Billy Bragg And The Blokes: England, Half English

Is Billy Bragg a singer or a musical pamphleteer He's been plagued by that question since his career started, but his first collection of new material since 1996 seems all too happy to settle the matter at last. On Bragg's best albums, he's sung passionately and persuasively about politics. On England, Half English, the songs sound designed only as a means to an end. As Bragg comes away from his justly loved two-volume Woody Guthrie resuscitation project Mermaid Avenue, he should be reinvigorated, but while his rhetoric remains fiery, the material is weak. The song "NPWA" pretty much sums it up. Short for "No Power Without Accountability," it epitomizes the pitfalls of attempting to turn bumper-sticker slogans into songs, joining a brooding, aimless melody to such mouthfuls as, "We have no job security in this global economy / Our borders closed to refugees but our markets forced open." Or try humming along to this one, from "Take Down The Union Jack": "Ask our Scottish neighbors if independence looks any good / 'cause they just might understand how to take an abstract notion / of personal identity and turn it into nationhood." Bragg's message comes through, but his gifts for memorable tunes and turns of phrase are both in remission, and his state-of-the-world missives have little sticking power. The more personal numbers, often better than his political songs, don't really work, either. Only the album-closing "Tears Of My Tracks," in which a down-on-his-luck music lover parts with his album collection, recalls Bragg's past power for finding a direct line between matters of state and matters of the heart. "I'm down but I'm not out," his protagonist sings. With any luck, that's true of Bragg, as well.