Sun 8 Dec 2019
Music I’m Listening To, Selected by David Phillips: KIRSTY MACCOLL “In These Shoes?”
Posted by Steve under Music I'm Listening To[4] Comments
Steve, From the videos you choose to show us on your blog, you and I seem to have a lot of the same tastes in music. I wanted to know if you have ever listened to Kirsty Maccoll, and mainly her Tropical Brainstorm album. She’s an English girl singing Spanish tunes, and for some reason the whole album works. The most famous song from it is “In These Shoes.”
Sad story, this album was released to great reviews and she ended up dying in a boating accident several months later.
I just had a friend borrow my CD and tell me how much he enjoyed her music, so when I was listening to the Marianne Faithfull song you posted, I thought of you, and hope you enjoy it. The rest of the album is great, but I’m not sure if any or all of the other songs are online.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:07 pm
Thanks for sending me this video, David. I don’t know why I’ve never heard of her before. I think she’s great, and I hope others do too.
December 9th, 2019 at 5:00 am
Her best-known performance is with the Pogues on “The Fairy Tale of New York”, which in one poll was voted the best Christmas record ever!
(And a previous album had the great title “Electric Landlady”)
December 9th, 2019 at 6:39 pm
Whew. I didn’t know anyone knew that vocalist save myself. Longtime fan here; first found her on college radio. Intelligent, witty, albeit just a tad ‘girly’-centric music. The most interesting slant is her multi-cultural perspective. Sizzling expatriate lyrics accuse the Latin male of everything he needs to be indicted for, but she’ll spin right ’round and harangue men of Britain for their faults too. Often hilarious jabs and sarcasm. Taking the music alone: solid/tight production values with layers of South American-esque effects adding fun dimension to catchy, post Beatle-ish pop melodies. Yep. I’ll play a MacColl title on a juke, in any taproom where the female-to-male ratio is high and chuckle to myself as all the females start to sway and snap-their-fingers unconsciously; even ordering margaritas as a result. (Men of course, standing around oblivious). But she really had something. A working mixture of substance and silliness. Painful loss of talent in a boating accident made her too-soon, an obscure name.
December 9th, 2019 at 8:34 pm
another artist of this hard-to-find type: Europe’s Tanita Tikaram. Seems to have been content to cut 1-2 albums, take her proceeds, and retreat.