Kirsty MacColl - why never cool?

I kinda love "Walking Down Madison" and "He's On The Beach," you know.

I finally 'discovered' her last year despite hearing her all over great records I loved. Her box set is fantastic start to finish.

If my memory is right, Johnny Marr claims he sent her "Walking Down Madison" mostly as an unfinished demo, for feedback, and she responded by finishing it and sending it back as it now is.

Ten years.

Rest well.

aw, man :(

'he's on the beach' is superb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7ieij6JPiw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irgsx58SkJI

i forgot she was on Top Of The Pops with this lot until just this week:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKmUIEs10O4

pretty cool as it goes!

tragically there doesn't seem to be a proper version of "Fifteen Minutes" on Youtube.

I've been a loving fan of "Fairytale of New York," "The Passion" and "Greetings to the New Brunette," and Tracy Ullman's "They Don't Know" for years without ever knowing until yesterday that they had this connection.

http://www.kirstymaccoll.com/music/bvox/

Good to see all the threads and fans here, but I feel very silly. I even have the Smiths, Pogues, and Billy Bragg grouped together on the shelf with a gap in the middle, as if waiting to be filled with MacColl's retrospective. Man, the character of her voice is so strong.

Yeah the three disc overview is pretty much urgent and key.

Funny -- I listened to Galore on Sunday morning, when it suited the mood and temperature. I could listen to "A New England," "Innocence," and "Walking Down Madison" every day. I won't do much with the following analogy except to mention it: she's got the same excellent wistfulness and evanescence of good Saint Etienne.

Pete - I had the exact same experience a couple of years ago! Get the "From Cuba To Croydon" box, the BBC sessions disc, "What Pretty Girls Do" and then make a bonus disc with:

1. Turn My Motor On (Stiff Singles)
2. Teenager In Love (Desperate Character)
3. Quietly Alone (Stiff Singles)
4. I'm Going Out With An Eighty Year Old Millionaire (Stiff Singles)
5. Please, Go To Sleep (Stiff Singles)
6. Fifteen Minutes (Kite)
7. You And Me Baby (Kite)
8. Children Of The Revolution (Electric Landlady)
9. Maybe It's Imaginary (Electric Landlady)
10. Big Boy On A Saturday Night (Titanic Days)
11. Touch Me (Titanic Days)
12. Treachery (Tropical Brainstorm)
13. Us Amazonians (Tropical Brainstorm)
14. Shutting The Doors (Jools Holland - Jack O The Green)
15. Sun On The Water (The Best Of)- this is the proper studio version, the one on the box is the demo

Yeah the three disc overview is pretty much urgent and key.

[...] BOOOOO for the DVD now being sold separately!

yay if that Stiff/sessions thing happens I guess

― kit, Saturday, 29 January 2005 03:06 (6 years ago)

^ still have never bought either bcz of this

did buy the Landlady and Kite re-releases though, Tropical re-release didn't come out here

Tropical re-release Titanic

man she is a genius songwriter and singer

never really checked her out before today

i knew "walking down madison" but that was it

man she is a genius songwriter and singer

otm

She's one of a handful of acts I so, so wish were still alive. Miss her.

Her cover of Ray Davies's "Days" is absolutely awesome as well.

Some of the best things in the boxed set are songs like these, from her unreleased "Real" album, which sounds pretty awesome to me right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpDFvr4H6VQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVGKvFAZgNw

I've been meaning to check out some of her stuff. I love Lydia Loveless's cover of "They Don't Know".

Wow, a newbie. Kite is an incredible record. As is Electric Landlady. Plus all her early stuff ... Really, it's hard to go wrong.

shee-it! just bumped "us amazonians" off of Tropical Brainstorm…so…

if you ever get tired of Elvis Costello's "look at me, I'm the Yngwie of lyrics" thing, which I have been for about 23 years, then you gotta check out Kirsty. Like, "innocence," the first cut off the first record that the esteemed Herr In Chicago cites, is about as cold a put-down as can be done, and it is perpetrated with astute, clever but not florid language.

New NYT piece (gift link) by Bob Mehr tying in with the box set about out.

"Kirsty MacColl - why never cool?" More like, "Kirsty MacColl - she was cooler than us all."

I had no idea there was a new boxed set, thanks. I'm a little torn about positioning her as "she recorded this famous Christmas duet, but here's what else she did," since I've always thought of MacColl as "she recorded all this great stuff, plus this famous Christmas duet," but hey, whatever it takes to get her body of work more attention.

In strict American terms it's probably the easiest hook for a general reader these days.

The Guardian has a cool piece as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/02/kirsty-maccoll-box-set-steve-lillywhite-mark-nevin-pogues

I had not idea she was just 16 when she wrote 'They Don't Know,' very precocious

I've never listened to Desperate character until now: is it possible that the drummer on "Chip Shop" isn't terry Williams? Wiki sez that Bremner is on the record, but that the sole drummer is Lee Partis, who if so is the greatest Terry Williams-style drummer other than Williams to have ever existed…