jeff about the merits of Cat Power, but I do understand why Jeff doesn’t like her. Moon Pix has some great tracks but it tends to drag a bit too. Last year I wrote about You Are Free as an underappreciated album, but the truth is that I still need to be in exactly the right mood for it (preferably sitting in an apartment in a hip neighborhood while reading The New Yorker). This doesn’t apply to The Greatest though. This is easily my favorite recording of hers. I think there was quite a bit written when The Greatest was released about how this was a period of reinvention for Ms. Marshall. On the mag covers, not only did she not look depressed, but she actually smiled and seemed playful. Now, I don’t really know much about this and I don’t really care that much, but whatever happened it certainly worked for her musically. The Greatest still has those slower, meditative songs like “The Moon” and “Hate”, but here they’re balanced out by the other tracks. She’s always been a great song-writer, but now the aforementioned horns, the organ flourishes, and the Booker T. sounding guitars give tracks like “Could We” and “Lived in Bars” more, well, life. There are also a number of tunes that blend soul and country in the easiest of ways. All this to say, I think Jeff might actually like some of this record—high praise indeed.

Cat Power moves on to fight another day.