It's been a while since I so keenly anticipated the release of an album as this one - the last album that I can remember going out and buying on the day of its release was Hail To The Thief, which must've been at least a couple of years ago now (those were the days - when I really believed that Radiohead were the best band in the world, and at least half believed that they might save me). It's not just that it was new Cat Power - though of course that was the main factor - but also that the title track and lead single, released quite a while ago, was absolutely stunning...three and a half minutes of magic which not only bore comparison to any of her finest past (sad-eyed) moments but also seemed to flag an interesting new direction for our favourite indie folk-styled eccentric (an appellation which means something, considering how many of them there are).
But the album as a whole...well, I've been thinking about how to explain my equivocal response to it, so how's this: by coincidence, on the day that the album was released, I received a postcard from Michelle (in Canada) telling me about a Cat Power moment that she'd had in a cafe somewhere in Quebec; and I think that the main reason I feel slightly let down by The Greatest is that, title track and maybe two or three others aside, it's hard to imagine the record producing any similar such moments, for me or for others (though the music of the enigmatic Chan always seems to speak so directly and personally to its listeners that it's probably particularly dangerous to be making these kinds of generalisations here).
In one respect, at least, "The Greatest" isn't at all misleading - this album certainly has a different sound from her previous albums. Much has been made of the fact that it was recorded in Memphis (in fact, What Would The Community Think was also laid down there, though not at Ardent nor with this kind of supporting cast of session musicians), and it does have a 'Memphis' kind of style - a full, lush, distinctly produced instrumental sound which is a far cry from the sparse, stark beauty of earlier classics like "King Rides By" or "Bathysphere", say. The guitar - both acoustic and electric, plus pedal steel on a couple of songs - is very much in a supporting role, and in its place we get a bed of piano, gentle percussion and bass, strings, organ, horns, sax, and other assorted, really quite AM radio-friendly sounds...not at all what we're used to from Marshall. What this means, all told, is that we don't get any of those soaring, heartbroken "Moonshiner"-type hymns which usually provide such emotional high points on Cat Power records; nor are there any of the marvellously propulsive, weirdly oscillating "Nude As The News"/"Cross Bones Style"/"He War" numbers, at least in the form that we're accustomed to. So that's the 'slightly let down' part of my response to The Greatest.
But, all of that said, I do like the album, and if I've been listening to it over and over (and I have been), it's not only for the pleasure of hearing Marshall sing songs that I haven't already heard umpteen times before. There are a few songs that could produce those 'moments' - "Where Is My Love" (though that one's maybe a bit too AM radio for my tastes), "The Moon" (one of my favourites), "After It All", and of course "The Greatest" itself. And there are some others which are, well, interesting to say the least - like "Lived In Bars", which comes on all 'latter day Nick Cave in quasi-ballad mood', even down to the lyrics ("We know your house so very well/And we will wake you once we've walked up/All your stairs"), and then shifts into a cousin to that "Stay" song from Dirty Dancing (incongruous enough already? Now imagine it sung in Marshall's usual throaty yowl...), or the positively sprightly "Could We" (maybe the most conventionally swingin' song in her entire back catalogue, not that it has a lot of competition - has a kind of Loaded-era Velvets swagger to it), and there's also "Hate", standing out on The Greatest precisely because it's such an old-school haunted 'voice + guitar' Cat Power song ("Do you believe she said that/Do you believe she said that/I said I hate myself and I want to die"). Plus, the song which closes the album proper - ie, before the 'hidden' track - "Love & Communication", is a bit of a stunner.
The folk strands are largely left behind, but there's a bit of country, a bit of understated funk, and more than a hint of soft-edged radio soul, all of which basically works (as perhaps might've been guessed from the way Marshall's voice surprisingly complemented the bouncy r&b of Handsome Boy Modeling School's "I've Been Thinking") but still leaves me wishing for an "American Flag" or a "Colors And The Kids", or, y'know, a "You May Know Him" or "Sea Of Love" or "Good Woman" or anything in those veins...
Which is this album in a nutshell, really. I can't help but feel a little disappointed with The Greatest, but on its own terms it's really quite a good (though by no means great...pun unintended) record. On the other hand, while I'm tempted to murmur something about this being how it goes when our icons change - and I do think that there's a little bit of that going on in my response to the album - I reckon that mostly The Greatest just doesn't quite come together in the way that we all hoped it would...this time, in changing, Marshall's fallen just a small bit short.
