Cat Power: The Greatest [MATADOR]

Why you'll love it

This Matador LP comes with a lyric sheet and a download code. It won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Chan Marshall the first woman to take it, and Rolling Stone named it the sixth best album of 2006.

This edition

• Lyric sheet included
• Download card included

About the album

Chan Marshall made her name with spare, haunted indie records and inventive covers of other people's songs. Then she went home to the South, booked a room in Memphis, and for the first time wrote every song on an album herself.

Her band was a who's who of Memphis soul: guitarist Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, his brother Leroy on bass, Steve Potts on drums, Rick Steff on keys, with horns from Jim Spake and Scott Thompson and strings arranged by Harlan T. Bobo and Jonathan Kirkscey. The title track glides in on strings like an old soul ballad, "Living Proof" struts, "Lived in Bars" turns into a warm, rolling sway, and "Could We" and "Willie" have the easy glow of a Sunday afternoon.

It debuted at No. 34 on the Billboard 200, her highest chart placing at the time, and Rolling Stone later ranked it among the best albums of the decade. There's a silent locked groove tucked into side B, so if the room goes quiet for a while, nothing is broken. The record simply wants you to get up.

Also at Kops: more Cat Power on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Matador (cat# OLE-743-0), a reissue of the 2006 album.