Cat Power – You Are Free
3.3

The most surprising thing about Chan Marshall, the Southern-bred songstress who records alt-rock albums under the pseudonym Cat Power, is her ability to create a heavy mood with the most simple and minimalist of instrumentation.

True story: I just finished learning to play “Cross Bones Style,” a riveting single off of her last album, 1998’s Moonpix (her 2000 cover album, entitled, um, the Cover Album, doesn’t count) and two things struck me about the song. It’s extremely emotional and, even more, extremely easy to play.

Although I'd never be able to play a song featured on Cat Power’s new album, You Are Free, with my limited musical skills, the LP stays as moody and deliciously gloomy as all of Marshall’s earlier releases on Matador Records.

You Are Free features drumming by ex-Scream, ex-Nirvana, currently Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age wonderguy Dave Grohl (credited only as D.G.) and other guest performances by well-known artists, but the album is unmistakably Cat Power’s show.
It hits one as sort of strange that an artist whose songs read like tear-splattered pages of her diary would write songs about being famous—a subject that, to say the least, isn’t close to most of us. But “Free” comes off as powerful and insightful, instead of contrived. “Don’t fall in love with the autograph,” Chan coos, “Just be in love when you scream that song/All night long.”

And in the opening track “I Don’t Blame You,” Cat Power channels the wrath of a misunderstood singer/songwriter. (Aren’t they all?) “You were swinging your guitar around/Cuz they wanted to hear that sound/That you didn’t want to play,” she tells the struggling artist (who might or might not be an allegory for herself).

But the most striking track on You Are Free is the piano-driven anti-ballad “Names.” Cat Power revs up her most depressing wails for an ode to childhood friendships lost to rape, drugs and murder. The simple piano progression seizes up your guts while Chan’s lyrics make you all but weep your heart out into your pillow. A master song if there ever was one.
But, of course, nothing is ever perfect, and as much as the bulk of You Are Free is utterly captivating, the rest is a little less, sometimes even bordering on tedious. Cat Power’s moody persona just doesn’t work in all of her songs. Sadly, you’ll find yourself guiltily skipping past tracks to listen to the jewels embedded in the album. But, even with that impediment, You Are Free far from disappoints, leaving the listener light, happy, free.