Don't Try This at Home | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 17 September 1991 | |||
Recorded | October 1990–July 1991 | |||
Studio | Pavillion Studios, London W10; Cathouse Studios, Streatham; Sonet Studio, London; Clear, Manchester; John Keane Studios, Athens, Georgia; Jester House, Athens, Georgia | |||
Genre | Alternative rock, folk rock, folk punk | |||
Length | 56:37 | |||
Label | Elektra (US), Go! Discs (UK), Cooking Vinyl (UK) | |||
Producer | Grant Showbiz, Johnny Marr | |||
Billy Bragg chronology | ||||
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Singles from Don't Try This at Home | ||||
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [4] |
Chicago Tribune | [5] |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [6] |
Entertainment Weekly | A− [7] |
NME | 9/10 [8] |
The Philadelphia Inquirer | [9] |
Q | [10] |
Rolling Stone | [11] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [12] |
Select | 5/5 [13] |
Don't Try This at Home is the sixth album by urban folk artist Billy Bragg, released in September 1991. It reached #8 on the UK Albums Chart. [14]
"Sexuality" was released as a single which reached #27 on the UK charts and #2 on the U.S. Modern Rock charts. Johnny Marr of the Smiths co-wrote "Sexuality" and helped to produce three tracks.
The song "Cindy of a Thousand Lives" is about photographer Cindy Sherman.
"Tank Park Salute" is about his father, Dennis Bragg, who died of lung cancer when Bragg was 18. He said that for a show in Barking, where he grew up, he was so moved by the presence of his mother and brother in the audience that he kept a copy of the lyrics in case he forgot them while performing. [15]
R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe and Peter Buck contribute to "You Woke Up My Neighbourhood." The song was named after a drawing by Woody Guthrie, whose unpublished lyrics were set to music by Bragg and Wilco on the Mermaid Avenue albums a few years later. [16]
"Dolphins" is a cover of the Fred Neil song.
The song "God's Footballer" is about former professional football player Peter Knowles who spent his career at Wolverhampton Wanderers before voluntarily ending his football career to become a Jehovah's Witness. [17]
Adapted from album liner notes. [18] [19]
All tracks written by Billy Bragg except where noted.
Along with a remastered album, a second bonus disc was released by Yep Roc Records (in the U.S.) and Cooking Vinyl (in the U.K.) in 2006. The new tracks include demos of songs on the album, as well as several other songs, including a cover of the Beatles' "Revolution". Natalie Merchant sings on two tracks.
Credits adapted from album liner notes. [18] [19]
Stephen William Bragg is an English singer, songwriter, musician, author and political activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, with lyrics that mostly span political or romantic themes. His activism is centred on social change and left-wing political causes.
Talking with the Taxman About Poetry is the third album by Billy Bragg, released in September 1986. With production by John Porter and Kenny Jones, Talking with the Taxman About Poetry featured more musicians than Bragg's previous works, which were generally little more than Bragg himself and a guitar.
England, Half-English is a 2002 album by English political singer-songwriter Billy Bragg and the Blokes, and a song from that album. The song is about racism in England and the anti-immigration feelings and racist abuse of asylum seekers fuelled by the tabloid press, particularly the Daily Mail. The song uses examples such as the lions on the English football team's shirts, Britannia and the English patron saint, St. George, the hyphen in Anglo-Saxon and the nation's favourite dish (curry) to convey his message that everything about English culture is shaped and influenced by the waves of immigration that have taken place in the past.
The Internationale is a 1990 album by Billy Bragg. Originally released on Bragg's short-lived record label, Utility Records, it is a deliberately political album, consisting mainly of cover versions and rewrites of left-wing protest songs. Although Bragg is known for his association with left-wing causes, this release is unusual; most of Bragg's recordings balance overtly political songs with social observation and love songs.
Twenty 1 is the seventeenth studio album by the American band Chicago. Released on January 29, 1991, it was their first album of the 1990s. Twenty 1 spent eleven weeks on the American Billboard 200, peaking at position No. 66, and did not chart in the UK.
Across the Great Divide is a box set by Canadian-American rock group The Band. Released in 1994, it consists of two discs of songs from the Band's first seven albums, and a third disc of rarities taken from various studio sessions and live performances. The set is now out of print, having been replaced by the five-CD/one-DVD box set A Musical History which was released in September 2005.
