Cat Power as the Universal Bridge

I've been playing around with playlist auto-generator built into the newest iTunes version; it's definitely a smart little algorithm, and almost immediately taught more more about my music than I'd been able to cipher out myself (for example, the similarity between the guitars in Patti Smith's Easter and in Tapes 'n' Tapes; who knew?

But one thing has struck me: nearly every playlist I build includes Cat Power's cover of "(Can't Get No) Satisfaction". It's a great cover, notably in that the chorus is never actually sung, the tempo is greatly lowered (as you'd expect of Cat Power), but the song maintains much of its original spirit, even without the rock.

I'd hardly call it a universal playlist addition, though.

I doubt others have the same experience--it's a pure product of math, invariably, which is in and of itself fascinating--like finding the geographical center of your own musical continent, when you were more accustomed to the view at the coasts. Case in point: that Cat Power song is the only Cat Power song on my iPod. But, apparently, when the songs are alone, she's the most popular girl in the room.