Back to Basics
This collection of feisty early recordings (theBetween the WarsEP and theBrewing UpLP) features England's loudest socialist folkie, usually armed only with an electric guitar and a millennium's worth of outrage, attacking those in power (lazy journalists in "It Says Here," the eternal mining aristocracy in "The World Turned Upside Down") with precision and enough energy to make even the most dogmatic lyrics sound colloquial and persuasive. Bragg is a one-man Clash here, seeking to demolish all he can and then build a better world with his electric guitar and his righteousness as the only tools he'll need.--Jimmy Guterman