Kirsty Macoll - Desperate Character
#247
June 1981
Kirsty MacColl
Desperate Character
Genre: Pop Rock
3.75 out of 5 (really suffered from a mediocre second side)
Highlights:
Clock Goes Round
See That Girl
There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis
Teenager in Love
Until the Night
Oh, Kirsty.
Did you know she wrote Tracy Ullman’s hit, “They Don’t Know”?
Yeah, she did that.
Or that her version of Billy Bragg’s “A New England” is one of the most sublime recordings of the 80s?
Yep, that’s a true thing.
We shan’t talk about her untimely death. She was a hero and a victim and it’s a terrible thing.
Instead, we shall warm ourselves in the rich 60s one girl girl group sensibilities that are Kirsty’s mastery.
I came to MacColl very late. Posthumously.
There was a brief conversation about naming my band’s album “Buckley Family Swim Meet” which would just be an illustration of water with three buoys, Jeff’s, Tim’s and Kirsty’s. Perhaps a boat with a cartoon of our band on it.
Better heads prevailed.
Kirsty was a songwriter out of time. She should have been around 25 years before and writing songs for the likes of Elvis. In that era she could have been Dolly Parton. She had the chops. This first side of this album is chock full of great songs that suffer from wall of sound production. You want to like it but dammit, they are all making it so hard….cuz it really runs out of gas on Side Two, culminating in a country version of her excellent and oft covered “There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis”, which is cute but unnecessary.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueNa1pFB9uE&list=PLlvn8uktX5LsZ8_cmyfrIzAX4nxrwN2F-
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