When Billy Bragg paints you a picture, there’s always a lot of red in it. His music alternates passionate expressions of his socialist ideals (“There Is Power in a Union”) with more personal songs of love and heartbreak, the best of them remarkable for their emotional incisiveness. It’s a dichotomy he once acknowledged with the self-mocking couplet “Mixing pop and politics, he asks me what the use is; I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses.” Though his political commitment hasn’t lessened a whit over the years, it’s that genuine affability and sense of humor that have probably kept his career going for more than twenty years. For a polemicist like Bragg, such qualities are vital for avoiding the sin of stridency, a turnoff whether or not you agree with his views. Though it’s a pity there wasn’t room for another half-dozen songs, this two-disc career-spanning collection does a pretty decent job of cataloging Bragg’s high points from his early days as a fiery solo guitarist to his terrific collaboration with Wilco, breathing life into a set of unfinished Woody Guthrie songs.
Leave a Reply