Cat Power, Sun, 2012

Tuesday Run Album Review

People change.  Kind of.  They get older.  They have experiences. They begin to get a better sense of their place in the world.  That's the key, I think.  Most people stay the same at their core.  But they learn to relate to the outside world much better as they get older.

Chan Marshall had a reputation for being shy, introverted, even scared.  My own introduction to her music as Cat Power was a song on which she seemed to be saying that she understood why Kurt Cobain committed suicide.  Her early live shows, apparently, were characterized by her constantly apologizing to the audience and suddenly cutting sets short.  Her songs were delivered in her beautifully pained voice over spare arrangements.

Then, on 2006's The Greatest, Marshall teamed with the Memphis Rhythm Band for a set of more upbeat-sounding, if not necessarily more upbeat, songs.  According to this 2006 New York Times piece, Marshall had sobered up and had developed a new, more positive outlook.  This showed in her live shows.

Sun, which came out last week on Matador, finds Marshall looking out from herself, recognizing her place in a universe that doesn't revolve around her, and asking her listeners to do the same.  The spareness of her early work is gone.  The band is gone.  Sun is self-produced, self-performed and includes loops, drum machines, electronic effects, and in some cases *gasp!* Auto-tune.

Marshall chastises herself for "bitchin', complainin' when some people ain't got shit to eat" over a looping keyboard riff on single "Ruin."  She's traveled the world and seen things and gained perspective.  On "Real Life," it turns out that Marshall's met people, too:  a doctor who wants to be a dancer, a teacher who wants to be a dreamer.  But she sings that, "real life is ordinary."  Real life on "Human Being," though, also means using your own voice to sing, using your two hands to build things, and recognizing that there are people getting "shot on their own street."  "Nothin But Time," an eleven-minute track featuring an assist from Iggy Pop on vocals, rolls along with advice for a kid who could just as easily be a younger version of Marshall herself.  "You got nothing but time... ...never give away what you always wanted."

This is all wrapped up in some very un-Cat Power-like music.  In a recent Pitchfork feature, Marshall said that her songs used to be all down-tempo because she felt that she wasn't a particularly good musician.  The electronics, while sure to give pause to some long-time fans, have obviously freed her to pick up the pace while maintaining her usual unorthodox song structures.  And her voice is still there.  That smoky southern drawl comes through and makes all the songs on Sun Cat Power songs.

Cat Power sounds different on Sun because Chan Marshall's changed.  Kind of.  She's still Cat Power, sensitive singer / songwriter.  It's just that now she sounds almost thankful for it.