He Will Kill For You

Cat Power’s You Are Free is not a perfect album. There’s maybe three or four too many songs, about five of them sound about the same and drone on a bit, but that doesn’t matter too much. There are eight songs on this record which are either just jaw-droppingly beautiful, or otherwise brilliant. For the most part, I’m not sure if I can put my thoughts about those songs into coherant words just yet, because like the best of Cat Power’s previous material (or the best of music, in general), it’s all about the feeling. It’s abstract, it’s nonlinear, it’s pure emotion. It’s the whole “dancing about architecture” thing, and I’m not going to frustrate myself by trying to give this any kind of proper review. It’s still too early for me anyway – I don’t think I ever fully understood what power Moon Pix had over me til maybe a year after I’d bought a copy.

Jody Beth Rosen did write a very smart and interesting observation about the song “He War” the other day, and I think she’s pretty much on target there. The more I hear that song, the more I realize that it reminds me a lot of “Get Up” by Sleater-Kinney in terms of structure and feeling, which is a great thing since Sleater-Kinney have apparently abandoned that kind of song in spite of the fact that The Hot Rock is easily their finest record.