Pitchfork: Billy Bragg Reissues, Box Set Due in February

Billy Bragg Reissues, Box Set Due in February

Proudly socialist and (at times) unashamedly off-key, Billy Bragg is the very definition of "folk-punk". His early boy-meets-guitar records folded the acoustic protests of Phil Ochs, the anthemic electricity of the Clash, and the lovelorn open-heart melodrama of the best power ballads into his own unique brand of pop charm.

A new generation will get to experience those vintage recordings come February 21, when Yep Roc reissues Bragg's first four albums, with the attendant rare and unreleased stuff, both separately and as a box set. (We previously reported the discs' initial release date, September 20. Some malfunction of the evil capitalist system must have delayed it.) The reissues will be followed by a Bragg appearance at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas in March, as well as an American tour.

The remastered albums are Bragg's seven-song 1983 debut, Life's a Riot With Spy vs. Spy, the 1984 follow-up full-length Brewing Up With Billy Bragg, 1986's "difficult third album" Talking With the Taxman About Poetry, and of most interest to collectors, a disc combining two EPs that went out of print almost as soon as they were released: 1988's Live and Dubious and 1990's The Internationale. (Hard to understand why a reworking of that classic socialist anthem didn't soar up the charts in George H.W. Bush's America, but there you go.)

Yep Roc says each reissue will be accompanied by a bonus disc of as-yet-unannounced rarities selected by Bragg and longtime associates Grant Showbiz and Wiggy (those are people, not house pets, we assume). But then the label tells us that they'll all be available in Billy Bragg Volume 1, a box set containing seven audio discs and two DVDs (containing previously unreleased live footage from performances in hot spots like Lithuania, Nicaragua, and the former East Berlin.) Math wasn't our strongest subject in school, but we're fairly certain that four albums times two discs apiece does not equal seven CDs. What are you trying to hide with your shady accounting tricks, Yep Roc? Another capitalist malfunction?

Bragg recently made the news, and the charts, in England with a charity single called "We Laughed", birthed out of his involvement with a charity for terminally ill people. The Rosetta Requiem project, which helps those suffering from terminal diseases express their experiences through art (Jarvis Cocker and Roots Manuva are also involved), invited Bragg to conduct a songwriting workshop with six breast cancer patients. One of the women, Maxine Edgington, showed Bragg a framed photo of herself with her teenage daughter and said "I want to write the song of this picture." The result was "We Laughed", and the single, which can be downloaded from Bragg's official site, is currently number 11 on the UK pop chart.

Damn you, Billy Bragg. How are small men like me supposed to make our stupid little sniping jokes about you when you're out there helping people?

href=http://pitchforkmedia.com/news/05-07/05.shtml#bragg> Billy Bragg to Get 2xCD Reissue Treatment