Marianne Faithfull - Negative Capability

The Guardian 100

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Related: Marianne Faithfull: ‘This is the most honest record I’ve made. It’s open-heart surgery, darling’

Recorded in Paris with Bad Seed Warren Ellis and PJ Harvey collaborator Rob Ellis, who back her with unshowy, sympathetic orchestration, Marianne Faithfull’s 21st album is a masterly meditation on ageing and death. Coming in the wake of health problems, struggles with loneliness and the loss of some of her closest friends, her lyrics are characteristially unflinching, from In My Own Particular Way’s admission that “I know I’m not young and I’m damaged/ But I’m still pretty kind of funny” to Born to Live’s tribute to Anita Pallenberg and the unbearably raw Don’t Go, about the death from cancer of her former guitarist Martin Stone.

The Guardian 80

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In 1964, Marianne Faithfull released her first single, the Jagger/Richards creation As Tears Go By. A maudlin rumination on the ageing process, it was a bizarre song for any 17-year-old to be singing – but Faithfull’s cold, bored, briskly-paced rendition felt especially odd. In 1987, she re-recorded the track as a languid, pared-back ballad, but it’s only now, aged 71, that she’s been able to mine real emotional gravity from it. On her 21st album, Negative Capability, she imbues the twee melody with both a wobbly vulnerability and irascible strength, her craggy voice lingering over the stately instrumentation. This new version’s sentiments – defiance, desperation and a terrible anticipation of what’s to come – surge through her latest record, a collection of songs that sink deeply into the subjects of death and old age with poignancy but never self-pity.

Related: Marianne Faithfull: ‘This is the most honest record I’ve made. It’s open-heart surgery, darling’

Pitchfork 80

At the age of 71, the British singer who helped define rock-star redemption shares gorgeous and vulnerable self-portraits, shaped by an ace backing band that sometimes includes Nick Cave.