Playback is a box set compilation by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, released in 1995. It contains popular album tracks, B-sides, previously unreleased outtakes, and early songs by Petty's previous band Mudcrutch.
Nightcap: The Unreleased Masters 1973–1991 (1993) is a double compilation album by Jethro Tull released on 22 November 1993. It contains much of the band's previously unreleased material.
Reaching to the Converted is an album by Billy Bragg released in August 1999. It is a collection of B-sides and rarities that spans Billy's entire career. It includes variations on old favorites, such as "Greetings to the New Brunette" and "Walk Away Renee". None of the tracks on the album were reissued as extras for Bragg's box sets, Volume 1 and Volume 2.
Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy is Billy Bragg's first album, released in 1983. All songs on the original album consisted of Bragg singing to his electric guitar accompaniment.
Workers Playtime is a 1988 album by Billy Bragg. Originally released on the Go! Discs label, it is his fourth release but third full-length album. It was reissued on compact disc in September 1996 on the Cooking Vinyl label before being remastered, expanded and reissued in 2006 on Cooking Vinyl in the UK and on the Yep Roc label in the United States.
William Bloke is the seventh album by alternative folk artist Billy Bragg, released in September 1996, five years after his last studio album. It peaked at number 16 on the UK Albums Chart. The album's only single, "Upfield", reached number 46 on the UK Singles Chart in August 1996. The album's title is a pun on the 18th-century English poet William Blake.
Hardcore Devo: Volume Two is the last of two collections of demos by American new wave band Devo, released on August 23, 1991, by Rykodisc.
Volume 2 is a box set by political folk singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, released in 2006.
Titanic Days is the fourth studio album by Kirsty MacColl, released in 1993. Containing eleven tracks, Titanic Days was sometimes hard to get in years after its release, but it was remastered and re-released in 2005 by ZTT with a second CD of non-album tracks and some live recordings, including a version of "Miss Otis Regrets". In 2012, another remastered re-issue of the album was released by Salvo/ZTT, which again featured a second disc of bonus tracks. This is the final album to be produced by her then-husband Steve Lillywhite, before they divorced several years after the release.
Later Days and Better Lays is a compilation album by the American punk rock band the Queers, released in March 1999 by Lookout! Records. It combines a 14-song demo tape from 1991 with some demos recorded in the lead-up to their 1996 album Don't Back Down, as well as some outtakes from that album's recording sessions. The compilation fulfilled the band's contractual obligations to Lookout!, following seven years and four studio albums on the label. They moved on to Hopeless Records, but would return to Lookout! for the Today EP (2001) and album Pleasant Screams (2002) before parting ways with the label again.
Missing Links Volume Three is a compilation album of rare and previously unreleased songs by the American pop rock band the Monkees, issued by Rhino Records in 1996. It is the third and final volume of a three-volume set, preceded by Missing Links in 1987 and Missing Links Volume Two in 1990.
Neil Young Archives Vol. 1: 1963–1972 is the first in a planned series of box sets of archival material by Canadian-American musician Neil Young. It was released on June 2, 2009, in three different formats - a set of 10 Blu-ray discs in order to present high resolution audio as well as accompanying visual documentation, a set of 10 DVDs and a more basic 8-CD set. Covering Young's early years with The Squires and Buffalo Springfield, it also includes various demos, outtakes and alternate versions of songs from his albums Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, and Harvest, as well as tracks he recorded with Crazy Horse and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young during this time. Also included in the set are several live discs, as well as a copy of the long out-of-print film Journey Through the Past, directed by Young in the early 1970s.
"Sexuality" is the ninth track on Billy Bragg's 1991 album, Don't Try This at Home. The song was released as a single which reached No. 27 on the UK charts and No. 2 on the U.S. alternative charts.
Bridges Not Walls is an extended play by singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, compiling six songs released as downloads as a physical CD in 2017. It was released as a Mini-LP on November 3, 2017, and includes the new song "Full English Brexit". It was described in Record Collector as "a solid gold illustration of an always inspiring singer-songwriter finding inspiration in the actions of others."
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