Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Kirsty MacColl

The late Kirsty MacColl was featured in AV Club's series The Single File yesterday. The series spotlights artists, offers up deep cuts, and is just cool in general. The writer, Will Harris did an awesome job with the piece on MacColl and you should check it out the entire article here.

I'm not sure if it's right or wrong, but even though MacColl had her own career, wrote her own songs, and worked with many spectacular acts, I always think of The Smiths when I hear MacColl's name probably because of her cover of "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby," and as the AV Club piece points out, she was featured on "Ask" and "Golden Lights" from the Smiths.

"You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby" (Smiths' cover)




She also wrote a song that comedienne Tracy Ullman turned into an MTV hit. Back in the day MTV played Ullman's Supremes-esque version a LOT and I didn't even realize it was a cover until years later!

"They Don't Know" (Kirsty MacColl's original)




"They Don't Know" (Tracy Ullman)



89X played MacColl quite a lot back in 1991. MacColl had a hit with "Walking Down Madison" and was featured in Billy Bragg's song (and video) for "Sexuality"



"Sexuality"



MacColl tragically died in a controversial boating accident back in 2000. Read more about that here.