Cat Power: Jukebox
Matador
2008
Rating:


The song selection and production of Cat Power's covers album "Jukebox" seems designed to further the Memphis phase Chan Marshall entered into with 2006's overrated "The Greatest." Tellingly, the best song here is an original composition about Marshall's childhood obsession with Bob Dylan. For "Song to Bobby," Marshall appropriates Dylan's nasally intonation and lilting phrasing as she remembers hearing Dylan singing "Blowin' in the Wind" in South Carolina as a teenager and then getting to meet him backstage at a Paris show. Marshall brings a smoky sexiness to Dylan's own "I Believe in You" (she also covered him for the "I'm Not There" soundtrack) and tracks from the Highwaymen ("Silver Stallion"), Hank Williams ("Ramblin' (Wo)Man"), Joni Mitchell ("Blue") and James Brown ("I Lost Someone"). Despite the varied genres covered, Marshall prepares each song with the same flavor so that by the end the taste has grown stale.

Posted Saturday, February 2, 2008

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/music/cat.power/jukebox