Kirsty MacColl: Tropical Brainstorm : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Tropical Brainstorm is British singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl's final album, first released in the U.K. last year, and now granted U.S. release following MacColl's untimely death last December. The album, MacColl's first release of new material in seven years, highlights her love of Latin music, and the sensual rhythms provide the perfect setting for her tales of romantic wheeling and dealing. In MacColl's universe, desire only serves to muddle things up, or at the very least knock them off-kilter. "England 2, Colombia 0" equates a lying lover to being on the losing side in a football match; elsewhere, it's the singer herself who gleefully admits, "Treachery made a monster out of me." MacColl's trademark friskiness also pokes its head up in "Here Comes That Man Again," a story of flirtation in cyberspace, and "In These Shoes?" where an invitation to walk on a suitor's back is met with the smirky response, "I doubt you'd survive." "Alegria" a whirling dervish of a number, culminates in a cry to celebrate "happiness and joy," a fitting way to remember this unique and talented performer. (GILLIAN G. GAAR -- April 24, 2001)