- Audio Cassette (17 Oct 1990)
- Format: Import
- Label: Polygram Records
- ASIN: B00000ESEN
- Other Editions: Audio CD | Vinyl | MP3 Download
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product details
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Track Listings
| 1. Stranger Intro |
| 2. Boulevard of Broken Dreams |
| 3. I Ain't Goin' Down to the Well No More |
| 4. Yesterdays |
| 5. Sign of Judgement |
| 6. Strange Weather |
| 7. Love, Life and Money |
| 8. I'll Keep It With Mine |
| 9. Hello Stranger |
| 10. Penthouse Serenade (When We're Alone) |
| 11. As Tears Go By |
| 12. Stranger on Earth |
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
For those who either remember or have heard Marianne's 60s hit that made her famous, "As Tears Go By", you really must buy this album. Upon reading the track listing, you will feel reassured, since "As Tears Go By" features; however, you will soon be in for a huge surprise.
Recorded over 20 years after "As Tears Go By", "Strange Weather" demonstrates Marianne's darker, more mature side. This is the album of a woman who has lived (and almost died), and has chosen to express herself through the medium of Berlin cabaret songs, compositions by Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and Jerome Kern. (These same themes and styles would be returned to again over the next ten years, for example in "20th Century Blues" in 1996.)
Then, of course, there is THAT song. Gone is the sweet, chirpy, throwaway pop version of the 60s; in is the angst, the pain of everything associated with being an iconoclastic survivor whose "riches can't buy everything".
The voice is fractured, tortured and that of a woman deep in reflection. The album is intelligent, accessible and near-perfect, from the evocative "Strange Weather", to the camp Berlin cabaret of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", to the achingly painful "Yesterdays", and the startling acapella defiance of "Ain' Goin' Down to the Well No Mo'".
This is a classic and timeless album in the true sense of the word. When listened along side "Broekn English" and "A Secret Life", it represents part of a trilogy of the greatest work of one of Britain's most brilliant, demanding, controversial, and essential female artistes.
Format:Audio CD
This introspective and melancholic 1987 album of covers represents Faithfull's take on the blues but there's also some gospel and a torch song or two. Strange Weather is a collection of famous and lesser known compositions by Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, The Stones, Leadbelly, Jerome Kern, Doc Pomus and Dr John, amongst others. The album is highly rated by most music critics but not particularly accessible to the casual fan.
Her interpretations are mostly slow, subdued and understated, as on Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, I Ain't Goin' Down To The Well No More, Yesterdays and the Tom Waits song Strange Weather. Highlights of the album include Dylan's I'll keep it With Mine, this awesome rendition of her 1960s hit As Tears Go By and the melancholy and moving folk song Sign Of Judgment.
The overall impression is one of detachment, not unlike A Secret Life, her collaboration with Angelo Badalamenti. I am thus not sure that fans of her pop-rock style will like it. But Strange Weather is definitely worth it for the tracks As Tears Go By and Sign Of Judgment. More accurate rating: three and a half stars. The album has been reissued with her Broken English masterpiece of 1979, showcasing two very different styles and phases of Faithfull's career.
Her interpretations are mostly slow, subdued and understated, as on Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, I Ain't Goin' Down To The Well No More, Yesterdays and the Tom Waits song Strange Weather. Highlights of the album include Dylan's I'll keep it With Mine, this awesome rendition of her 1960s hit As Tears Go By and the melancholy and moving folk song Sign Of Judgment.
The overall impression is one of detachment, not unlike A Secret Life, her collaboration with Angelo Badalamenti. I am thus not sure that fans of her pop-rock style will like it. But Strange Weather is definitely worth it for the tracks As Tears Go By and Sign Of Judgment. More accurate rating: three and a half stars. The album has been reissued with her Broken English masterpiece of 1979, showcasing two very different styles and phases of Faithfull's career.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
8 reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Great for a bluesy, rainy day.
29 Oct 1998
Format:Audio CD
This is a wonderful album for feeling kind of melancholy. Faithfull's cracked voice has an odd kind of beauty, yet her songs are full of sorrow.
I love listening to this album when I'm a bit blue, and have found it to wear well over the years.
Sorrowful without being maudlin. I'd recommend it.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Here is a little controversy
9 Aug 2005
Format:Audio CD
Strange Weather is Marianne Faithfull's masterpiece.
To me, it's as good as an album gets. Why? It's like looking into a soul, which, to me, is the highest virtue of art: to lay out the human condition as a truly honest expression of the author. The truth here is so profoundly expressed that even a song that shouldn't by any stretch belong to Marianne Faithfull, "Ain't Goin' Down," rolls through her voicebox like something she might have said in a half-sleep, a revelation.
Yes, it's melencholy; yes, it is melodramatic. But the songs and the album are "of a piece," like an old engine that cranks with every tune and starts up with just the same reliable grind and effortless churn.
It's truly beautiful, from beginning to end. While I love 20th Century Blues as well, I don't get that from any other Marianne Faithfull album. But I don't need it from any other. We have the purest, truest expression, right here.
To me, it's as good as an album gets. Why? It's like looking into a soul, which, to me, is the highest virtue of art: to lay out the human condition as a truly honest expression of the author. The truth here is so profoundly expressed that even a song that shouldn't by any stretch belong to Marianne Faithfull, "Ain't Goin' Down," rolls through her voicebox like something she might have said in a half-sleep, a revelation.
Yes, it's melencholy; yes, it is melodramatic. But the songs and the album are "of a piece," like an old engine that cranks with every tune and starts up with just the same reliable grind and effortless churn.
It's truly beautiful, from beginning to end. While I love 20th Century Blues as well, I don't get that from any other Marianne Faithfull album. But I don't need it from any other. We have the purest, truest expression, right here.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Marianne proves her talent
5 Nov 1999
Format:Audio CD
When this album came out in '87, a critic called it "music to slit your wrists by." Marianne took it as a compliment. The CD is definitely a downer to those unfamiliar with Marianne. With this, she explores old blues and torch standards, and also does a new version of "As Tears Go By," her first hit back in '64, updating to suit her much-changed voice, and sinking her teeth into the intense world-weary feel of the lyrics. She also does a version of "Yesterdays," first done by Lady Day herself, Billie Holiday. A real highlight, that one. Even Sinatra couldn't do that one justice. While I wouldn't recommend it as an intro to Marianne's music, it is definitely a treasure and proves that Marianne Faithfull is an artist worth her weight in gold (even though she doesn't have many gold records to back that up).
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