Talking With the Taxman About Poetry
Artist: Billy Bragg
Community Score: 10.00

The cover to Billy Bragg's Talking With the Taxman About Poetry features the subtitle "the difficult third album," and while it's obviously meant as a joke, there's also a certain truth to the statement -- after two EPs and a full album that only rarely featured anything other than Bragg's voice and electric guitar, Talking With the... Read More

Storefront Hitchcock: Music From Demme Picture
Artist: Robyn Hitchcock

On Hitchcock's last U.S. tour, he played Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary" as well as "Are You Experienced," sometimes within the same set. It's the kind of act that defines his performing genius as a whimsical iconoclast; but then Hitchcock once performed most of Dylan's "Royal Albert Hall" concert, so such live acts of devotion shouldn't come as... Read More

Between the Wars
Artist: Billy Bragg

Billy Bragg's earliest releases suggest a no-frills Cockney version of Bob Dylan with electric guitar substituted for acoustic. This particular platter combines his first and third albums into one release, side one repeating Life's a Riot With Spy Vs. Spy and the flip side reprising the EP Between the Wars. While there are some topically... Read More

You Happy Puppet
Artist: 10,000 Maniacs
Community Score: 6.00
Goes to Moscow & Norton Virginia
Artist: Billy Bragg
1984-1989
Artist: Lloyd Cole & The Commotions

The lush, facile simplicity of Lloyd Cole's music is brimmed with cushioned harmonies and soft-spoken choruses, and more often than not deals with the complexity of love. Accompanied by the bright jangle of guitar that's hitched to palatable pop tempos, his work with backup band the Commotions produced a number of melody-ridden songs that are... Read More

Brewing Up With Billy Bragg
Artist: Billy Bragg
Community Score: 7.35

Bragg's first full album delivers another clutch of memorable, clever songs. Here the rudimentary voice and electric guitar arrangements prevalent in Life's a Riot With Spy Vs. Spy are refined and sweetened by occasional use of overdubbed vocals ("Love Gets Dangerous"), organ ("A Lover Sings"), and trumpet ("The Saturday Boy"); this last... Read More

Life's a Riot with Spy vs. Spy - EP
Artist: Billy Bragg

It is likely that non-fans will have encountered the tracks on Life's a Riot on the re-packaged Back to Basics CD (which also included 1984's Brewing Up With Billy Bragg EP). However, it is useful to discuss this debut in its historical context, for on release in 1983 nobody had encountered anyone like Billy Bragg before. A gruff Woody Guthrie... Read More

So You Think You're in Love
Artist: Robyn Hitchcock
I Often Dream of Trains
Artist: Robyn Hitchcock
Community Score: 10.00

Hitchcock was so shaken by the entire Groovy Decay disaster that he retired from recording for two years. When he returned in 1984 with I Often Dream of Trains, it was clear that the time off had affected his music. A collection of spare, acoustic-based pop-folk songs, I Often Dream of Trains is one of Hitchcock's most introspective and charming... Read More

Eye
Artist: Robyn Hitchcock

Robyn Hitchcock recorded Eye, his fourth proper solo album, after the disappointing Queen Elvis. Eye marked a return to the acoustic-oriented folk-pop of I Often Dream of Trains, featuring a collection of his most personal songs. Where I Often Dream of Trains was a kaleidoscopic journey through a colorfully twisted world, Eye sounds more... Read More

Rattlesnakes
Artist: Lloyd Cole & The Commotions

One of the finest debuts of the '80s and possibly the defining album of the whole U.K. indie jangle scene that also included Prefab Sprout, Aztec Camera, and dozens of other bands, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' Rattlesnakes is a college rock masterpiece of smart, ironic lyrics and sympathetic folk-rock-based melodies. The Glasgow-based band... Read More

Don't Try This at Home
Artist: Billy Bragg
Community Score: 8.00

After dipping his toes in the notion of using backing musicians on Talking With the Taxman About Poetry, Billy Bragg finally dove in headfirst with Worker's Playtime, but Don't Try This at Home was where Bragg first began to sound completely comfortable with the notion of a full band. With Johnny Marr (who helped produce two tracks), Peter Buck,... Read More

Reaching to the Converted
Artist: Billy Bragg
Community Score: 4.00

This is no ragtag rummage sale of leftovers, castoffs, and third-rate rejects. Having previously purchased the ten singles Reaching is culled from, spanning 1985-1997, one nevertheless revels in the poignant, luxurious breadth of Bragg's heart and brain. Like Bragg's real LPs, this is a roadmap to the spectrum of feeling, from bliss to misery... Read More