Customer Reviews

Very Best of

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Although I already owned Marianne Faithfull's Greatest Hits album that contains thirteen of these tracks, I had to acquire this one too for her exquisite interpretations of two folk classics: Tom Paxton's The Last Thing On My Mind and Tim Hardin's Reason To Believe with which Rod Stewart later had a huge hit. It was well worth it!

Other sixties classics here include Monday Monday and Yesterday plus the two famous Stones songs As Tears Go By and the lugubrious Sister Morphine. The informative sleeve insert provides an interesting overview of her career, even giving the UK and US chart positions of her singles and ep's. I was surprised to learn, for example, how firmly she stood in the folk tradition in those early years, always having considered her more of a pop singer.

Besides the Paxton and Hardin numbers, my other favorites remain the yearning Come And Stay With Me, a Jackie De Shannon song which reached No. 4 in the UK in 1964, the Goffin/Mann composition Something Better, Spector/Goffin/King's Is This What I Get For Loving You and the sorrowful Go Away From My World. If I had to choose between "Greatest Hits" and this "Very Best Of", I would definitely take this one since Reason To Believe, The Last Thing On My Mind and Scarborough Fair are more beautiful than the tracks Counting, With You In Mind and Some Other Spring found on the Greatest Hits album.

Perfect Stranger: The Island Anthology

This 16-track London CD was released, despite what Amazon says, in 1987 - just like the 16-track Greatest Hits CD on Abkco. The selections are comparable (not identical), and the sound quality is very similar.

However, this CD uses mainly stereo mixes, and the annotation - though rather sloppy in the way many early English CD's were - is pretty thorough. The Abkco CD uses a lot of mono, and its annotion is all but non-existent. So, I'd call this the best single CD compilation of Marianne's 60's music - which makes it essential for Anglophiles.

For younger listeners this collection of 60-ies recordings by our Heroine of drugs&sex& rock'n'roll would come as surprise.Back then, Marianne was sweet and gentle-voiced, obviously under influence of Joan Baez (she even mentioned this in her autobiography) and although she wasn't really a singer of Baez calibre, she was sweet.I love this album very much and sometimes I think its actually two Marianne Faithfull, one young and innocent and another one older and wiser, I still can't decide which one I love more.

These recordings are absolutely essential to almost any serious music lovers collection , especially for those only familiar with her second musical incarnation. It wrenches you istening to her pure voice and knowing of the personal and vocal decay which spawned so quickly later on.

Tracks like As Tears Go By are sad but pleasantly beautiful, Sister Morphine dark and brooding. The recordings differ greatly in delivery and style but all have merrit. Special mention goes to Yesterday,probably the most beautiful version ever recorded and on Something Better she sounds almost identical to Melanie (Safka). The booklet inside has a full and informative biography and contains the recording date and chart peak of each track.

A worth wile and eye opening listening experience, creating a more complete understanding and appreciation for her later work , although they then become even harder to listen to.But
one thing is clear: Marianne Faithfull was already a major talent from the outset of her career.

You will note by the tracks that this should be labeled "The Very Best - Volume 1." It does not include any of her later work.
With that said, this is a nice collection of her earlier songs.
Her voice seems a bit tenuous, lacking the confidence and raspiness that developed later. And the songs are mostly pop fluff (with a couple exceptions including "Sister Morphine").
Still, this brought back fond memories.
One of my favorite songs of the 60s is "Come and Stay with Me," included here.

Beautifully orchestrated, and arrainged collection. As seen with the cover art this one tends to be of her innocence, listen.

Good solid classics --well worth adding to your library if Marianne was a part of your musical past.

This is an extremely nice album and shows her at her prime with a very clear and distinctive voice, good songs and good accompaniment.

If you like the songs of that era then you should like this one very much.