Kirsty MacColl: The One and Only by Karen O'Brien
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Book Summary Author: Karen O'Brien Foreword: Billy Bragg Edition: Hardcover Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 2004-10-01 ISBN: 0233000704 Number of pages: 264 Publisher: Andre Deutsch |
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Book Reviews of the Kirsty MacColl: The One and Only
Customer Review: Missing the Music
Summary: 2 Stars
As a fan of MacColls music I'm very happy to see that she warrants a biography. Hopefully the presense of such a book will continue to elevate her status in the music world. However, this book is hardly about the the music. It does cover, in sometimes too much detail, her childhood, her early family life and Cuba. There are sections on her marriage to Steve Lillywhite and a bit about her career at Stiff Records. But beyond that the book lacks any sense of Kirsty's diverse musical influences. In fact, acts that clearly influenced MacColl like Twinkle, the Caravells, Sandy Denny etc are not mentioned at all. Sadly, there are enticing quotes about her love for records that are never pursued. For the most part this book is written like a CNN report - it just feels very cold. In parts it is downright silly - a full few pages are devoted to the fact that like Kirsty Che Gueavar had asthma! Protacted sections on the MacColl's visits to Poland go nowhere. I was left feeling like the book was forced or worse that it's main goal is to keep the cases about her death in the public eye (though to be fair the author presents an unbiased view of the case). Clearly Kirsty's family had significant involvement in this book but I wonder why they left out so many of the musical elements of her life? It left me wondering if any of them knew Kirty's music at all. And the photos also hardly show a woman who had been a significant force in pop music. I would recommend the book to any Kirsty MacColl fan but I do so with the caution that you'll not learn much more about her music than you'll find on the CDs. Though that may not be a bad thing it is ashame that an effort to document her life a pop artist has now passed.