LP’s CDs #4: Cat Power, Moon Pix, 1998. Or: why don’t they get it?!
In my last post, I wrote about how Everything Is Nice introduced me to Cat Power. There were two songs from Moon Pix on that compilation: Cross Bones Style and Sea of Love. Both transfixed me. So I bought the whole album and got sucked in by the subtle, strange, melancholy beauty of Cat’s songs.
Back then I listened to this album a lot when I was sad or reflective (which was about 70% of the time between the ages of 17 and 27). I’ll listen to her in any mood today. I still love this album and everything she did before and after. When she released Sun in 2012 my adoration multiplied. That album is exceptional, and so unexpected; loud, confident electronica was not what I expected from Cat. It’s miles away from Moon Pix, but her beautiful haunting voice is still the same.
I saw her at Brighton Dome in 2014. It was a weird, frustrating, brilliant gig. Cat can be… an unconventional performer. It’s said that she has crippling stage fright. She seemed even more nervous and off-balance than usual that night, but to me, she was spellbinding. It was peculiar going between being immersed in the performance when she was singing and then feeling guilty between songs because she seemed so uncomfortable and fragile.
The worst part of it was that people kept leaving throughout. I think many people were there because of Sun and expecting rock star confidence and electronica they could dance to. They got shy, shaky Cat Power and a piano. She also played a lot of older material from Moon Pix, The Covers Album, The Greatest etc (someone has made a playlist from the set list here) and nothing from Sun.
There was a steady but definite trickle of people getting up, disturbing everyone in their row and walking out from early on. It’s one thing to leave a standing gig, but another to leave when everyone is seated and the performance is a heartfelt, subtle, acoustic show. I was so ‘there’ for what she was doing that I couldn’t understand why people were leaving. It brought out the snob in me, muttering: ‘MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO MORE THAN ONE ALBUM BEFORE YOU BOUGHT A TICKET.’ (See also: every Björk gig where some ingrate says; ‘But she didn’t play the Shhhh one.) It’s fine not to like it, but have some manners.
Anyway, onto my favourite song from Moon Pix. I had two candidates: Metal Heart (the Moon Pix version is better than the one on Jukebox IMO) and Cross Bones Style.
In the end, it has to be Cross Bones Style — the video swung me. I’d never seen it until researching this post, and it’s pleasingly weird — Cat looking beautiful, with some puzzled dancers doing an awkward, ironic dance routine.
