Billy Bragg: England, Half English : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

For his first album of new material in six years, Anglo folk punk Billy Bragg has finally got the boogie band he deserves, a peppy, versatile crew including veterans of Shriekback, the Mekons and the Faces. Bragg is aiming for the whimsical universality of the Woody Guthrie lyrics he and Wilco set to music on their two Mermaid Avenue albums. Unfortunately, his own lyrics are best when they're intimate and pointed, which they rarely are here. The political songs on England, Half-English are dippy fake Guthrie - the workingman-wronged plaint "NPWA" inadvertently makes anti-globalism sound like a dumb idea -- and the others are frustratingly vague or plain silly (aside from "Jane Allen," a sly reggae-rock trifle in which Billy doesn't cheat on his wife). The title track exemplifies the problem: The Blokes are having a great time batting around an old ska riff, but Bragg is too busy belaboring a joke about U.K. multiculturalism to get down with them.

DOUGLAS WOLK
(RS 891 - March 14, 2002)