Strange Weather

Marianne Faithfull

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 15, 1990)
• Original Release Date: July 1987
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Island
• ASIN: B000001FU0
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #143,717 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
From the belle of '60s London to weathered postpunk princess to postmodern chanteuse and onward, Marianne Faithfull has proved two things: she's adaptable and a survivor. Sparked by Faithfull's glowingly received contribution to Hal Willner's 1985 Kurt Weill tribute, Lost in the Stars, Weather takes up where Stars left off. Here Willner and Faithfull take a torch to an off-kilter but inspired collection of tunes, including Leadbelly's "I Ain't Goin' Down to the Well No More," Bob Dylan's obscure "I'll Keep It with Mine" (penned for another smoky-voiced rock chanteuse, Nico), and the standards "Yesterdays" and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." The producer enfolds Faithfull's ravaged-but-right vocals in a cozy soundscape that perfectly suits the misty mood of this unified, insular song cycle. --Steven Stolder

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for a bluesy, rainy day., October 29, 1998

By A Customer

This is a wonderful album for feeling kind of melancholy. Faithfull's cracked voice has an odd kind of beauty, yet her songs are full of sorrow.

I love listening to this album when I'm a bit blue, and have found it to wear well over the years.

Sorrowful without being maudlin. I'd recommend it.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marianne proves her talent, November 5, 1999

By A Customer

When this album came out in '87, a critic called it "music to slit your wrists by." Marianne took it as a compliment. The CD is definitely a downer to those unfamiliar with Marianne. With this, she explores old blues and torch standards, and also does a new version of "As Tears Go By," her first hit back in '64, updating to suit her much-changed voice, and sinking her teeth into the intense world-weary feel of the lyrics. She also does a version of "Yesterdays," first done by Lady Day herself, Billie Holiday. A real highlight, that one. Even Sinatra couldn't do that one justice. While I wouldn't recommend it as an intro to Marianne's music, it is definitely a treasure and proves that Marianne Faithfull is an artist worth her weight in gold (even though she doesn't have many gold records to back that up).

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Here is a little controversy, August 8, 2005

By	Scott R. Chamberlin (Venice, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Strange Weather is Marianne Faithfull's masterpiece.

To me, it's as good as an album gets. Why? It's like looking into a soul, which, to me, is the highest virtue of art: to lay out the human condition as a truly honest expression of the author. The truth here is so profoundly expressed that even a song that shouldn't by any stretch belong to Marianne Faithfull, "Ain't Goin' Down," rolls through her voicebox like something she might have said in a half-sleep, a revelation.

Yes, it's melencholy; yes, it is melodramatic. But the songs and the album are "of a piece," like an old engine that cranks with every tune and starts up with just the same reliable grind and effortless churn.

It's truly beautiful, from beginning to end. While I love 20th Century Blues as well, I don't get that from any other Marianne Faithfull album. But I don't need it from any other. We have the purest, truest expression, right here.