Cat Power - Jukebox

MOGstars 7/10Cover albums are a delicate thing. They can be like Bowie's Pin-Ups and provide stimulating reworkings of well-loved tracks, or they can plumb the depths of Duran Duran's Thank You and border on Shatner-esque hilarity, or they can just sink into oblivion. Luckily, Chan Marshall has already navigated this minefield once. 2000’s imaginatively titled The Covers Album saw her knock down and rebuild everything from the Stones to Dylan in her own delicately haunting image. This year's Jukebox signals a departure in both the original styles of the songs covered and the treatment metered out to them.Exploring the same avenues hinted at by The Greatest, her last album of originals, this record contains many a soul and big-band standard. Opening track "Theme to New York, New York," the perennial karaoke classic, serves to showcase Marshall’s soulful voice, imbuing the song with a captivating desperation and longing. Her delivery of the famous line “if I can make it there, I can make it anywhere” is suited more to the Last Chance Saloon than the city that never sleeps. Minnelli’s brashness and Sinatra’s suaveness are nowhere to be seen in what could just as easily be a bitter attack on the city where dreams are broken as a celebration of one where they are made.Equally delicate is a version of Lee Clayton's "Silver Stallion" which seems more like a desperate hymn of escapism than a cowboy hobo’s travelling song. Chan steeps the song in sadness and desolation, a simple slide guitar the only accompaniment to Marshall’s resigned vocals. The result is a haunting three minutes during which one cannot help but wonder what this troubled troubadour is hoping to ride away from, picturing the dust and tumbleweed swirling at her feet. Yet it is the only new Marshall composition on the album that serves as the real highlight. Aping the style of early Dylan, "Song to Bobby" charts the singer's love affair with Dylan’s music, addressing the living legend with a stream-of-consciousness letter charter that runs from her teenage years to the present. In this beguiling and beautiful song, Marshall may at times be on the verge on showing off, delighting in describing hoe Bobby now wants her to be his friend, but she still touches us with a tale of the musical infatuation that all of us have felt for someone."Song to Bobby," however, reveals the major weakness of Jukebox. Marshall is at her best when singing her own songs. Sure, the covers are quirky and interesting, giving us a new take on old favourites (usually with great success, although the Christian-era Dylan track "I Believe in You" is a rather damp squib), but this sort of album is little more than an artist’s parlour game. Marshall avoids making any major faux pas. No unassailable songs are targeted and on the whole the album is pleasing. Nonetheless, while well-executed and impressive, it is doubtful Jukebox could be anything more than the occasional mood music.