Marianne Faithfull - Easy Come, Easy Go Review

"Easy Come, Easy Go" is a sequel of sorts to the 1987 covers album "Strange Weather" from Marianne Faithfull and producer Hal Willner. This new recording is richer and more daring in its arrangements and choice of material. Faithfull's limited vocal range may require a leap of faith to embrace, but her gift is a kind of musical character acting that allows her to imbue Neko Case's "Hold On, Hold On" with appealing desperation and capture the near-hopelessness of Morrissey's "Dear God Please Help Me." Duets with Nick Cave (on Colin Meloy of the Decemberists' "The Crane Wife 3") and Keith Richards (on Merle Haggard's "Sing Me Back Home") are subtle and cagey. Willner's ambitious musical backdrops (using four arrangers and ever-fluid instrumentation) provide dramatic cover for Faithfull in challenging tunes like "Down From Dover," Dolly Parton's once-controversial tale of an unwed teen, while audacious orchestration adds layers of pleasure to such unexpected delights as Brian Eno's "How Many Worlds." —Wayne Robins...full text Dramatico DRAMCD0049, £12.72
Hal Willner produced Marianne's dark cabaret covers record Strange Weather 22 years ago, and this chunky collection might well top that.

Again putting her swarthy touch to the songs of others, she turns Dolly Parton's 'Down From Dover' into Home Counties Motown, and poignantly duets with Keith Richards on Merle Haggard's 'Sing Me Back Home'....full text Let’s be honest: she can’t hold a tune, she misses notes by a musical mile and her voice is as cracked as an eggshell under foot, but that doesn’t stop Marianne Faithfull making fabulous records.

Easy Come, Easy Go isn't an instant Faithfull classic. Broken English it ain't. Nor does it get disconcertingly under the skin in the way Strange Weather did. But in the breadth of material on offer, in Faithfull's signature way with a song, and in Hal Willner's pointed and eclectically elegant production it gets pretty close, exerting its own peculiar fascination along the way.

In her 19th studio album, the first since 2005's fatalistic, 9/11-influenced Before the Poison, Faithfull's emotional palette is gloriously wide, her re-minting of lyric and music both razor-sharp and refreshing, her distinctive vocal stamp its own inimitable hallmark. An acquired taste for the unaccustomed ear she may be, but Faithfull's prowess with a lyric is second to none....full text