Cat Power - You Are Free (2003)

Artist...............: Cat Power
Album................: You Are Free
Genre................: Alternative Rock
Source...............: Cd
Year.................: 2003
Ripper...............: Exact Audio Copy
Codec................: FLAC
Information..........: TntVillage
Covers...............: Front
Total Size...........: 313 Mb


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You Are Free arrives nearly five years from her last album of original material, and everything, yet

nothing, has changed about Chan Marshall's music. The album's title is as much a statement as it is a

challenge, a command to free one's self from the hurt and pain of the past, or to at least find a way of

making peace with it. Marshall seems to do both on You Are Free, a collection of songs about finding

freedom and peace wherever she can. Initially, the album seems more diffuse than Moon Pix, as it spans

tense rockers, blues, folk, and singer/songwritery piano ballads, but it gradually reveals itself as

Marshall's most mature and thematically focused work yet. You Are Free opens with a stunning trio of songs

that encompass most of the moods and sounds she explores later in the album. On "I Don't Blame You," the

first of You Are Free's many spare, piano-driven moments, Marshall paints a portrait of a tormented

musician, her voice so full of sympathy that she may well be singing a reconciliation to a previous

incarnation of herself. The brisk, buzzing intensity of "Free," however, offers liberation in the form of

rock & roll's immediate, poetic nonsense: "Don't be in love with the autograph/Just be in love when you

love that song all night long." You Are Free's first two songs address musicians and making music directly;

Marshall is a famously willful, volatile artist, and the increasing gaps between her albums (not to mention

her unpredictable live performances) suggest that being a musician isn't the easiest thing for her to do,

even if it's a necessary one. She addresses the struggle to do the right, but difficult, thing on "Good

Woman," a near-spiritual breakup song where, backed by a children's choir and fiddles, Marshall explains

that she needs to be a good woman with -- or more likely, without -- her bad man. Aside from being a lovely

song, it's also a departure; earlier in her career the song might have just focused on the conflict instead

of Marshall's gently strong resolution to it. This gentle but resolute strength runs through most of You

Are Free's best moments, such as "He War" and especially "Names," a terrifyingly matter-of-fact

recollection of child abuse and lost friends that says more in its resigned sorrow than a histrionic tirade

would. As the album progresses, it moves toward the spare, affecting ballads that give her later work a

strange timelessness; listening to You Are Free gives the impression of stripping away layers to get to the

essence of Marshall's music. In some ways, the quiet last half of this album is more demanding than the

angsty noise of Dear Sir or Myra Lee, but hearing her find continually creative interpretations of minor

keys, plaintive pianos, and folky guitars is well worth the attention it takes, whether it's the dead-of-

night eroticism of her cover of Michael Hurley's "Werewolf," the pretty yet eerie longing of "Fool," or the

prairie romance of "Half of You." Every Cat Power album takes at least a few listens to fully reveal

itself; You Are Free may take awhile longer than expected to unfold, but once it does, its excellence is

undeniable.


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Tracklist
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01. I Don't Blame You
02. Free
03. Good Woman
04. Speak For Me
05. Werewolf
06. Fool
07. He War
08. Shaking Paper
09. Baby Doll
10. Maybe Not
11. Names
12. Half Of You
13. Keep On Runnin'
14. Evolution