Class act

The pop stuff here is extraordinary - especially with Bragg stripped down (in a number of cases) to nothing but his voice and his electric guitar. He sounds like the most literate busker you'd ever hear on the Underground. Greetings to the New Brunette is an amazing piece of pop, but it's blown away by Levi Stubbs' Tears. A lot of the political stuff is naive and dated, but there's plenty here that's still worth a listen.

eMusic Features

01.17.12 List Hub 0

Folk Goes Punk

By Peter Blackstock, eMusic Contributor

How exactly does one identify "folk-punk"? There's no easy answer, as different artists within the subgenre's horizons arrived at its intersection via different journeys. One could argue that Woody Guthrie was not only the original folkie but also the original folk-punker; look no further than the iconic photo of Woody with a guitar bearing the slogan "This Machine Kills Fascists." Boiled to its essence, folk punk is generally tradition-based acoustic music delivered with a forceful… more »

01.13.10 Six Degrees 0

Six Degrees of Entertainment!

By Ira Robbins, eMusic Contributor

It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »

They Say All Music Guide

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 certain truth to the statement — after two EPs and a full album that only rarely featured anything other than Bragg’s voice and electric guitar, Talking With the Taxman found him and producers John Porter and Kenny Jones trying to add a bit of polish to Bragg’s stark sound without losing either the charm of his performances or the power of his political statements. While nearly all the tracks on Talking With the Taxman feature Bragg alongside other musicians (among them Johnny Marr and Kirsty MacColl), the arrangements are purposefully spare, and ultimately they sweeten the songs without getting in the way of Bragg’s homey melodies or passionate lyrics. However, as a songwriter, Billy’s heart was stronger than his head on this album; while Talking With the Taxman features several of his best love songs (such as “The Marriage,” “Greetings to the New Brunette,” and “Wishing the Days Away”) and some superb character studies (“Levi Stubbs’ Tears” and “The Passion”), the political numbers are unexpectedly strident and obvious, especially the clumsy “Ideology” and “Help Save the Youth of America.” Talking With the Taxman About Poetry proved that Bragg could take his music in a new direction and still hold on to the qualities that made his songs so special; too bad his political instincts were not as keen as his musical ones at the time. – Mark Deming