The story goes that when Chan Marshall set off to begin the
follow up to the positively hard to follow up The Greatest, she presented a friend with some demos of the
proceedings. She could tell that the new material didn’t grab her friend in
quite the manner that she wanted it to, and after some additional probing, Ms.
Marshall learned that the new songs sounded pretty much like the old ones.
And Chan Marshall was tired of sounding like the “old” Cat
Power.
More power to her, pun intended, as the process of avoiding
stagnation has given rock and roll some of its best moments.
It has also given it some of its worst, and the risk for
epic failure gets greater when artists begin to incorporate other styles and
genres that are way beyond their limits. For example: Bob Mould may be a fine
dj on the weekends, but that doesn’t mean he makes a mean EDM record.
More to the point, it doesn’t mean that I want to hear a Bob
Mould EDM album either. I want my musical heroes to be brave enough to listen
to that bit of self-doubt in their heads that says, “Maybe I shouldn’t be doing
this.”
Chan Marshall shouldn’t be making records like Sun, plain and simple. That’s my
opinion, and it comes from the same one that thinks The Greatest was a risky album on its own. It, and to a lesser
extent Jukebox, positioned Chan into
promising new direction. Instead, she has now squandered that promise into a
half-baked record of songs that seem to insinuate that the recording session
for Sun was nothing more than one big
distraction.
There are beats, rhythms, vocoders, beeps, and other
creations that seem to be the result of a shopping spree in the electronics
area of Guitar Center . There’s no rhyme or reason to
when and why these sounds are introduced in a song, so you’re left to assume
that shit just kept getting added on until Chan finally had the empathy to say
“Stick a fork in it. It’s done.”
The nonsense starts early. The opener, “Cherokee,” gradually
brings the listeners into Chan’s left turn, starting with a shimmering guitar before
the manufactured beats make their entrance.
And you know what? It’s ok for a moment. When Chan mutters
“Never knew love like this,” she sounds like she’s one the other end of a
dial-up internet connection. Big beats come in and things get a little shaky,
but again, Marshall
hides it with a great chorus of repeated “Marry me to the sky,” bringing a bit
of a lyrical connection with the song title.
Then, at exactly 3:05 into “Cherokee,” the sound of a
fucking hawk or some other bird comes in. Immediately, I was like “What the
fuck was that?!”
I quickly rewound and discovered the truth, and it was at
that moment that I decided that I didn’t like the new Cat Power album.
The title track is just an overloaded mess of processed
vocals and I’ve even started to lose interest into the briefly infectious leadoff
single, “Ruin.”
My wife, who owns quite a large collection of Glee product, declares “3, 6, 9” as
“strangely good” while it only makes me say “I see what you did there!” What Marshall comes up with is a
hooky bit of prose that repeats ad infinitim.
The darker moments are the best, and they will be the only
moments that I’ll end up leaving in my playlist after this review posts.
“Always On My Own” and “Human Being” are harrowing tales, but it’s “Manhattan ” that serves as the best interpretation of Marshall ’s desire to be
different.
With it’s cheesy drum machine and simple, four-step piano
phrase, Marshall
double-tracks her voice with an emotive lead over her trademarked low-end
mumble. “Don’t look at the moon tonight” she warns “It will never be Manhattan .”
How can I stay mad at a line like that? I can’t, but I can
leave off a good chunk of Sun and
wonder if this is the work of a woman who’s heart isn’t in it anymore. Because Sun sounds more like an obligation, if
you ask me, with each and every electronic addition seemingly introduced to
cover up the fact that the album has very little heart behind it.
It is a record that began with a notion that it needed to be
different, when it should have been looked at as a record that needed to be
better than The Greatest.
This review originally appeared in Glorious Noise.
This review originally appeared in Glorious Noise.
1 comment:
Chan owes Paul and myself some back royalties for calling herself Cat Power. I think that we have enough evidence now that she is deliberately infringing upon our copyright of anything 'cat' related. Additionally, if Chan or anyone else is thinking of referring to themselves as 'Star' Power, 'Space' Power or 'Demon' Power please be prepared for a cease and desist to come your way. Unless you want to pay, of course.
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