Tribute to THE folk-pop princess (Galore - The Best Of Kirsty Maccoll - Kirsty MacColl)

Member Name: julietta

Product:	Galore - The Best Of Kirsty Maccoll - Kirsty MacColl
Date:	31/08/01 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, Melodic, Funny

Disadvantages: None

It made me genuinely sad last year when I heard that Kirsty MacColl had died in a tragic water incident in Mexico.

I loved and still love all of Kirsty’s work and to say that she was a magical entertainer would be a ridiculous and unimportant understatement about life.

Galore really is the ‘best’ of MacColl’s back catalogue and is an album that I like to play more than regularly. When I heard of her death I didn’t want to play it anymore because the joviality and pure glee that you instantly get in ‘galore-like’ quantities from all these tunes would not have seemed right somehow. After a couple of months though I did play it. I had to play it. I NEEDED to play it to regain my selfish sanity. If anything is a standing tribute to the life and times of this unique woman it is her music that just stays with you and stays with you eternally.

I cannot fault any track that appears here and I challenge any other person who is just a little adequate in the skill of music appreciation to do so. It would be only apt to pick out the tracks that really ‘made’ Kirsty such a popular, witty and fantastic temptress of mostly folky-pop.

A New England is a classic, early MacColl track (actually written by Billy Bragg) which really brands her preferential stance to sing with witty and sometimes narcissistic humour – ‘people ask me when will I grow up to understand while the girls I knew at school are already pushing prams’. Her interpretation of this work is both blasé and non-committal and illustrates an early power of that light but beautifully, captivating folk voice. He’s On The Beach has a similar message and makes the same use for melody as New England – in this way these songs end up going hand in hand like good friends here.

Free World is the ultimate folk anthem of anti-Thatcherite/Reagan values sung in an eloquent fashion where the harmony-on-h
armony vocals really do bounce around like the claimed ‘ pocket full of plastic like a dollar on elastic’. MacColl’s self-written song has such biting beauty incorporated into the big-hearted, huge political slanging match that you end up wanting to do as she begs you to, ‘got to take it, got to grab it, got to get it up and shag it in this Free World’. After all, she wouldn’t tell us if she didn’t care, would she?

Another stand-out track is probably the Christmas song ‘Fairytale Of New York’ which was made with The Pogues, written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan and sung with the raged-rowdy (drunken, toothless, etc.) ramblings of the latter. This, apart from being that lovely, festive, heart-warming, chestnuts-roasting-in-Times-Square-esque kind-of little ditty illustrates MacColl’s gentle and sweet capability for bad-mouthing the fella – ‘you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, happy Christmas your arse, I pray God it’s our last!’ GIRL POWER KIRSTY!!!

Another 14 songs on the album make the same grade as the above where Kirsty rattles and prattles on in similar veins for our inquisitive amusement:

There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis - is a self-defining title of a song that generally gives you some expectations of what to expect really.

Her interpretations of Ray Davies’ ‘Days’ and Lou Reed’s Perfect Day, sung here with the perfectly-drawly, husked vocals of Evan Dando, act as sensitive and beautiful accounts and act also as testimonies to MacColl’s misty-strong voice.

My Affair is a jovial, independent little ditty that preludes MacColl’s later dealings and interest in Latino/South American music. It may have you dancing if only in your living room – just don’t play it on or before a girls night out.

Maybe the most fitting tribute th
at I’ve ever seen in print to Kirsty would be on this record sleeve (pinned before her death) where Billy Bragg labels her as ‘unpretentious, inimitable, writes like a playwright, sings like an angel’ – does that not say it all, folks?

In terms of this album however, humble little-me would say that Galore is like a seriously wonderful bottle of champagne; a rich, meaningful fizz that makes you burp and laugh and is worth all the quids you can afford. And that’s the type of thing we all need in life, well, at least from time to time.



TRACK LISTING

1. They Don’t Know
2. A New England
3. There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis
4. He’s On The Beach
5. Fairytale of New York
6. Miss Otis Regrets
7. Free World
8. Innocence
9. You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby
10. Days
11. Don’t Come The Cowboy With Me Sonny Jim
12. Walking Down Madison
13. My Affair
14. Angel
15. Titanic Days
16. Can’t Stop Killing You
17. Caroline
18. Perfect Day

Summary: