Customer Reviews
Make Tea Not Love. - By: Ian Wood, Author of 'Here's 2 Absent Fathers', 22 Mar 2008 
`Life's a Riot with Spy vs. Spy' would take some beating without appearing to repeat his self but Billy Bragg managed to put out a further set of Urban Folk on `Brewing Up' which built on the foundations of `Spy vs. Spy' while improving as not only a writer but also as a performer.
`Brewing Up' opens perfectly with `It Says Here' setting out his politics & framing them with enough shared experience to ensure we empathise before moving onto the love songs which are rooted in reality with `Love Gets Dangerous', `The Myth of Trust', `From a Vauxhalll Velox' & most successfully on `The Saturday Boy' which as a slice of teenage angst is one of the most fully realised songs of alll time.
As well as the nice cup of tea Billy makes for us in his kitchen sink drama the other meaning of `Brewing Up' is how soldiers describe a tank being incendiary bombed & Billy builds on his Army experience to bring us the anti- Falklands war songs `Like Soldiers Do' & most forcefully `Island of No Return'. `This Guitar Says Sorry' & `Strange Things Happen' again tackles love before moving into the perfect coda to the album `A Lover Sings' which sums things up nicely.
At thirty five minutes the album has been broken up nicely with both the albums masterpieces, `The Saturday Boy' & `A Lover Sings' having a trumpet & organ accompaniment to Billy's sparse guitar playing.
The Bonus CD is also packed with fantastic tracks not least the whole of the `Between the Wars EP' & priceless Stones & Smiths covers in `The Last Time' & `Back to the Old House'. A must have LP, also available as a Tea Mug.
Don't believe the price! - By: T. Stimson, 13 Mar 2008 Good to see alll the Bragg albums in this format. BUT BEWARE, I have tried to buy many of the albums at the quoted price only to find the order deleted & an email explaining that sometimes Amazon price things by mistake. They still have not altered the price on the website, so BEWARE.
Stripped back Success. - By: T. Flint, 05 Nov 2006 
This is Billy Bragg's second album, & these welcome reissues give the opportunity to explore for the uninitiated. I had never reallly paid too much attention to Billy Bragg until hearing 'The Saturday Boy' on a recent John Peel compilation given away with Mojo magazine. I love the sudden sound of the trumpet to back the harsh trebley electric guitar. It works well. The highlight of this album is probably 'St Swithin's Day' a beautiful love song sung with longing by the young Bragg. The sound is probably a kind of love or hate thing. Billy's albums tend to be just him with a guitar going through a very treble sounding amp. The harsh cockney tone of his voice can be an acquired taste at first, but after a while I reallly began to enjoy it. At 35 minutes, the original album may have appeared a little thin on the ground for remaster, but that problem is solved by an excellent second disc of outtakes, unused tracks, b-sides etc. If you are new to Mr Bragg, give this a spin. I did & was pleasantly suprised. Gonna get some more of the reissues now I think....
