Pitchfork

Listening to Cat Power's The Covers Record is distracting me from the task at hand. I'm writing, but I'm typing slowly under the album's spell. I'm also asking myself, "Isn't a 7.6 a bit high for a covers album?" Chan Marshall didn't write these songs-- I heard she didn't even practice them. She likely spent less than an afternoon in the studio. Sure, it's an endearing concept, but 7.6 for a "it's just me and my guitar and the fakebook from my brother's closet" kind of affair? Come on, Rockermann; let's be reasonable here.

This, of course, is not about reason, it's about a strange force called Cat Power. Cat Power tempts you to forgive the inconsistencies in her albums. And inexplicably, you won't feel like asking for your money back when Marshall fails to make it through 12 minutes of her $12 show. This bizarre Cat Power also charms an audience into responding "a little higher" when she nonchalantly asks if anyone in the room "knows a B." Cat Power has inspired tautological delusions in more than one skinny boy: "I understand her/ She is misunderstood by everyone/ Like me/ Thus, I understand her." To demonstrate this phenomenon, Matador has taken 12 songs and exposed them to Cat Power. The data was then collected on The Covers Record. Let's check out some of the results.

Chan sings: "When I'm drivin' in my car/ And that man comes on the radio/ And he's tellin' me more and more," but there's no trace of Mick-- or of the renowned chorus-- in this version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." Marshall has put a blue cover over a red song, and it's one of the album's stronger tracks. The other standouts come when Chan doses sparse numbers heavily in Cat Power and makes them her own.

Imagine Chan Marshall sending herself, John Malkovich-style, through her own portal, and you have Marshall's cover of the Cat Power original, "In This Hole". The slow sadness of this version has its appeal, but it might have been more effective if the piano arpeggios were less prominent in the mix. It would shift the focus off the amateurish simplicity of the song and onto Marshall's vocals which seem fragile not because they're slight, but because her lyrics sound like they could snap under their own weight. That's what you paid the $12 for.

In the past, I've been wary of Velvets covers. This might be the product of a recurring nightmare about a Velvet Underground tribute album which includes Jewel performing "Afterhours", Belle & Sebastian doing "Sunday Morning", and Wolfie's take on "Black Angel's Death Song". So I was naturally hesitant when I noticed that Marshall covers "I Found a Reason" here. I mention this not to self-indulgently map out what is sacred to me, but to point out that Marshall traipses around on just about everybody's hallowed ground here and pulls it off masterfully.

Cat Power's cover of "I Found a Reason" might actually make you weep until Marshall comes back around to lick your wounds, all in under two minutes. You can call me a wuss or say it's because I'm a girl-- keep in mind that I didn't shed a tear at Saving Private Ryan, which some critic apparently called "wound-porn"-- but Cat Power's The Covers Record is the real deal, the embodiment of wound-porn. Buy it now; hide it under your mattress.