Consumer Guide Album

Marianne Faithfull: Faithfull [Island, 1994]
There's a bald expediency to this compiled-by-Chris-Blackwell-himself overview: what kind of a legend leads an 11-track best-of with the five keepers from her career album, now 15 years behind her? Yet though even the new Patti Smith cover has nothing on "Broken English" or "Why D'Ya Do It," every more recent song (as well as the iconic twice-15-year-old Jagger-Richards ingenue move "As Tears Go By") beats Broken English's filler. So slice it this way. For the first half she's a wreck, spitting imprecations at the world. During the second she regains her dignity. And since dignity is rarely as much fun as wreckage, there's a definite thrill in hearing her make something of it. A−