Must I Paint You a Picture? The Essential Billy Bragg: Billy Bragg: Amazon.ca: Music

Disc: 1
1. A New England
2. The Man In The Iron Mask
3. THe Milkman Of Human Kindness
4. To Have And To Have Not
5. A Lover Sings
6. St Swithin's Day
7. The Saturday Boy
8. Between The Wars
9. The World Turned Upside Down
10. Levi Stubbs' Tears
See all 20 tracks on this disc
Disc: 2
1. Sexuality
2. Cindy Of 1000 Lives
3. Moving The Goalposts
4. Tank Park Salute
5. You Woke Up My Neighbourhood
6. Accident Waiting To Happen (Red Stars Version)
7. Sulk
8. Upfield
9. The Fourteenth Of February
10. Brickbat
See all 20 tracks on this disc

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5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars This is what a Greatest Hits album should be!, Mar 19 2004

By

Timothy Walker (Orlando, Florida USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Must I Paint You a Picture? The Essential Billy Bragg (Audio CD)

I have every Billy Bragg album except this one, and the rare stuff on the third disc is tempting me to correct that oversight. Record companies take note - that's how a Greatest Hits album is supposed to work!

For those unfamiliar with Billy Bragg, his music may be best summarized as "acoustic punk", but he has experimented with numerous styles over the course of his twenty year career. This three CD set collects them all, in a rough chronological order. Disc one begins in Thatcherite Britain: you can picture Billy sitting in a smoke-filled pub belting out coarse folk tunes and love songs with tender quirky lyrics; we then follow him outside into the middle of the poll tax riots, with socialist anthems and rich ballads that tell stories of heartache and broken dreams. Disc two starts at a time in Bragg's career I'd rather forget, the Britpop period, but thankfully the salvation of the later 1990s soon follows. Here he returns to familiar themes - disillusionment with the state of the world, left wing Utopianism, and, of course, love - but the music is more sophisticated and polished. There's even a few Woody Guthrie covers thrown in for fun (and to remind us of his politics). Disc three is made up of remixes and rarities I've only ever heard live or bootleg, which is why I'm going to break down and buy the album!

Regardless of your politics, it's hard not to be moved by songs like "Levi Stubbs' Tears" or "The Space Race Is Over", or to reminisce about relationships gone sour over tracks like "The Price I Pay". Billy Bragg is truly a prolific artist, with a poet's soul and a bleeding heart, and this collection of his work is, as the title says, ESSENTIAL.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Pleasantly surprised...Now I am officially a NEW fan, Nov 30 2003

By

Jose Bay (Pour Le Monde) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Must I Paint You a Picture? The Essential Billy Bragg (Audio CD)

I bought this CD on the fact that it was value for money. Depending on your retailer you can get a bonus third 10 track disc. So overall you have 50 tracks and over 200 minutes of music. WOW! If all music CDs were like that...I'd buy triple the new releases CDs I buy now.

The first disc is the more instantly gratifiable (quiet ambient, sonic, subliminal, primeval and surreal). The second disc needs more spins to appreciate, but still as good. The production values of this CD is first class...high quaility sound: guitars, piano and all sort of modern distortions.
Overall I am impressed by this 3CD set. Now I am a fan of Billy Bragg.

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Amazon.com: 4.4 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This is what a Greatest Hits album should be!, Mar 18 2004

By Timothy Walker - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Must I Paint You a Picture? The Essential Billy Bragg (Audio CD)

I have every Billy Bragg album except this one, and the rare stuff on the third disc is tempting me to correct that oversight. Record companies take note - that's how a Greatest Hits album is supposed to work!

For those unfamiliar with Billy Bragg, his music may be best summarized as "acoustic punk", but he has experimented with numerous styles over the course of his twenty year career. This three CD set collects them all, in a rough chronological order. Disc one begins in Thatcherite Britain: you can picture Billy sitting in a smoke-filled pub belting out coarse folk tunes and love songs with tender quirky lyrics; we then follow him outside into the middle of the poll tax riots, with socialist anthems and rich ballads that tell stories of heartache and broken dreams. Disc two starts at a time in Bragg's career I'd rather forget, the Britpop period, but thankfully the salvation of the later 1990s soon follows. Here he returns to familiar themes - disillusionment with the state of the world, left wing Utopianism, and, of course, love - but the music is more sophisticated and polished. There's even a few Woody Guthrie covers thrown in for fun (and to remind us of his politics). Disc three is made up of remixes and rarities I've only ever heard live or bootleg, which is why I'm going to break down and buy the album!

Regardless of your politics, it's hard not to be moved by songs like "Levi Stubbs' Tears" or "The Space Race Is Over", or to reminisce about relationships gone sour over tracks like "The Price I Pay". Billy Bragg is truly a prolific artist, with a poet's soul and a bleeding heart, and this collection of his work is, as the title says, ESSENTIAL.

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars NPWA!, Nov 3 2003

By o dubhthaigh - Published on Amazon.com

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Must I Paint You a Picture? The Essential Billy Bragg (Audio CD)

Bragg's tune, "No Power Without Accountability" sums up his political perspective absolutely accurately, and in this collection, his career is summed up just perfectly. This is a writer who puts his head and his heart on the line. Art as politics blazes through his skewering of the western world. While his neo-socialist underpinnings seem at times dated ("Great Leap Forward"), you need to keep in mind that it was no accident that he should turn to Woody Guthrie and in partnership with WILCO essay some of America's heartland-poet's unfinished songs in so compelling a manner. Like Ireland's Andy Irvine, Bragg has taken to the road for the common man. Fatcats of either white or blue collar are pilloried, their efforts at exploiting those who have entrusted them with power are stripped of the rhetoric designed to feed people what they want and laid open as lies meant to enrich the prevaricators. For all the vitriol, there is an incredibly human voice that touches the heart as well as fires the mind.
Besides all that, Bragg can write a damn fetching tune. For all the rhetoric, he can turn around and write something as emotionally honest as "Somedays I See The Point," one of the greatest songs ever written. His early resetting of "Just Walk Away Renee" is shear (you'll get it) genius. There is a lot to consider here and it is all worth the investment of your time. WILCO, The Blokes, his solo stuff: all are delivered with a sense of commitment. The third disc presents some rarities, including a cut from a radio show in Philadelphia that misrepresents its xenophilic title by content. Nonetheless, Bragg is just brilliant with his "Rhyme or Reason." It's irrelevant whether you embrace his politics. What counts is you have before you the works of a man who has considered thoughtfully the human condition and has found cause to say that the least of us should never be trampled upon. His is a noble soul. Fripp says, "With commitment, everything changes." Bragg clearly lives that commitment.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It is, and he is, July 24 2005

By P. Couture - Published on Amazon.com

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Must I Paint You a Picture? The Essential Billy Bragg (Audio CD)

All "best ofs" should be this good. Top-notch material in chronological order, with a better flow than any of his proper albums. There simply are no bad songs here. Some won't like his voice, some find him too sentimental - I give him points for sincerity and doing exactly what he wants for over 20 years. Intelligent pop music? Yes, it's possible. A great collection.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 9 reviews 4.4 out of 5 stars