Don't die

I want to preface this post by announcing that the new Cat Power album, The Greatest, is (as always, in my opinion) a thing of beauty. Go and buy it. Play it for your dad. Give it to your mom for valentines day. Leave it in the plastic wrap and wait until you have an entire week to devote to it.

Cat Power - Hate
Ever since I first heard "Colors and the Kids" off Moon Pix I've been worried about Chan Marshall. Nobody could write a song that sad and not be seriously depressed. To me, the song is like a hazy memory of happiness from someone who hasn't been happy in as long as they can remember. It sounds like it's being performed by someone who's been crying for so long that can't possibly cry anymore. Whenever I hear it, I can't help but stop what I'm doing and listen. When I'm depressed, listening to the song is like sinking into the ground.

"Hate" is something different, but I'm no less worried about Marshall because of it. It's stripped down bare, with Marshall's voice echoing off the walls of an empty room, but the lyrics strip it even more bare. It's spilling over with an almost dramatized emptiness, or with an over the top self loathing. But I have this sinking suspicion that there's some truth embedded in the chorus. I'm sure that when Kurt Cobain wrote a song called "I hate myself and want to die" (and put it on the Beavis and Butthead soundtrack, of all places) it probably didn't register as anything beyond a clever song title, either.
[buy or, even better, buy!!]

Fuck - Drinking Artist
This song is more of a warning. It's imagining yourself in a few years and shrinking back in disgust. It's recognizing the possibility that you've been wrong about everything.
[buy the great album, Conduct]