All i Ever Wanted Kirsty Maccoll

Kirsty MacColl first emerged on the British pop scene as something of a novelty – her first single was the girl group pastiche "They Don't Know," which became a hit when covered by comic Tracey Ullman, and her first chart success on her own was the witty country-styled number "There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis." But in 1989, MacColl released the album Kite, which revealed she was one of the best and most insightful U.K. songwriters of her generation, with a body of work that was witty, disarmingly honest, eclectic, and adventurous. A motorboat accident claimed MacColl's life in 2000, cutting short a career that was still in motion. All I Ever Wanted: The Anthology is a two-disc collection that brings together highlights from MacColl's albums Kite, Electric Landlady (1991), Titanic Days (1993)…

Their stadium-indie sound is more variegated on this follow-up, on which Mikel Jollett reflects on death and change. "We grow old all at once, and it comes like a punch in the gut," he notes on the galloping, U2-style title track, while the simple "The Graveyard Near The House" is a touching love song. In between are burly rockabilly depictions of Jollett's troubled family, stadium anthems of chugging sincerity, and less appealingly, a song about the bombing of that Afghan wedding party featuring some ghastly prog-rock keyboards. Overall, it treads an uncertain line between bombast and sensitivity.