Cat Power reimagines Frank Ocean’s ‘Bad Religion’ for new cover versions album
The musician has covered songs from Iggy Pop, Billie Holiday and The Pogues for her 11th album
By Emma Kelly
Cat Power has covered songs Frank Ocean and The Pogues for her new album ‘Covers’.
The musician, real name Chan Marshall, has confirmed her next album will be made entirely of cover versions, and will be released on January 14 2022 via Domino Records.
Among the songs reimagined by Cat Power is Frank Ocean’s ‘Bad Religion’, which she performed last night (October 7) on The Late Late Show with James Corden.
The 49-year-old explained the cover first came about after she performed her original song ‘In Your Face’ on tour, saying in a statement: “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.”
The album features covers of songs by The Pogues, Nick Cave, Iggy Pop, The Replacements and Billie Holiday, with Cat Power’s take on ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ inspired by “recent losses within Marshall’s inner circle”, including her Sun collaborator Phillippe Zdar, who died in 2019.
You can check the track list in full below.
1. ‘Bad Religion’ – Frank Ocean
2. ‘Unhate’ – Cat Power – Chan Marshall
3. ‘Pa Pa Power’ – Dead Man’s Bones
4. ‘A Pair Of Brown Eyes’ – The Pogues
5. ‘Against the Wind’ – Bob Seger
6. ‘Endless Sea’ – Iggy Pop
7. ‘These Days’ – Jackson Browne
8. ‘It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels’ – Kitty Wells
9. ‘I Had A Dream Joe’ – Nick Cave
10. ‘Here Comes A Regular’ – The Replacements
11. ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ – Billie Holiday
She said: “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.”
Covers is Cat Power’s 11th album and her first since 2018’s Wanderer, which included a cover version of Rihanna’s ‘Stay’.
Her first album made entirely of covers was 2000’s aptly titled ‘The Covers Record’, which featured renditions of The Rolling Stones’ ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ and The Velvet Underground’s ‘I Found A Reason’.
The 2008 covers album Jukebox featured Cat Power’s takes on songs including Liza Minnelli’s ‘New York’ and ‘Blue’ by Joni Mitchell.
‘Covers’ is produced entirely by Cat Power, and as well as 11 cover versions, it includes an updated version of her own song ‘Hate’ from 2006’s ‘The Greatest’, retitled ‘Unhate’.