"Pussy Cats is lamented by Nilsson fans as the moment Harry finished off the job of killing his own career. He followed his biggest hit, Nilsson Schmilsson, with a standards album, and a divorce album in which the best song had “fuck” in its chorus, which hastened a process of receding into the background of history. And hearing Harry’s voice on Pussy Cats — especially in contrast to his standards album, on which he sounds like a male Billie Holiday — feels to superfans like visiting the scene of a crime with the attendant blood and viscera and a likely suspects (cocaine, brandy, Lennon) still present. This is what happens with history as it is calcified into what eventually becomes “fact.” The narrative hardens over time and what we think we know is locked in eternity. But here’s the thing: Removed from the above context, listening to it in 2024, Pussy Cats doesn’t sound like two men losing their minds on substances, and it doesn’t sound like a man committing aural seppuku. It’s an intermittently sad, dejected album (especially in the Nilsson originals) that turns joyous and delirious and, most importantly, fun (specifically in the covers). What it sounds like is a pair of deeply bonded friends trying to do right by each other, but, ultimately, maybe both fail. What it sounds like is Nilsson giving everything he has, down to the function of his vocal cords, for his best friend, who just so happens to be the most famous musician on earth, and, it just so happens, was going through an existential crisis about who he wanted to be and what it all meant. "