Kirsty MacColl The Biography

by O'Brien, Karen; Bragg, Billy

• ISBN13: 9780233003931
• ISBN10: 0233003932
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-12-01
• Publisher: Carlton Publishing Group

Summary

Everything about Kirsty MacColl defied the conventional "pop" category, yet she embraced and defended the genre, redeeming it with literate writing that had seldom been seen in British pop since the glory days of Ray Davies and the Kinks. Her music was funny, irreverent, and endearingly catchy and her five albums in almost 20 years became symbolic rescue missions to retrieve British pop music from all that was saccharine and shallow, manufactured and mainstream. Overcoming agonizing stage fright, long periods of writer's block, and depression, she created a hugely successful solo career and collaborated with a legion of people from the Rolling Stones to the Happy Mondays, and, most famously, The Pogues, with "Fairytale of New York."

Author Biography

Karen O'Brien is a news editor for the BBC World Service in London. As a news journalist, she has worked in print, radio and television, including the BBC and Reuters. She has written and broadcast widely on the arts, with a particular passion for music. Her previous books include Joni Mitchell: Shadows and Light and Hymn to Her, a collection of writings on women musicians, including Kirsty MacColl.