Brewing Up with Billy Bragg

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Brewing Up with Billy Bragg
Brewing up.jpg
Studio album by
Billy Bragg
Released12 October 1984 (1984-10-12)
RecordedJuly 1984
Studio Berry Street, Clerkenwell, London
Genre
Length34:49
Label Go! Discs
Producer Edward de Bono
Billy Bragg chronology
Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy
(1983)		Brewing Up with Billy Bragg
(1984)		 Talking with the Taxman About Poetry
(1986)

Brewing Up with Billy Bragg is the second album by English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, released on 12 October 1984 by Go! Discs. [1]

Contents

The cover of the original album has the subtitle A Puckish Satire on Contemporary Mores, [2] a quote from the 1975 Woody Allen film Love and Death , [3] in which Allen's character reviews an army play presented to Russian soldiers to prevent them from becoming infected with venereal diseases while at war.

Brewing Up with Billy Bragg reached number 16 on the UK Albums Chart. [4]

Composition

While Bragg's debut album Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy (1983) was performed by Bragg accompanied only by his guitar, Brewing Up with Billy Bragg began to use subtle overdubs, such as backing vocals on "Love Gets Dangerous", trumpet on "The Saturday Boy", and organ on "A Lover Sings". [5] In addition to Bragg on guitar, the album features musical contributions by Kenny Craddock on organ and Dave Woodhead on trumpet. [2]

The album also continued Bragg's legacy of political songs. "It Says Here" is a bitingly satirical attack on the British tabloid press and "Island of No Return" is a concise anti-war anthem. [5]

Versions

Brewing Up with Billy Bragg was originally released on vinyl in 1984 with 11 tracks. In 1987, the album was again released along with Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy and the EP Between the Wars (1985) and titled Back to Basics . Back to Basics was reissued in 1990. Brewing Up with Billy Bragg was reissued on its own in 1997. [6]

In 2006, as part of a series of reissues of albums in Bragg's back catalogue, Brewing Up with Billy Bragg was remastered (by Tim Young and Duncan Cowell) and reissued for the first time on CD with a number of bonus tracks. The bonus tracks included the Between the Wars EP and covers of "Back to the Old House" by the Smiths (with Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr playing guitar) and "The Last Time" by the Rolling Stones. [7]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [5]
Blender Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [8]
Entertainment Weekly A− [9]
Q Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [10]
Record Mirror Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [11]
Rolling Stone Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [12]
Smash Hits 8/10 [13]
Sounds Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [14]
Spin Alternative Record Guide 7/10 [15]
The Village Voice B− [16]

In Smash Hits , Mark Ellen summarised Brewing Up with Billy Bragg as "more of the same" from Bragg, "only better ... raw, clipped, witty songs about love, life, politics, the press and a lot of other things he seems to take so personally." [13] Sounds critic Billy Black deemed it "an unmitigated success" showing "how far the Art of Billy Bragg has come on", [14] while in Record Mirror , Andy Strike found the music more varied than on Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy, noting the addition of "organ, trumpet, guitar over dubs and harmony vocals" and calling Bragg's guitar playing "more entertaining" than before. [11] Praising Bragg's songwriting, Danny Kelly of NME observed that while the album's political songs "are more acidly Quixotic than ever", the songs about romance "cut even deeper." Kelly had only minor reservations with the record's sparse production, writing that "the patented Bragg guitar/voice format, now bereft of the shock of the new, needs more splashes of the sort of colour afforded by Woodhead's trumpet." [17] At the end of 1984, Brewing Up with Billy Bragg was ranked as the year's sixth-best album by NME. [18]

Retrospectively, AllMusic reviewer David Cleary called Brewing Up with Billy Bragg "another clutch of memorable, clever songs", which "refined and sweetened" the "rudimentary voice and electric guitar arrangements" of Bragg's debut album. [5] Douglas Wolk described it in Rolling Stone as "spare and unsparing, with Bragg equally frustrated by media bias and a faithless lover." [12] In 2000, Q placed Brewing Up with Billy Bragg at number 87 on its list of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever". [19]

Track listing

All songs written by Billy Bragg, except where noted.

