Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 2
6/19/2000, LAUNCH, Rob O'Connor
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...
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Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 2
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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England, Half English
3/21/2002, LAUNCH, 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...
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England, Half English
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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Worker's Playtime
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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William Bloke
9/10/1996, LAUNCH, Neal Weiss
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,...
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William Bloke
9/10/1996, LAUNCH, Sandy Masuo
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...
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William Bloke
9/10/1998, LAUNCH, Sandy Masuo
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...
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William Bloke
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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Bloke On Bloke
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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Mermaid Avenue
6/23/1998, LAUNCH, Bob Gulla
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....
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Mermaid Avenue
7/13/2005, AMG
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....
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The Peel Session Album (Explicit)
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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Don't Try This At Home
9/17/1991, LAUNCH, Neal Weiss
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...
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Don't Try This At Home
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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Workers Playtime
9/19/1988, LAUNCH, Neal Weiss
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...
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Workers Playtime
7/13/2005, AMG
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,...
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Help Save The Youth Of America (Live & Dubious)
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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Talking With The Taxman About Poetry
1/1/1986, LAUNCH, Neal Weiss
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,...
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Talking With The Taxman About Poetry
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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The Internationale
6/19/1990, LAUNCH, Neal Weiss
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...
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The Internationale
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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You Woke Up My Neighborhood
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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Back To Basics
1/1/1987, LAUNCH, Neal Weiss
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...
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Back To Basics
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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Reaching To The Converted (Minding The Gaps)
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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Must I Paint You A Picture?: The Essential Billy Bragg
7/13/2005, AMG
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...
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