[review 2006: the disappointments]

Let’s get this out of the way real quickly: this list is not intended to be some sort of absolute truth, handed down from the heavens like the word of God. I am just a man without a plan. Please feel free to like albums I dislike, or vice-versa; certainly everyone thought I was bonkers when I dissed the Ladytron album last year, and all I could say then was I just didn’t like it very much. But that’s me; you might feel differently. I do these lists mostly as a masturbatory exercise, but also because people like reading what I have to say even if they don’t agree.

Why am I writing all this preamble? Because I don’t think this will be a popular choice. To say I hated The Greatest is unfair; the intensity of feeling I have for this album isn’t anywhere near the strength of hate. And for Chan Marshall herself, it seems like 2006 was a mixed but ultimately productive year; she seems to be in a better place in the struggle against her own demons, and certainly she’s put together entire strings of live performances where she didn’t once break down, retreat backstage or fall apart at the mic. It’s just too bad that The Greatest turns out to be about as appealing as gruel.

Everything starts out very promisingly with the title track. “The Greatest” is a far cry from earlier material, possessing a grace and beauty we don’t usually see in a Cat Power song. Which is not to say her music isn’t beautiful; it’s just that on songs like “American Flag” and “Names,” that beauty seemed like a by-product of some mental anguish or emotional trauma. Not so on “The Greatest,” the surest sign yet that the “difficult” Chan Marshall had perhaps transformed into a happier, less encumbered Chan Marshall, free at last to perform to her fullest potential.

Of course, to some extent that’s an illusion; in reality Marshall was at her lowest ebb when Matador asked her what it would take to finish another album, and when she asked for her backing band of legendary blues musicians she expected to be told off. But if there’s an upside to The Greatest, it’s that the album really does sound like the product of a cleaned up and less miserable Chan Marshall. The problem, as is sometimes the case of artists who make a name for themselves by mining their own personal dramas, is that the new Marshall doesn’t seem all that compelling.

It’s here that I will admit this may be my fault; I’m not a student of the southern blues, and so perhaps I’m not equipped to appreciate the subtleties at work. There could be entire undercurrents I’m simply not aware of that make The Greatest worthy of its name. But all I hear is an album a bit too refined, a bit too complacent, a bit too pretty to leave any lasting marks. I can’t actually listen to older songs like “Names” very often because they essentially consist of Marshall reciting a litany of childhood devastations directly into your ears—it’s like a horror movie you can’t bear to watch, a quality that’s undeniably powerful but hard to actually listen to regularly. But The Greatest goes too far in the other direction; hidden inside the sax of “Could We” and the tasteful slide guitar of “Islands” might be some nasty lyrical punches, but they never seem to land. Perhaps Marshall will strike a balance with her next album, if she’s up for it; I’ll be waiting.