If there could be such thing as a vintage enigma, Cat Power comes top of a potential bunch of contenders by a country mile. With a weighty musical content that evokes the classiest of female icons, and an infatuating kind of intrigue that surrounds her like a beguiling shroud, she's a rare, barbed fascination in a world of streamlined tosh.
Moody. Playful. Free-spirited. Fatalistic. Joyful. Sad. The thing that's always taken me about Power is the fact that she's seemingly oblivious to any world outside her own during her songs, yet they encapsulate such a wealth of ambiguity and emotions that this can never be a criticism.
Could We is more of the same, though with a more linear feel to last single Lived in Bar, like Cat's opened her eyes for a while, though is still walking in her sleep. The dividing line is thin, but this has less of an exquisite chorus and more contentment, a recollection of a romance on the morning after the event, yet still right there, caught in the creative slipstream, guitars tweaking, horns pumping, and Cat groaning till we succumb once again to the winsome, insular moods.
Power's The Greatest is the latest in a long line of LPs to make you shudder and smile. All roads from her singles lead back to where your heart needs to be broken.
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