I love gimmicks. I love novelties. I love when a "serious" singer finds a way
to lighten the load and have some fun. I love when a band can break out of
their...
more >
Like many sequels, Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 2 isn't the equal of its predecessor -- that felt fully realized, where this feels a little patchwork -- yet it is still satisfying...
more >
The weakest track on this overall-pleasing album reveals just what makes Billy Bragg a great songwriter. "NPWA" (which stands for "No Power Without...
more >
A George Orwell quote on the inner sleeve of Billy Bragg's frustratingly uneven England, Half English suggests that Bragg is out to explore both his sense of alienation from...
more >
Billy Bragg is one of those rare artists who sounds brilliant as a solo artist or as part of a band. And solo means just him and his trusty electric guitar. After disbanding...
more >
Bragg's first album in five years is frustratingly quiet, with Bragg, the gentle singer and strummer, replacing Bragg, the wild youth. Literate and frequently beautiful,...
more >
Though veteran pop politico
Billy Bragg draws on the same time-honored artist-as-activist tradition as
Phil Ochs,
Woody Guthrie and
Bob Dylan, he's spent the last 15...
more >
Though veteran pop politico Billy Bragg draws on the same time-honored artist-as-activist tradition as Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, he1s spent the last 15...
more >
Despite taking five years off to marry and have a son, which should've given him plenty of time to write, Bragg gives listeners half an album of "B" material. Four of the...
more >
The quintessential folk-rocker Billy Bragg once said "the revolution is just a T-shirt away." He's a comic, he's a poet, and he keeps up with his sharp humor on the...
more >
Let's be honest. The songs that lend themselves best to tributes are the simplest ones, in which the artists covering those songs have full musical reign over the material....
more >
During the spring of 1995, Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora contacted British urban folk troubadour Billy Bragg about writing music for a selection of completed Guthrie lyrics....
more >
Because Bragg started his career as a solo act, these live-in-the-studio radio transcriptions don't offer anything you can't find on Back to Basics. But fanatics will enjoy...
more >
Pop, chamber pop, pub rock, folk pop...Don't Try This At Home shows Bragg entering a new, more refined phase. (Of course, refined is relative in the case of Bragg.) Plenty...
more >
After dipping his toes in the notion of using backing musicians on Talking With the Taxman About Poetry, Billy Bragg finally dove in headfirst with Worker's Playtime, but...
more >
The follow-up to the near-perfect Talking With The Taxman About Poetry is just short of being its equal. Features a full band for the first time, some of his most...
more >
Perhaps this one should have been subtitled "the difficult fourth album," since unlike its similarly subtitled predecessor, 1986's Talking With the Taxman About Poetry,...
more >
The "value for money" debate that preoccupied '80s audiences and labels made the EP become a relevant format (especially in the U.S., where it had lain dormant since the...
more >
On this, "the difficult third album" as it is so subtitled, Bragg is nearly blasphemous as he adds new instrumentation to his previously stripped-down mix. Funny, tender,...
more >
The cover to Billy Bragg's Talking With the Taxman About Poetry features the subtitle "the difficult third album," and while it's obviously meant as a joke, there's also a...
more >
As if having to fulfill a requirement for his Socialist Party membership, Billy covers Commie and labor anthems here. Passionate, but a novelty, which is the last...
more >
Billy Bragg's albums have always contained material with the strong political slant of classic folksingers in the Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan mold. This release shows him at his...
more >
Before taking a lengthy sabbatical to be a full-time father, Billy Bragg released 1991's critically acclaimed Don't Try This at Home LP and this companion EP. The 5-track...
more >
Usually a big-time American label releases just a sampler of a British artist's earlier work, but Back To Basics includes the entirety of Bragg's first three indie releases...
more >
After Elektra signed Billy Bragg to his first major-label deal and released Talking With the Taxman About Poetry in 1986, the label decided to do a clean-up job on his back...
more >
This is no ragtag rummage sale of leftovers, castoffs, and third-rate rejects. Having previously purchased the ten singles Reaching is culled from, spanning 1985-1997, one...
more >
In 1983, Billy Bragg was a guy with a cheap electric guitar, a rough but passionate voice, and a knack for writing and singing straight from the heart whether he was...
more >
