Label: Elektra/Asylum
Released: Mar 5, 2002 |
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Everyone's favorite British socialist protest singer, Billy Bragg, has just released his first album of originals since before the Mermaid Avenue collaborations with Jeff Tweedy and company. Called England, Half English, the album is another musical collaboration, this time with the far far inferior British cocktail band, The Blokes. Although they do manage to drag the Braggster down some musical alleys he would have done best to never explore (the half-spoken-word title track is downright embarrassing, and the music to "NPWA" resembles what I've heard some call 'butt rock'), Billy still manages to get a good number of brilliant new songs out. And when those songs feature couplets like "Never saw a meaningful TV advert/ I don't think shopping is a metaphor for life," that's not a bad thing at all.
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