441. Marianne Faithful - Broken English (1979)
















Track Listing

1. Broken English
2. Witch's Song
3. Brain Drain
4. Guilt
5. Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
6. What's The Hurry
7. Working Class Hero
8. Why'd Ya Do It

Review

Ah, the mellifluous voice of sweet Marianne. The title of the album is quite appropriate as she is singing in English and her voice is quite broken. This is not a bad thing, you are reading a guy who think Nico has a lovely voice, actually I quite like women with broken down voices like Billy Holiday in her later days for example.

That being said, it is hard to make comparisons between Billy Holiday and Marianne Faithful. They are not in the same league unfortunately, but I quite liked this album. It is clearly a little piece of late 70's music with a foot in the 80's already.

The main fault that I find in the album is the fact that Marianne is much better at singing anger than ballady songs. The first and last track are great precisely because that is what her voice gives strength to, to a certain type of anger, it would follow then that her cover of Working Class Hero would be great, but it isn't very impressive. An album to check out particualrly for the two songs I mentioned.

Track Highlights

1. Why'd Ya Do It
2. Broken English
3. Guilt
4. Witches' Song

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The last track, "Why D’Ya Do It?", is a caustic, graphic, and possessive rant of a woman reacting to her lover's infidelity. The lyric starts with the man's point of view, relating the angry, bitter tirade of his jilted lover. It was set to a grinding tune inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s recording of Bob Dylan’s "All Along the Watchtower". Poet and writer Heathcote Williams had originally conceived the lyrics as a piece for Tina Turner to record, but Faithfull succeeded in convincing him that Turner would never record such a number. Its plethora of four-letter words and explicit references to oral sex caused controversy and led to a ban in Australia, where local pressings of the LP were released with smooth vinyl in place of the track and a 'bonus' 45 single as compensation (the ban did not extend to import copies).

Why'd Ya Do It in a very extended version, pretty good, also VERY NSFW, unless you have headphones: