Back to Basics

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  • Artist: Billy Bragg
  • Rating: StarStarStarStarHalf Star
  • Release Date: 1987
  • Total Time: 57:53
  • Type: Compilation (best of)
  • Genre: Rock

Review

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." The next 11 songs were originally released on Bragg's first LP, Brewing Up With Billy Bragg; while the sound is still spare and stark, the engineering is a good bit cleaner than on Life's a Riot, and Billy fleshed out his one-man-with-a-guitar approach to include the occasional vocal and/or guitar overdub, and even guest musicians on two tracks (though the trumpet on "The Saturday Boy" and the organ on "A Lover Sings" hardly count as orchestration). Bragg's performances are even stronger, displaying a charm that didn't quite make it through the sloppy sound of his debut, and his love songs resonated more strongly while his political numbers cut deep (especially "It Says Here" and the harrowing "Island of No Return"). Back to Basics closes with three somber political numbers that first surfaced on Bragg's Between the Wars EP, released when tensions over trade union strikes in the U.K. were at their height -- one original ("Between the Wars") and two vintage labor anthems. While the tone is downbeat, the performances are strong and compassionate. While Back to Basics fudges a bit with the sequence of the original material, and there's no reason why both of Bragg's recordings of "It Says Here" couldn't have been included, it's still a strong collection of some of Billy Bragg's most engaging work. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Back to Basics (Billy Bragg album)

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Back to Basics
Compilation album by Billy Bragg
Released 7 July 1987
Recorded 1983-1985
Genre Folk, indie rock, folk punk
Length 57:53
Label Cooking Vinyl
Billy Bragg chronology
Talking with the Taxman about Poetry
(1986)
Back to Basics
(1987)
Workers Playtime
(1988)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 4.5/5 stars[1]
Wiki letter w.svg This table needs to be expanded using prose. See the guideline for more information.

Back to Basics is a 1987 collection of Billy Bragg's first three releases: The albums Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy and Brewing Up with Billy Bragg and the EP Between The Wars. This collection did not contain any new material, but did document Billy Bragg's early "one man and his guitar" approach. The songs collected on this release demonstrate major recurrent themes in Bragg's work: highly critical commentary on Thatcherite Britain, laced with poetic love songs. The collection was re-released in November 1993 on the Cooking Vinyl label.

Track listing

  1. "The Milkman of Human Kindness" (Life's a Riot)
  2. "To Have and To Have Not" (Life's a Riot)
  3. "Richard" (Life's a Riot)
  4. "Lovers Town Revisited" (Life's a Riot)
  5. "A New England" (Life's a Riot)
  6. "The Man in the Iron Mask" (Life's a Riot)
  7. "The Busy Girl Buys Beauty" (Life's a Riot)
  8. "It Says Here" (Brewing Up With Billy Bragg)
  9. "Love Gets Dangerous" (Brewing Up With Billy Bragg)
  10. "The Myth of Trust" (Brewing Up With Billy Bragg)
  11. "From a Vauxhall Velox" (Brewing Up With Billy Bragg)
  12. "The Saturday Boy" (Brewing Up With Billy Bragg)
  13. "Island of No Return" (Brewing Up With Billy Bragg)
  14. "St Swithin's Day" (Brewing Up With Billy Bragg)
  15. "Like Soldiers Do" (Brewing Up With Billy Bragg)
  16. "This Guitar Says Sorry" (Brewing Up With Billy Bragg)
  17. "Strange Things Happen" (Brewing Up With Billy Bragg)
  18. "A Lover Sings" (Brewing Up With Billy Bragg)
  19. "Between the Wars" (Between The Wars)
  20. "World Turned Upside Down" (Between The Wars)
  21. "Which Side Are You On?" (Between The Wars)

References



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Mentioned in

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