Cat Power, You Are Free
Chan Marshall, otherwise known as Cat Power, might be the world’s most reluctant rock star. During ‘I Don’t Blame You,’ the opening track on her first album of original material in five years, she sympathizes with a musician who has become weary of the spotlight.
‘You were swinging your guitar around because they wanted to hear that sound that you didn’t want to play,’ she sings. ‘They never owned it and you never owed it to them.’
Still, if she wanted to avoid widespread recognition, You Are Free has officially blown her cover. Featuring unbilled guest appearances from Eddie Vedder and Dave Grohl, You are Free reveals Marshall’s achingly soulful voice rasping its way through a bluesy collection of understated rock songs.
Grohl provides the drumming for the relatively harder rocking (‘He War’ and ‘Speak for Me’) of her sparsely arranged tracks. On the album’s highlight, the regretful ‘Good Woman,’ featuring Vedder’s background vocals, Marshall sounds as if she’s about to break, admitting ‘I don’t want to be a bad woman and I can’t stand to see you be a bad man…this is why I am leaving.’
Captivated by her haunting voice, it’s easy to imagine Marshall singing her lovers to sleep before disappearing by morning. Cat Power may gain popularity with this release, but as Marshall warns over the hammering beat of the title track, ‘Don’t be in love with the autograph, just be in love when you scream that song.’
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