| Billy Bragg Mr. Love And Justice |
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 | Tracklist:
1. I Keep Faith
2. I Almost Killed You
3. M For Me
4. Beach Is Free
5. Sing Their Souls Back Home
6. You Make Me Brave
7. Something Happened
8. Mr Love And Justice
9. If You Ever Leave
10. O Freedom
11. Johnny Carcinogenic Show
12. Farm Boy
Release Date: 04/22/2008 | |
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On 1 Lists
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| Summary: In many ways his best album for 15 years - a more mature and thoughtful album |
Mr. Love & Justice, Billy Bragg’s new album – his first in six years - came out on March 3rd 2007. As with its predecessor, 2002’s England, Half English, it is named after a book by author Colin MacInnes. Bragg’s music has matured with age, moving closer a consistently folkier sound rather than the cluttered genre-hopping of his last record. Much of the music is uplifting and contemplative, with a fuller accompaniment from his backing band The Blokes. It is a wise move, which updates his solo guitar style from the 1980’s in a richer way than his previously awkward attempts to add backing instruments (which some feel date back even to Worker’s Playtime in 1988). As a point of contrast, the special edition of the album is a 2-disc set: one with the original album featuring The Blokes; one featuring Bragg accompanied only by his solo guitar. This is a genius idea, no doubt influenced by 2006’s Johnny Clash 7” as well as his last few years touring either solo or with just Ian McLagan on keyboards. More importantly, 16 years after we last had a solo Billy Bragg album, we have another. However, the review will mostly focus on the band version, as this is the more widely-released version. As a sidenote, the original album title was going to be the rather more lumpen Mr. Love & Social Justice.
The album starts off with its lead single ‘I Keep Faith’, which sets the mood nicely – soaring harmonies (from guest vocalist Robert Wyatt), and an accomplished backing band not overdoing it. The Blokes contribution to the album makes it far more enjoyable, fleshing out the songs and giving them an easier-going feel - listening to the muted approach to the Solo CD, the songs sound like they were meant to be played by a full band, and they also prevent Bragg from sounding simply angry as he does on the Solo CD, opening up the music and lyrics for more emotional possibilities. ‘I Keep Faith’ leads into the most upbeat song on the album, the harmonica-laden quickstep of ‘I Almost Killed You’. Bit of a lame title but the song has a joyous, uplifting feel with a great descending electric guitar line that suggests a more serious feeling lies underneath the happy clappy harmonica and guitar instrumentation, a cleverly-used technique that simultaneously gives off happy and sad emotions. ‘M For Me’ features clever wordplay in the mode of ‘The Short Answer’ (from 1988’s Worker’s Playtime), detailing marriage problems through a sharp cryptic lyricism. Lines like “Take the M for Me and the Y for You out of family and it all falls through” echo “Between Marx and Marzipan in the dictionary, there was Mary” (from The Short Answer’) in the “does-that-actually-work-oh-yes-it-does-how-clever” stakes. As with these three songs, much of the album finds Bragg in a contemplative mood. ‘The Beach Is Free’ and ‘Sing Their Souls Back Home’ are also in this mode, the former commenting on Britain becoming over-crowded, and the fact that EVERYONE owns something, suggesting everyone makes their way to the only unfenced off place in Britain – the beach (except the council owns it and the beach patrol/lifeguards are annoyingly nearby enough to tell you to put you fire out. Oh well.). ‘Sing Their Souls Back’ is a bit trite for a protest song, considering he is singing about singing for justice, rather than simply singing for justice.
Perhaps the best song on Mr. Love & Justice is ‘Something Happened’. Partially instrumental, and partially two contrasting statements, it is lyrically the most simplistic yet also the most challenging. Bragg states simply “Do you know what love is? Love is when you willingly place someone else’s priorities above your own. Do you know what lust is? Lust is when you actively enforce your own priorities on someone else”. Short, succinct, and perfectly accurate, he leaves the listener to construct their own situations to house each statement, perhaps encouraging them to dig into their past to do so. The screeching harmonica solo near the end is a personal highlight of the album; it makes my neck hairs rise up when it comes in. As indicated by the album title, themes of social justice run through this album, and this theme is carried on from ‘Something Happened’ by the title track, which has a guitar riff reminiscent of ‘He’ll Go Down’ off England, Half English, the poor cigarette puns of ‘The Johnny Carcinogenic Show’ (where Billy seems to be singing in a weird warped voice), and ‘O Freedom’, a story of someone being surprise-arrested and tried for a crime the know nothing about. It’s not clear whether this is a tirade against police brutality or poor treatment of asylum seekers by the Western world; make your own mind up. Mr. Love & Justice is rounded out by ‘You Make Me Brave’ and ‘If You Ever Leave’, a couple of dippy love songs, and the dark, meditative closer ‘Farm Boy’, a quite un-Bragg-esque tune concerning a country boy out at war wanting to come home to his farm where he feels safe.
The special edition of Mr. Love & Justice is paired with a Solo CD of Bragg performing each song off the album on his own with an electric guitar, in a style reminiscent of Brewing up With Billy Bragg. Each song is a lot starker in tone, and Billy sounds more pissed off than he does with The Blokes texturing the songs. A few of the solo versions are better than their full-band counterparts – notably ‘The Johnny Carcinogenic Show’, and also the lyrics of ‘Sing Their Souls Back Home’ become more powerful in the solo version. However, ‘Something Happened’ is trimmed to about 1.30 due to all the instrumentation being removed (you can’t play a semi-instrumental on your own!), and ‘You Make Me Brave’ becomes Billy’s latest unfortunate attempt at acapella. That said, it is interesting to compare the two CDs, buying the version of the album with the Bonus CD is very much a fans-only concern.
Mr. Love & Justice is in many ways his best album since Don’t Try This At Home (1991) - perhaps better as it is far more concise. There is barely a bad track here at all, and Billy has emerged from six years off with a much more consistent, thoughtful and mature set of songs than was found on its predecessor.
Joe
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| Recent reviews by this author | | | |
Album Rating: 3
Thanks for doing the review, your contributions to his catalogue are unmatched.
Not a single comment on a Bragg new release - it seems my years of Bragg trumpeting have done nothing.
I actually feel the opposite about the instrumental and production side of this album. Whereas you describe his previous accompanied efforts as awkward, I found them to be an engaging blend between the raw approach of his solo work and a more melodic, accomplished sound. Here, it's just placid.
This Message Edited On 08.24.08
Digging: Taylor Swift - Fearless | | |
Saw a bit of this guy at a festival in January. Was cool to hear There Is Power In A Union.
Digging: Owl City - Ocean Eyes
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