Cat Power - The Covers Record

The Covers Record was Chan Marshall's answer to the pressure that followed Moon Pix. Rather than chase expectations, she retreated into other people's songs, recording them alone or nearly so across sessions in 1998 and 1999. Released on Matador in 2000, it remains one of the most disarming covers albums ever made.

Marshall strips each song to its bones. The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" loses its riff entirely and becomes a ghostly confession, while Nina Simone's "Wild Is the Wind" and the Velvet Underground's "I Found a Reason" drift by on little more than voice and piano. Even her own "In This Hole," revisited here, sounds newly exposed. The whole album feels overheard rather than performed.

Quiet, patient, and deeply personal, The Covers Record turns familiar material into something wholly her own. This Matador LP keeps a cult favorite exactly where it belongs, spinning late at night.