Albums teaming young hitmakers with dimming stars have become a record-biz sop since Carlos Santana’s 1999 CD Supernatural (Arista) haunted the airwaves, selling 14 million copies and copping nine Grammys. The results have been mixed at best, ranging from Willie Nelson’s tasteful but compromised The Great Divide to Tony Iommi’s metal scrapheap Iommi (Priority).

Now Marianne Faithfull, who began her career as a sweet-voiced 17-year-old libertine with 1964’s Jagger/Richards–penned "As Tears Go By" and re-emerged in 1979 as a weathered rock survivor with the gritty, enduring Broken English (Island), has made an album with Beck, Billy Corgan, Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, Blur’s Damon Albarn, and others. But Faithfull rightfully insists that Kissin Time (Virgin) is about heart and art, not charts.

"It’s got nothing to do with a record company," she explains over the phone from her Dublin home. "They’re all friends of mine. I called them myself and paid to make the record myself. If a record company were involved, it would have been a completely different line-up and it wouldn’t have been my choices. The album might have been very commercial, but I don’t think it would have been better. For me, they were perfect choices, and one reason is that they’re all in a similar age group, except for poor Dave [Stewart], who’s a bit older but very talented. They’re all in their early 30s, which I think was important. I didn’t want to work with people who haven’t been through the primary bullshit — the first bit of being a rock-and-roll star, where you think you’re God. They’re people who, you know, have grown up a bit."

Another difference is that Faithfull — who’ll play the Paradise next Saturday, September 14 — hasn’t really been a star since the ’60s, when she put four singles and two albums on the British charts and made her cinematic and theatrical debuts. Even then she was as known as much for her tabloid-exploited romance with Mick Jagger as for her music. She struggled through the ’70s largely waylaid by addiction to drugs and alcohol before Broken English, a substance-soaked catalogue of betrayal, cynicism, and misery set to a prickly, synth-punk soundtrack. It’s a great album, and decidedly uneasy listening: through it all her raw, nicotine-stained voice remains strong and proud, acknowledging wounds and striding through the pain with determination.

Broken English gave Faithfull a second career as a revered cult artist. Since then — actually, during an early-’80s stretch when she lived in Boston — she’s shed her addictions and seems to have found peace. But she’s never coasted. With the Kurt Weill–inspired Strange Weather (Island, 1987) and then A Child’s Adventure (Island, 1993) and Vagabond Ways (Virgin, 1999), she dabbles in fine grades of light and darkness, with songs that search for bliss as often as they conjure Bukowski-like visions.

Collaborations are nothing new for Faithfull, who’s more lyricist than musician. What’s surprising is the gentility of her writing for Kissin Time. "Wherever I Go" (written with Corgan and given a chiming orchestral backdrop that conjured the Pumpkins’ "Disarm") and "The Pleasure Song" help make the album a celebration of life’s positives. "Sex with Strangers" (a threat to an offending lover rather than an endorsement), written with Beck, and the acidic "Sliding Through Life on Charm" are similar to her edgier work, but warmed by humor. The latter opens with these merrily sung lines: "The family tree was chainsawed Wednesday week/So now I have to mingle with the meek/Hey mister! You have finally met your match/Now everybody wants to kiss my snatch."

"If that song didn’t have that lyric content, it would be a fucking hit," she says, laughing. In some ways, Kissin Time’s music recalls Broken English in its mix of sampled and organic band sounds. If the CD has a weakness, it’s in some generic arrangements, like Beck’s labile sampled-string bed for "Nobody’s Fault" and his limpid techno-disco hybrid for "Sex with Strangers, and Stewart’s characterless synth-pop treatment for her touching remembrance "Song for Nico."

When Faithfull hits these shores for her upcoming tour, fans are likely to hear something closer to the quirky, clangorous rock of the title track, where she’s backed by Blur. "I’ve put together a young rock band, and they are quite aggressive, so we’ll be going for some quite edgy things. It’s akin to working with different people on the album. I needed some new blood, really, and with a band there’s a tension that pushes me. I still get terrible stage fright. I’ve got more courage now, but having the guys up there, having fun, helps."

Marianne Faithfull plays the Paradise next Saturday, September 14. Call (617) 423-NEXT.