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Billy "Red Wedge" Bragg a proud English nationalist? Why yes, so it would seem, on England, Half English. And no, he hasn't become part of the xenophobic, pissing-in-the-fountains "bulldog breed" which he so despises. In fact, he suggests on the gritty folk-protest lamentation of "Take Down the Union Jack" ("It clashes with the sunset, put it in the attic with the Emperors' old clothes") that it's merely time for those south of Hadrian's Wall to change their old colours and move on from an archaic domestic economic union. The notions of Englishness and nationalism are both concepts that Dorsetmore…'s coastal socialist and vote-swapping tactician is at pains to explore and ask us to redefine on this album of 21st-century cultural self-assessment. Therefore, the title-track, a jolly Ian Dury type of thing with big sunshiney ska brass, talks up the benefits of everything from veggie curry to morris dancing, Morrissey to marmite while explaining that it's all part of an ongoing cultural melting-pot which has little to do with fifth-century pirates from the Jutland peninsula. But England, Half-English isn't solely about being an "Anglo hyphen Saxon in England.co.uk". "NPWA" (an acronym for "No Power Without Accountability") is typically political Bragg, a slow soulified rocker rallying against a global economy ran by what he sees as a faceless unelected elite (a situation where international markets are open but borders are closed to refugees) while the asylum-seeker problem is commented on in the sad, Elvis Costello flavoured "Distant Shores". Suffice to say, there are many choice moments--"Tears of My Tracks" summons up the later sensations of regret one experiences after flogging ones life-defining items of vinyl to the local second hand record shop--while the Blokes (featuring the Small Faces' Ian McLagan on keyboards) really are Bragg's ideal musical mates. England, Half English perhaps, but this is the Billy Bragg we know and love--and in no half-measures. --Kevin Maidment

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Info:

Category:

Music > Albums

Case Type:

CD

Release Type:

Retail

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Cover Info:

Title:

Billy Bragg & The Blokes - England Half English (2002) Retail CD

Part:

CD

Dimensions:

898 x 896 px

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108 KB

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14/11/09 by breakaway

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