Vinyl Record

Marianne Faithfull - The Montreux Years

Marianne Faithfull - The Montreux Years on 2LP vinyl. A 2021 Jazz record available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel, Ireland.

2LP · Jazz · 2021

Available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel.

Buyer notes: 2021 2LP, currently available from the Kilmorna Collection Jazz shelf. Pay for pickup in Listowel or ship within Ireland for EUR 5.50.

The Montreux Years is a 2021 live portrait of Marianne Faithfull drawn from performances across the Montreux Jazz Festival between 1995 and 2009. That span matters: it catches her long after the 1960s image had fallen away, during the period when she had become a severe, funny, wounded and commanding interpreter of her own myth. The set opens from the 1995 Auditorium Stravinski performance with Madame George, placing Van Morrison's long memory-song inside Faithfull's gravelled authority. Across the collection, pieces from the Broken English universe sit beside later repertoire and standards, so the listener hears not a tidy career survey but a stage language: phrasing that drags experience behind every line, arrangements that let the voice take the risk, and a performer who knows how to make fragility sound confrontational. The album is a document of presence, not nostalgia.

The Montreux Years matters because it captures Faithfull as a live artist across a mature 15-year arc. It shows how songs such as Broken English, Guilt, Working Class Hero and Madame George changed when filtered through age, theatre and hard-earned timing.

For collectors, this is a useful live counterweight to the studio albums because it foregrounds interpretation and stage command. It is especially strong for listeners who want the mature Faithfull voice in high-definition performance settings rather than another compilation of familiar recordings.

Live noir-rock and cabaret interpretation with gravelled vocals, dramatic pacing, jazz-festival space, guitar weight, spoken intimacy and stark emotional authority.

Recommended for: Marianne Faithfull fans focused on her mature performance era; Collectors of live albums that reveal interpretation over polish; Listeners drawn to Broken English material in later stage form.

What year was The Montreux Years released? The Montreux Years was released in 2021. What period do the performances cover? The recordings come from Montreux appearances between 1995 and 2009. Is The Montreux Years a studio compilation? No. It is a live collection built from festival performances, so its appeal is Faithfull's stage phrasing and mature voice.