Marianne Faithfull – Broken English

Broken English, released in November 1979, marks a bold reinvention for Marianne Faithfull after years of personal and professional turmoil. The album embraces a darker, more experimental terrain grounded in new wave, punk, reggae, and electro influences. Faithfull’s voice, already altered by years of excess, emerges here as a gravelly instrument that carries vulnerability and edge at once. Produced by Mark Miller Mundy and recorded at Matrix Studios in London, it captures a restrained but potent sound disposition—sparse instrumentation, synthesizers, and tightly wrought arrangements undergird the emotional weight of the material.

From the defiant title track to the scathing “Why’d Ya Do It?” and her haunting version of Lennon’s “Working Class Hero,” the album is deeply personal and confrontational. It illuminated a new public persona for Faithfull—one of survival, bitterness and resilience—rather than muse or ingénue. Over time, Broken English has become widely hailed as her defining record, a comeback framed not as restoration but transformation, and a touchstone for artists engaging with pain, voice, and reinvention.

“It is a perfectly intentional, controlled, unique statement about fury, defeat and rancor.” – Rolling Stone

“The cracked, undead voice of a woman back from exile to make a record about the simple audacity of staying alive.” – Pitchfork