Cat Power dropped her latest album, Wanderer, in 2018, and now she’s ready to follow it up. Instead of a set of originals, though, the new project is a covers collection. The album, appropriately titled Covers (not to be confused with her 2000 covers album, The Covers Record), is set for release next year, on January 14.
After premiering her cover of Frank Ocean’s “Bad Religion” on The Late Late Show last night, she shared the studio version of it, as well as her rendition of “A Pair Of Brown Eyes” by The Pogues.
Marshall says her Ocean cover originates from when she would perform her own “In Your Face” (from 2018’s Wanderer) on tour: “That song was bringing me down, so I started pulling out lyrics from ‘Bad Religion’ and singing those instead of getting super depressed. Performing covers is a very enjoyable way to do something that feels natural to me when it comes to making music.”
She also noted her cover of Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You” was inspired by the 2019 death of collaborator Phillippe Zdar, saying, “When people who you love have been taken from you, there’s always a song that holds their memory in your mind. It’s a conversation with those on the other side, and it’s really important for me to reach out to people that way.”
Aside from the aforementioned tracks, another noteworthy inclusion is a cover of “Pa Pa Power” by Dead Man’s Bones, a duo consisting of Ryan Gosling (yes, that Ryan Gosling) and Zach Shields. Meanwhile, alongside the covers is an updated version of Cat Power’s own “Hate,” which has been re-titled “Unhate.”
Listen to Cat Power’s Ocean and Pogues covers above and find the Covers art and tracklist below.
1. “Bad Religion” (Frank Ocean)
2. “Unhate” (Cat Power)
3. “Pa Pa Power” (Dead Man’s Bones)
4. “White Mustang” (Lana Del Rey)
5. “A Pair Of Brown Eyes” (The Pogues)
6. “Against The Wind” (Bob Seger)
7. “Endless Sea” (Iggy Pop)
8. “These Days” (Jackson Browne)
9. “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” (Kitty Wells)
10. “I Had A Dream Joe” (Nick Cave)
11. “Here Comes A Regular” (The Replacements)
12. “I’ll Be Seeing You” (Billie Holiday)
Covers is out 1/14/2022 via Domino. Pre-order it here.