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Album Details

• Artist: Billy Bragg
• Album: England, Half-English
• Label: Outside
• Year of Release: 2002
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2003-03-25

Billy Bragg attained some success with his collaboration with Wilco on the Mermaid Avenue albums. Now he has got himself his own band entitled The Blokes, which in essence is his touring band. Billy, being the hard-nosed working class person that he is, is not at all interested in getting popular anytime quick so what he has done is taken the name from a 40 year old collection of essays entitle England, Half-English and written an album full of material on the subject. The whole premise here is presenting an argument that the patriotic England is indeed only half-English due to immigration and every other culture issue under the sun. What we get is one of the best Billy Bragg albums to date. Tracks like “Take Down The Union Jack� are a fine example of Bragg’s ability to craft a fine song out of a political statement. It’s almost as if dabbling with a great political songwriter’s work so closely as he did with Woody Guthrie made him a stronger and more interesting songwriter.

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