Why d'ya do it (Marianne Faithfull) (LP 2497 - 2498)

Marianne Faithfull  Broken English (CD, Island Records, 1979) *****  

Marianne Faithfull  Blazing Away (CD, Island Records, 1990) **** 

Genre: Pop/ rock 

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records; Shona Walding collection.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Why D'ya Do It

Gear costume: Working Class Hero 

Active compensatory factors: Marianne Faithfull has generated a lot of publicity in her lifetime. If you google her name you're immediately given her relationship with Mick Jagger to peruse, but her extraordinary life is so much more than that short alliance. Her two autobiographies that I've read (Faithfull, Memories Dreams and Reflections) are harrowing documents.

Musically, she is very prolific, having started her recording career in 1964, and she's still active in the 2020's. Like Keith Richards, it's pretty amazing that she's still alive.

Broken English was an unlikely triumph for her in 1979. Her voice had undergone a radical transformation thanks to health issues, drugs and her lifestyle.

The new-wave, punkish rock of Broken English was also a radical departure and revelation after the whimsical folk stylings she had been releasing.

The sound is tough and uncompromising to a scary degree. Not for the faint-hearted this one.

Blazing Away is an excellent live album from 1990 and so forms a bit of a career summary with songs from 1964 onwards. As she says in her liner notes: here is my life story on tape.

Broken English songs are scattered throughout, of course. They stand out!

Where do they all belong? I've tried other albums by her but they don't have the extraordinary heft of Broken English.