Covers are part of the deal with Cat Power, the musical project of singer-songwriter Chan Marshall. She has reinvented songs in her live shows and on her albums since the beginning of her career; most recently, she performed Rihanna’s “Stay” on her 2018 album, Wanderer. She has even released multiple covers projects, including her 1995 EP, Undercover, and two full albums, 2000’s The Covers Record and 2008’s Jukebox. Now, Marshall is readying her third album of covers, simply titled Covers, to be released January 14. She announced the album on The Late Late Show With James Corden before performing her take on Frank Ocean’s “Bad Religion.” “I had an incident like 20 years ago in New York one night,” she told Corden. “It was super-frightening, and years later, the first time I heard this song, it was as if he was there in the cab when this event happened to me.”
Cat Power turns “Bad Religion” into a hazy rock song, slightly groovier but still as haunting as Ocean’s original. (In a press release, she explained that she started performing it on her Wanderer tour in place of her song “In Your Face.”) It’s one of 12 songs on Covers, including her version of the Pogues’ “A Pair of Brown Eyes,” which she also released today. Otherwise, the album features covers of previous Marshall collaborators Lana Del Rey (“White Mustang”) and Iggy Pop (“Endless Sea”), along with made-for-Marshall songs like “These Days” (by Jackson Browne) and “Here Comes a Regular” (by the Replacements). And in the tradition of Marshall’s past two covers albums, Covers also includes a new version of an old Cat Power song: “Unhate,” a rendition of The Greatest song “Hate.” Find the full track list 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)
