Cat Power: The Covers Record : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Cat Power is Atlanta-born singer-songwriter Chan Marshall, hagged out and mobbed up. Her 1998 breakthrough, Moon Pix, was a feast of raggedy, sorrowful folk-punk hymns like "Metal Heart," and while we await her next album of new material, due next winter, The Covers Record provides a stopgap fix of her unnerving, coldblooded voice and shaky acoustic guitar. Marshall covers her personal hit parade: Moby Grape, Lou Reed, Smog, Michael Hurley and, best of all, the Stones' "Satisfaction." The only other woman singer who's really claimed "Satisfaction" is Mexican pop star Gloria Trevi, who had to translate it into Spanish ("Satisfecha") and then become an international alleged-sex-crime fugitive to pull it off. But Marshall strips it down, ditching the chorus and wailing with terrifying power. "Baby baby baby, come back," she pleads. "Can't you see I'm on a losing streak?" She waits a week. He doesn't come back. She still can't get no satisfaction. Scary shit, and a typical Cat Power bone chiller.