Disc one

  1. "It Says Here" – 4:18
  2. "Love Gets Dangerous" – 2:23
  3. "The Myth of Trust" – 2:54
  4. "From a Vauxhall Velox" – 2:31
  5. "The Saturday Boy" – 3:30
  6. "Island of No Return" – 3:37
  7. "St. Swithin's Day" – 3:54
  8. "Like Soldiers Do" – 2:39
  9. "This Guitar Says Sorry" – 2:31
  10. "Strange Things Happen" – 2:38
  11. "A Lover Sings" – 3:54

Disc two (2006 reissue)

  1. "It Must Be a River" – 2:19
  2. "Won't Talk About It" – 5:06
  3. "Talking Wag Club Blues" – 2:59
  4. "You Got the Power" (James Brown, George Terry) – 3:10
  5. "The Last Time" (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards) – 2:55
  6. "Back to the Old House" (Morrissey, Johnny Marr) – 2:53
  7. "A Lover Sings" (alternative version) – 3:58
  8. "Which Side Are You On?" (Florence Reece, Bragg) – 2:34
  9. "It Says Here" (alternative version) – 2:36
  10. "Between the Wars" – 2:30
  11. "The World Turned Upside Down" (Leon Rosselson) – 2:35

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes. [2]

Musicians

Additional personnel

Charts

Chart (1984–1985)Peak
position
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ) [20] 23
UK Albums (OCC) [4] 16

Certifications

RegionCertification Certified units/sales
United Kingdom (BPI) [21] Silver60,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

  1. ↑ "Brewing Up with Billy Bragg" (PDF). Music Week . 6 October 1984. p. 3. Retrieved 31 August 2025.
  2. 1 2 3 Brewing Up with Billy Bragg (liner notes). Billy Bragg. Go! Discs. 1984. AGOLP 4.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  3. ↑ Bragg, Billy [@billybragg] (28 November 2023). "Team Bragg went to see Ridley Scott's disappointing Napoleon move in Edinburgh last night. Unintentionally reminiscent of Woody Allen's Napoleonic spoof Love & Death. Reminded me that the subtitle to Brewing Up – a puckish satire on contemporary mores – is a line from that film" (Tweet). Retrieved 31 August 2025– via Twitter.
  4. 1 2 "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 31 August 2025.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Cleary, David. "Brewing Up with Billy Bragg – Billy Bragg". AllMusic . Retrieved 3 June 2013.
  6. ↑ "Albums, Compilations, and Official Bootlegs". billybragg.co.uk. Archived from the original on 10 August 2007. Retrieved 31 August 2025.
  7. ↑ Brewing Up with Billy Bragg (liner notes). Billy Bragg (special reissue bonus ed.). Cooking Vinyl. 2006. COOK CD 303.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  8. ↑ Powers, Ann (March 2006). "Billy Bragg: Brewing Up with Billy Bragg / The Internationale/Live & Dubious". Blender . Vol. 5, no. 2. p. 119.
  9. ↑ Willman, Chris (3 March 2006). "CD reissues from ZZ Top, Billy Bragg, Mott and Merle". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  10. ↑ Snow, Mat (April 2006). "Billy Bragg: Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy / Brewing Up with Billy Bragg / Talking with the Taxman About Poetry / The Internationale / Volume 1". Q . No. 237.
  11. 1 2 Strike, Andy (13 October 1984). "Billy Bragg: Brewing Up with Billy Bragg". Record Mirror . p. 20.
  12. 1 2 Wolk, Douglas (9 March 2006). "Billy Bragg: Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy / Brewing Up with Billy Bragg / Talking with the Taxman About Poetry / The Internationale/Live and Dubious". Rolling Stone . No. 995. p. 95.
  13. 1 2 Ellen, Mark (27 September – 10 October 1984). "Billy Bragg: Brewing Up with Billy Bragg". Smash Hits . Vol. 6, no. 19. p. 25.
  14. 1 2 Black, Billy (13 October 1984). "Bragg's of Flavour". Sounds . p. 39.
  15. ↑ Arnold, Gina (1995). "Billy Bragg". In Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (eds.). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. pp. 57–58. ISBN   0-679-75574-8.
  16. ↑ Christgau, Robert (2 April 1985). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice . Retrieved 3 June 2013.
  17. ↑ Kelly, Danny (13 October 1984). "Billy on the Boil!". NME . p. 35.
  18. ↑ "LPs". NME . 22–29 December 1984. p. 38. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  19. ↑ "The 100 Greatest British Albums Ever!". Q . No. 165. June 2000.
  20. ↑ "Charts.nz – Billy Bragg – Brewing Up with Billy Bragg". Hung Medien. Retrieved 31 August 2025.
  21. ↑ "British album certifications – Billy Bragg – Brewing Up". British Phonographic Industry . Retrieved 31 August 2025.
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