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Mr. Love Justice |  | Artist: Billy Bragg
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Category: Music
List Price: £13.99
Buy New: £3.99
as of 23/11/2009 13:46 GMT details
You Save: £10.00 (71%)
New (20) Used (6) from £3.98
Seller: glclearance
Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 23665
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.3
UPC: 711297485288
EAN: 0711297485288
ASIN: B000ZWWRWW
Release Date: March 3, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
Disc 1
| • | I Keep Faith | | • | I Almost Killed You | | • | M For Me | | • | Beach Is Free | | • | Sing Their Souls Back Home | | • | You Make Me Brave | | • | Something Happened | | • | Mr Love And Justice | | • | If You Ever Leave | | • | O Freedom | | • | Johnny Carcinogenic Show | | • | Farm Boy |
Disc 2
| • | I Keep Faith | | • | I Almost Killed You | | • | M For Me | | • | Beach Is Free | | • | Sing Their Souls Back Home | | • | You Make Me Brave | | • | Something Happened | | • | Mr. Love And Justice | | • | If You Ever Leave | | • | O Freedom | | • | Johnny Carcinogenic Show | | • | Farm Boy |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
You'll be hard pressed to find good reason to call Billy Bragg a singer. He was never one back in the day and you can't go teaching old socialists new tricks. His spirited holler was carried through in his heyday by sheer bravado and the fact that his poetic punk monologues had to find their way to your ears somehow. But why, over recent years--and especially on Mr Love and Justice--has he increasingly indulged himself with shameless attempts on melody, you might ask. There's no easy answer, other than the inevitable mellowing of age and indeed battered vocal chords. But as he also drifts away from the fiery Clash and Costello inspirations of his younger self and expands more singularly on his love for the likes of Woody Guthrie and Wilco (with whom he collaborated on interpretations of Guthrie's unfinished songs), his work has developed a real warmth and comfort that it's hard not to be strangely touched by. His backing band, The Blokes, gel spiritedly through a host of country stompers (see "The Beach Is Free") and folk meanderings (see: "If You Ever Leave"). And don't mistake comfort for complacency either. He may be more Mr Love than Mr Justice these days, but he still knows how to rally and on "O Freedom", "The Johnny Carcinogenic Show" and the Hammond-delicious title track he makes his point as poetically as ever. He still really can't sing, mind. i--James Berry/i
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
 Braggy Brilliant! March 9, 2008
T. Sandle (UK)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Mixing pop and politics...this is a great album; plus some cracking songs exploring the human heart. For example, on the song `M for Me' the topic remains the importance of relationships and compassion, as he sings the delightful couplet: ''I've got friends who are telling me they're living in clover, but lose the c for commitment and the l for love and it's over baby''.
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br /The stand-out track on the album is `I Keep Faith', superbly backed by Robert Wyatt. The band gel far better here than on English, Half English.
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br /This is Bragg's best since 1991's Don't Try This At Home.
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Billy's best for a long time March 27, 2008
Greg Farefield-Rose (Hertfordshire United Kingdom)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Although it's been six years since his last album England Half English, Billy Bragg is one artist who you can`t accuse of being lazy. Since releasing that LP, Billy has written a book The Progressive Patriot, made or appeared on countless TV and radio programmes and played numerous regular and low-key gigs and benefits around the World. And now he has brought out not just one new album buy two...
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br /Yes the Deluxe Edition version of Mr. Love Justice comes with two discs - the band version recorded with Billy's group The Blokes and a solo rendition of the same songs with Billy on vocals and crunchy electric guitar. Recorded after the band versions, the solo recordings will delight those from Billy's fanbase who still hanker for his one-man-and-a-guitar assault on the World in the 80s. They also of course beg the question as to which version of Bragg is best. My reply is that both the band and solo versions of the songs are worthy on this excellent album.
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br /Not that the solo recordings are necessarily quieter than the full versions with this artist of course. Take the second song I Almost Killed You - the band version has a campfire feel whereas the solo take has loud, punky guitar like it's 1984 all over again. Both versions are excellent. Among the other highlights for me are the literal wordplay of M For Me, highly political O Freedom and Something Happened which dissects the difference between love and lust in two sentences over some of the grungiest guitar ever laid down on a Billy Bragg record.
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br /Musically the key influences on Mr. Love Justice are classic soul, folk and country rather than the mix of World music to celebrate multicultural Britain and rather less inspiring pub-rock on England Half English. There are though still plenty of instruments from around the World featured on the new album whose songs are much stronger than its predecessor. An excellent album then and Billy's best since 1991's Don't Try This At Home at the very least. It's worth the wait if it's this good as well as extra points for whoever had the idea of bringing out band and solo versions of the songs. Well done Billy on your best album for a long time.
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Mr Cool. March 7, 2008
A. Thurlow (Watford, UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
5 stars here - he just gets better and better. Nice to have the alternative formats of recordings with and without the band. Will stand up to many, many listenings.
Keep the Faith March 22, 2008
Ian Wood, Author of 'Here's 2 Absent Fathers'
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
`Mr Love and Justice' feels like the culmination of Billy Bragg's twenty five years as a solo performer with his song writing at it's most subtle since his 1996 album `William Bloke' and the musical accompaniment tutored from his collaborations with American band Wilco and his own backing band of multi-instrumentalists, the Blokes.
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br /The album opens with taster single `I Keep Faith' which is the most polished song on the album and kicks things off nicely. `I Almost Killed You' suffers from the World Music arrangement and percussion but the lyric is it's saving grace. Next up `M for Me' is again lyrically inspired and has a beautiful brass driven arrangement which compliments it.
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br /`The Beach is Free' is wonderfully rockabilly sprint which leads perfectly on to ex-trooper Bragg's take on the second gulf war, `Sing Their Souls Back Home'. `You Make Me Brave' feels like Bragg circa `Don't Try This at Home'. `Something Happened' struggles to make an impact on this record being shoehorned between two songs which are superior in tone and arrangement.
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br /The title song, which doesn't allude to the Colin MacInnes novel of the same title, sits uncomfortably with Bragg's admiration for Woody Guthrie with its `desertion should mean disgrace' message to absentee fathers. `If You Ever Leave' is Bragg possibly as far away from the songs of teenage angst of his early career but it still resonates more than anything Brian Adams and co have ever had at number one.
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br /`O Freedom' is reminiscent of Bragg's `The Internationale' album and gives the listener a sense of familiarity which it then snatches away with `The Johnny Carcinogenic Show' with its brilliant anti-smoking industry message. `Farm Boy' is the weakest song of the set and makes for a disappointing end to a great album.
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br /The album comes with a second disc of Billy performing the songs solo and some of the performances with electric accompaniment are worth hearing due as they highlight how they would have been delivered had Billy recorded them twenty years ago but some of the acoustic performances are at best demo's and highlight how in future bonus will have a very different meaning than the one nestling in the oxford dictionary.
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Timeless March 14, 2008
R. S. Garbett (Co.Down)
Wonderful
br /Billy's age old themes with all the craft, complexity and wisdom of his years
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br /The inclusion of an 'unplugged' solo version and a bad version makes this an excellent package
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
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