Bragg

Featuring 38 Classic tracks compiled from the BBC archive spanning 1983 to 2019. Fully remastered many previously unreleased. Includes selected highlights from sessions for John Peel, David Jensen, Janice Long, Phill Jupitus, Bob Harris, Tom Robinson & more.

Billy Bragg has been the crown prince of pop (and country and "anti" folk) politics—though the Englishman would certainly hate the elitist leanings of that title—going on four decades. His 13th album has no shortage of sly, damning takes on politics; but it's also full of beautiful life lessons. "Should have seen it coming but I didn't understand/ That hubris is the enemy of best-laid plans," he sings on the slow-Sunday-morning soul song "Should Have Seen It Coming," imbued with warm Hammond as well as both pedal and lap steel. Written during the pandemic lockdown, it's one of many songs that reference the personal instabilities triggered by isolation.

Billy Bragg - Mr. Love & Justice (2008) {2CD Cooking Vinyl COOKCD452X}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 430 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 181 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 28 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2008 Billy Bragg / Cooking Vinyl | COOKCD452X
Rock / Alternative Folk / Folk / Folk Rock / Singer/Songwriter

It's both significant and troubling that Billy Bragg's best albums since releasing Talking with the Taxman About Poetry in 1986 were the two Mermaid Avenue volumes, in which Bragg set Woody Guthrie's unpublished lyrics to new music with Wilco serving as his collaborators and backing band, suggesting that this former one-man band suddenly needed plenty of help to communicate with his audience. Bragg sounded confident and all but unbeatable on his first few albums in the '80s, but political and creative uncertainty have dominated much of his work since then. Which is why Mr. Love & Justice is a pleasant and encouraging surprise – while hardly perfect, it's easily Bragg's best and most consistent solo effort since Don't Try This at Home, and finds him coming to terms with maturity and the changing face of the world, two bugaboos that have been dogging his muse for some time.

Billy Bragg - Billy Bragg
also known as
Billy Bragg - Talking With The Taxman About Poetry
FLAC | Artwork | 24Bit 96kHz: 745 MB | 16Bit 44.1kHz: 240 MB
Cat#: AMIGA 8 56 320 | Country/Year: German Democratic Republic 1988
Genre: Alternative Rock, Singer/Songwriter | Hoster: FS + HF/FF/Oron

Talking with the Taxman about Poetry is the third release (second full length album) by Billy Bragg, released in 1986. With production by John Porter and Kenny Jones, Talking with the Taxman about Poetry featured more musicians than Bragg's previous works, which were generally little more than Bragg himself and a guitar. There were two singles released from the album. While "Levi Stubbs' Tears" peaked at #29 in the UK, the follow-up "Greetings To The New Brunette" fell short, only managing #58 a few months later. wikipedia
This is the east german license pressing with different title and artwork - afaik the only Billy Bragg album released in the Eastern Bloc. Curious why…

Billy Bragg - Back To Basics (1987) {Mushroom Records MUSH32028.2 rec 1983-1985}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 330 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 137 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 17 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1983-85, 1987 Billy Bragg / Mushroom Records | MUSH32028.2
Alternative Folk / Folk / Folk Rock / Singer/Songwriter / Urban Folk / Anti-Folk

After Elektra signed Billy Bragg to his first major-label deal and released Talking with the Taxman About Poetry in 1986, the label decided to do a clean-up job on his back catalog and compiled Back to Basics, which combined the material from Bragg's first three records – Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy, Brewing Up with Billy Bragg, and Between the Wars – into one two-record set (now available on a single CD). The first seven cuts, from the Life's a Riot EP, are Billy Bragg at his most basic; recorded in an afternoon with no overdubs, the audio is rough and Billy's electric guitar often threatens to drown out his voice, but the performances are game, and Bragg was already writing top-notch songs like "A New England" and "The Milkman of Human Kindness."

Billy Bragg & Wilco - Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions (2012) {3CD+DVD5 NTSC, Nonesuch 7559-79626-0}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.04 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 384 Mb
DVD5 -> 3.94 Gb | All Regions | NTSC 16:9 | English (Dolby AC3, 2 ch) | ~ 88 min | ISO Image
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 431 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2012 Nonesuch Records | 7559-79626-0
Rock / Alternative / Alternative Folk / Protest Songs

The two volumes of Mermaid Avenue, released in 1998 and 2000 and named after the New York street where legendary folk artist Woody Guthrie lived in the 1940s, were collaborations between cult American alt-country/avant-garde rockers Wilco and revered British protest singer Billy Bragg, on which they set to music previously unreleased lyrics by Guthrie. This exhaustive four-disc set features both releases together with a whole new album of previously unreleased songs and the documentary Man in the Sand, which chronicles the project.