Consumer Guide Album

Marianne Faithfull: Kissin Time [Virgin/Hut, 2002]
She's a professional sufferer, to be taken seriously as who she is rather than what she symbolizes. That said, and despite two dull Billy Corgan copyrights, these collaborations with the likes of Blur and Beck are her best bunch of songs since--not Broken English, that's ridiculous, but Strange Weather or A Child's Adventure. And that said, its peak is a ghost closer from the '60s, Goffin-King's supremely untortured "I'm Into Something Good"--inspired by Earl Jean's version, not Herman's Hermits', all feminists devoutly hope. B+