Tag Archives: The Greatest

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Song of the Day #6,609: ‘Lived in Bars’ – Cat Power

Continuing my look at the albums of 2006…

The Greatest was Atlanta singer-songwriter Cat Power’s seventh studio album, and one that introduced her to a wider audience. It’s certainly the one that introduced her to me, although it took five years for me to pick up a used copy at a favorite record store.

This was my first and only exposure to Cat Power, stage name of Chan Marshall, so I can’t say if it’s par for the course or a departure. Based on the reviews I’ve read, it’s a bit of both, more expansive musically while maintaining her downbeat style.

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Song of the Day #4,102: ‘The greatest’ – Lana Del Rey

Concluding my countdown of the songs on Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell.

2. ‘How to disappear’ – This is another track that was released, in a way, well before the album came out, when Del Rey and Jack Antonoff performed a piano-and-vocals version live at an Apple event. That recording is a thing of beauty, but the studio version is just as transcendent, adding ramshackle instrumentation that reminds me of the work Jon Brion did with Fiona Apple back in the 90s.

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Song of the Day #1,215: ‘The Greatest’ – Cat Power

Whenever my wife sees a business that remains open despite improbable odds, she announces “that’s a drug front.”

You see a neighborhood mom-and-pop store that has somehow weathered the tough economy. She sees a drug front.

By her logic, there is no more obvious drug front than the Spec’s record store across from the University of Miami campus on US 1 in Coral Gables. That store has remained there for decades despite the collapse of every other brick-and-mortar record store in the world. It sits next to the Swensen’s sandwich and ice cream restaurant (itself a monument to perseverance through hard times), occupied by more employees than customers most days. Drug front.

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