Jukebox hero got stars in her eyes

In all realms of education (from elementary to college), students are taught that it is wrong to take someone else's work, tweak a few things and try to pass it off as their own. Cat Power was apparently absent the day the rest of the class was taught this. Cat Power (the alias of singer/songwriter Chan Marshall) has released her second album of (almost) all cover songs with "Jukebox." Though mostly all the classic songs on this album were not written or performed by her originally (except for two), Marshall is able to strip away any vestige of the songs' original background and truly make them her own. Dispensing all recognizable melodies and anticipated hooks of each song, Marshall leaves only one thing to remain true to the original: the lyrics. Marshall fills every song with her own jazzy and blues-like sound; even adding two songs of her own: one re-working of a previously released song of hers and a brand new one. On almost the entire record, Marshall's sultry, soothing voice is backed up by her powerful band, the Dirty Delta Blues. This pairing of a smooth voice with a hard rock band goes together like peanut butter and jelly. On tracks where her voice isn't backed up by her band, her guitar is in place. With Marshall's reinventing of each track completely, it's almost as if their originators (Frank Sinatra, James Brown, etc.) never come into the picture (yes, she's that good). However, don't mistake Chan Marshall's extreme changes as a somewhat "anti-tribute" to the amazing artists that made the songs famous. In fact, her one brand new song, titled "Song to Bobby," can be taken as a homage to the great Bob Dylan, for whom the song was written about. Though this is Chan Marshall's second covers album, this does not in anyway undermine her brilliance as an artist. Her ability to take songs with such foundation and just tear them down, put her own spin on them and call them her own is nothing short of amazing.

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