cat power

My grandfather always used to tell me, "For an artist to make a cover album, it takes determination and a sense of history. To make two cover albums, it takes passion and perhaps a lack of ingenuity." Okay, so maybe he never told me that. But I still think these words apply to Jukebox, the eighth album-and second cover album-by Cat Power (Charlyn "Chan" Marshall).

What's interesting about cover albums is that the most important aspect is not necessarily the individual songs, but the collection of tracks the artist chose to cover. And what comes across most obviously in Jukebox is a diverse group of artists all sharing the same decade, as a full nine of the 12 tracks are from the '70s. However, these are not simply songs that Marshall grew up with (all had been released by the time Marshall was nine). Instead, her selection reveals a musical appreciation that is not shared by her fellow 2007 Brit Award nominees Pink, Beyonce and Nelly Furtado.

In Jukebox, Marshall is proving her versatility as an artist by taking a wide array of performers (Joni Mitchell, Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan) and fitting their work into her own minimalist style. Lee Clayton's "Silver Stallion" is a haunting track that lingers with the listener that somehow contrasts nicely with the upbeat and smooth version of George Jackson's "Aretha, Sing One for Me". The next track, "Lost Someone," still manages to convey the passion (and pleading) that makes a James Brown song a James Brown song.

However, Jukebox tends to slip into long stretches where it's difficult to tell where one song ends and another begins. By fitting old classics to her own style, Marshall blends her tracks together almost to the point of banality. While she shows some ingenuity and courage in her song selection, the lasting impression is that Jukebox may be broken.