Billy Bragg: Must I Paint You a Picture

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * *)

Not too sure if the 40 tracks of the double disc — or a triple with an extra 10 on a bonus disc if you get in early — justifies that "essential" tag. But it's more than generous in its overview of the singer-songwriter dubbed the Bard of Barking. It is chronological, starting with 1983's A New England up to tracks from last year's England, Half English.

And while Bragg's early electric busker approach made his name, some of those recordings haven't aged well — their lo-fi recording and Thatcher-era protest politics make them sound as antiquated as the Woody Guthrie tunes he covered with Wilco's backing on the two great Mermaid Avenue albums a few years back. But there's still plenty of real-bloke romantic charm to the likes of The Price I Pay.

Four Guthrie songs help the second disc to be the more satisfying, especially when combined with great songs such as Accident Waiting to Happen and The Space Race Is Over. Proof that in his later years, he still has plenty to Bragg about.


Label: FMR