Review Summary: I once was lost, but now I'm found... Was blind, but now I see you.
Recently, while watching Cat Power’s “Cross Bones Style” music video on YouTube, I read a comment left by a viewer which begged for the return of the “old Cat Power”. Even if that meant an alcoholic and depressed (yet beautiful) woman.
Morally speaking, such statement got me and other viewers shocked. How cruel can be a person, for wishing disgrace to a beautiful and talented woman in exchange of stellar music??
That statement circulated through my head so fiercely, that I got a huge interest and curiosity over that song’s album, “Moon Pix”.
Well, I could say that I don’t know much about Cat Power. But after checking out this album and a few other songs, I think I know enough to agree, just in part, with the statement. That one which, at first, left me 100% indignant.
Because, if returning to the “old Cat Power” means taking Moon Pix as her singing/songwriting roots, I agree.
Obviously, not meaning “when you are drunk and sad, you make much better music”. Because here I’m talking about Moon Pix, and not Cat Power’s latter issues.
I’m not pretending to underestimate awesome tracks like “The greatest”, “He War” or “Sea of Love”. But, besides Moon Pix’s depressing aura, that album’s songs have a special feel into them. Which lifts this album up more than a step from any other Chan’s albums, and (ironically) makes it shine blindingly bright inside its own darkness.
Analysing such interpretation, it’s imposible to avoid the experience of hearing Metal Heart from Moon Pix, and then its other version, from Jukebox. Because this is the symbol of the victory over her issues, and consequently the shift in her musical style.
The newest version is piano-guided and, in my opinion, much more upbeat than its “predecessor”. And just like the “first Metal Heart”, Moon Pix is pretty slow and downbeat. But I repeat: it’s much deeper, better. Its beauty characterizes the whole album: untouchable, beautiful, extreme.
It’s astoundingly impressive how such a simple musicianship could make sadness even more sad, sincerity even more sincere, and darkness even more beautiful.
Having as the big star of all, the vocal work. Showing a soft and hoarse-feminine vocal style, and using those characteristics with intelligence and dynamics, Chan Marshall’s singing gives an inmense emotional plus to her grandious lyrics.
Accompanied with a musical background that many people criticize as minimalistic, and so that it “doesn’t add or do much”.
Well, it sure is minimalistic, but that’s far from meaning it’s bad: actually, it couldn’t be better than the way it is. Because it’s that playing and those tabs that makes “Cross Bones Style” so mesmerizing, “Stay” and “Metal Heart” so tenderly melancholic, and “Colors and the Kids” so desperately captivating.
Overall, this album has an enormous emotional and aesthetic depth which gives it a huge affective potential. But, unlike the singer, loving the album as a whole isn’t too fast (that’s why it doesn’t win a 5, in my opinion). It’s a process which is very worth to go through. I mean, it’s a grower: at first, maybe you will find this kind of boring, but at the end most probably you will love it or simply like it (this if you have good musical taste).
Why “unlike the singer”? I leave that discovery up to you. Go to Google Images, YouTube, or stuff like that.
