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England, Half English
03/21/2002 9:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Tim Sheridan
The weakest track on this overall-pleasing album reveals just what makes Billy Bragg a great songwriter. "NPWA" (which stands for "No Power Without Authority") is a clunky, ham-fisted anthem of the oppressed. It sticks out awkwardly here in every way, with its agit-prop lyric, overweening production, and forced rock-soul setting. This tendency has undone Bragg in the past, which is truly a shame since his real gift is for finding the complex voice of real people.
On this latest disc, songs like "Jane Allen" and "Another Kind Of Judy" explore a more human form of politics, breathing with the real hopes, fears and foibles of people. Such affecting detail is lost in screeds like "NPWA." That is not to say that Bragg can't work up an effective pointed statement, such as the spare but vitriolic "Take Down The Union Jack" and the melancholic "Distant Shore." It is a pleasure to hear Bragg once again prove himself the Bard of the Bloke, an interpreter for the poor schmo mumbling in his beer at the other end of the bar. And if he goes off the deep end once in a while, it's because he cares.
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