…Don't Try This at Home isn't the sort of album that announces itself loudly, but slip into its understated textures and you'll discover one of Bragg's warmest and most thoughtful albums.
Billy Bragg releases a new album Best of Billy Bragg at the BBC 1983-2019. The 38-track collection is ‘fully remastered’ and features 38 tracks compiled from the BBC archive spanning 1983 – 2019. It includes selected highlights from sessions for John Peel, David Jensen, Janice Long, Phill Jupitus, Bob Harris, Tom Robinson and more. Many are previously unreleased. The collection draws from all corners of Billy’s catalogue and features, among many gems, his signature song A New England (later covered to huge acclaim by Kirsty MacColl), Levi Stubbs’ Tears, and his workers’ anthem There Is Power In A Union, with a couple of atypical covers thrown in, namely John Cale’s Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend and A13, his personal psycho-geography take on Route 66.
If you weren’t fortunate enough to make it to this concert - or even if you were - this has to be one of Billy’s best gigs and one of the best documented. None of that holding your mobile over your head and annoying everyone else behind you, then missing it all and having a wobbly, screechy video that no one wants to see again. This is a multi-camera epic recorded in stunning 5.1 surround sound make you feel like you were sat in seat 3B and that if you shout ‘Play A New England’ loud enough, Billy might hear you - he’d still ignore you but it’s the thought that counts.
New 2013 album from the beloved UK bard & his first in 5 years! Produced by Joe Henry & housed in a limited edition 'bookpack' featuring a DVD with 10 filmclips + a 36-page booklet with exclusive photos & BB's words of wisdom. "January Song," the bluesy leadoff track from veteran English folkie Billy Bragg's first solo outing since 2008's Mr. Love and Justice, begins with the lyric "I'm so tightly wound in tension" and ends with "This is how the world ends," signaling a shift from the stalwart political activism of previous outings to a more internalized dialogue that suggests a subtle re-positioning of the magnifying glass.