How had I managed to miss Marianne Faithfull's 2008 album Easy Come Easy Go? I blame the too-tasteful cover and the coy "Songs for Music Lovers" subtitle, which suggests that what you're in for is a collection of freeze-dried standards.
Nothing could be further from the truth. A haunted version of Ellington's "Solitude" is about as close as this gets to polite, Willie Nelson-sings-Stardust territory. Mostly, Faithfull chooses material from the here and now: Neko Case, Morrissey, The Decemberists. The closest comparison that comes to mind is Caetano Veloso's 2004 collection A Foreign Sound, which had a similarly eclectic spirit, its selections ranging from Gershwin to Elvis to DNA to Nirvana. Veloso's work was deeper and richer, but what I hear in both records is a sheer delight in making music with sympathetic collaborators, freed from commercial expectations or artistic vanity. There's something to be said, I guess, for being a sixtysomething artist with enough money to live on, nothing much to prove to anyone, and cool friends like Nick Cave or Antony Hegarty who'll maybe drop by the studio to add some backing vocals.
Oh, and it helps when you've got one of pop's great voices. Not technically-accomplished great, mind you. More sounds-like-nobody-else-and-you'd-recognize-her-even-if-she-was-singing-in-Swahili great. It's a voice that's been to exotic places, ingested hallucinogens in the company of thieves and brigands, awakened in a Marrakesh hotel with no memory of having arrived there, is ashamed of nothing and doesn't much care what you think about that. Which is to say: how many sixtysomething Englishwomen do you know who can sell Merle Haggard's death-row ballad "Sing Me Back Home"?
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