|
Volume CXXXII, Number 15 |
 |
Bad lyrics, bad scarves
JAY KANG
COLUMNIST
You are Free: 2 Stars
No one knows how great Cat Power's voice is better than Cat Power. She understands why minimalism is the best option for vocalists with unusually powerful voices. She avoids digital effects, low fidelity fuzz and complex accompaniments, choosing instead to sing most of her songs over simple two or three note piano or guitar pickings, no drums, no bass. And for the songs where she chooses the right notes and the right beats (unfortunately, Ms. Power almost never chooses the right words), the effect is both heart-wrenching and awe-inspiring and invokes the same desolation you feel after reading an Anne Sexton poem.
The difference between a similarly gifted artist like Aretha Franklin and Cat Power, surprisingly enough, lies not in the quality of their voices, but in the choices they make in songwriting. Aretha never wrote a good song in her life. Neither has Cat Power.
Yet, due to the emergence of the singer/songwriter as poet/prophet and the cynicism that surrounds bubble gum acts like Britney and Christina who do not write their own songs, a gifted vocalist like Cat Power has no option than to try and create beyond her capacities.
Much to her credit, however, no one knows how bad of a songwriter she is better than Cat Power. Three years ago, she released an album made up entirely of covers-a move that partially solved her songwriting problems.
Although the songs on the Covers Album suffer from some of the same dissonant, plodding stylings (her version of "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones is particularly slowed down and boring) that mark Power's original songs, a good song is usually still going to be a good song and when sung by a vocalist of Cat Power's unique talent, they become great songs ("Naked if I Want To" is the best track on the album).
It's unfortunate that Cat Power's indie status and her conception of artistic integrity won't allow her to hire someone like Jack White to write her songs for her.
Until she does, we'll have to grit our teeth in frustration and listen to a gorgeous voice sing lyrics like "His name was Perry, he had a learning disability, his father was a very mean man. He was ten years old, he was ten years old, he was ten years old."
Burberry Scarves: 0 stars
If you put a dandelion on a giant pile of crap, does that make it a beautiful meadow? If you put a Mercedes symbol on a busted Camaro, does that make it the pinnacle of German engineering?
Of course not. Similarly, if you put a Burberry scarf on top of a sack-of-potatoes pea coat from the Gap, Abercrombie wind pants and a Bowdoin College hooded sweatshirt, does that make you fashionable? Or for that matter, if you tuck that same scarf inside of last season's Mark Jacobs-or whatever-Shearling number you saw when you visited London?
There are only two people under the age of forty who can get away with wearing anything Burberry: Eve and Prince William. Prince William can do it because his dad more or less owns the goddamn company and Eve can only do it because she's a hot black woman rapper and hot black woman rappers can do whatever they damn well please. Except for pee standing up.
Next time you see a girl in a pea coat (or a schnauzer-faced boy, for that matter) wearing a scarf with those oh-so-trademark plaid stripes, you should ask, "Hey are you a fly-ass gangsta rappin' woman or Prince William?"
If they say no, you should slam their scarf in your car door and drive away very fast.
What are you people trying to say with these plaid atrocities? Are you trying to say that you're richer than me? Well, you're not and you're dad is going to go bankrupt because you keep spending all his money on Burberry scarves, nautical belts from the Brooks outlet, those fifteen strawberry scented candles, and the vanilla scented anti-bacterial soap you bought from Bath and Body Works.
|
FastCounter by bCentral |