What Are You Listening To?

[CRAZY-HORSE]

BILLY BRAGG & THE BLOKES "england,half english" cd, 2002

career stats:
studio albums....13
singles..............21

this album: #51 UK, #83 AU
singles:
"england,half english"...........#98 UK
"take down the union jack"....#22 UK

Billy's tenth studio album...
he'd lost his mojo by this time IMO...
instead of simply being Billy Bragg he appeared to me to be more content trying to write watered down pop for the masses,with only a spoonful of politically charged angst..
sort of lost his way,much like Dylan for a period in the 1970s(and again in the late 1980s), thankfully though, Dylan does get his mojo back,unfortunately,Bragg hasnt...
some of the stuff on this album sounds a lot like the tongue-in-cheek stuff you'd expect from Ian Dury,and it doesnt work here.
there's nothing great on this album,no leftist-socialist anthems that he was known for,no songs to make you think about things in a different light and certainly no double-edged wordplay that he was once so good at.
the album just makes the grade for me but i think im being optimistic as some of the songs only just pass,others are shockers...
i have nine of his first ten releases(thought i had the first ten,so maybe one has dissapeared because im sure i had "william bloke" also)...anyway the second "mermaid avenue" album was really the last one i liked,the three that followed it..he let me down, so i didnt get the last two or three he has made.

I LIKE THIS ALBUM(apparently?)

worst track: baby faroukh
best track: take down the union jack

tracks:

1. st.monday **
2. jane allen **
3. distant store **
4. england half english *
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAHgw07M5vU video
5. n.p.w.a *
6. some days i see the point *
7. baby faroukh *
8. take down the union jack **
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPhlP6AfptY live
9. another kind of judy **
10.he'll go down **
11.dreadbelly **
12.tears of my tracks **

3s=0
2s=8
1s=4

rating: 1.7(or more correctly 1.66666)