Consumer Guide Album

Marianne Faithfull: Broken English [Island, 1979]
A punk-disco fusion so uncompromised it will scare away fans of both genres, which share a taste for nasty girls that rarely extends to females past thirty with rat's-nest hair and last night's makeup on. The raw dance music isn't exactly original, and sometimes the offhandedness of the lyrics can be annoying, but I like this even when it's pro forma and/or sloppy, or maybe because it's pro forma and/or sloppy, like Dylan when he's good. "Why'd ya spit on my snatch?" indeed--the music's harshest account of a woman fending with the world. A-