Because we’ve lulled ourselves into submission by listening to passive and repetitive minimalist pulsings and Corporate-sanctioned Muzak, more than ever we need someone like Billy Bragg.  Sure, he’s a folk/punk doing social protest music when all other voices and scenes have faded away—perhaps a reason the L.A. Weekly facetiously compared him to a fossilized fish—but he’s still vital.  Bragg continues to shake the musical cage we’re trapped in with progressive politics, romantic longings, and some mean one man guitar riffage.  Even his new work showed that old fiery passion he brings to whatever subject his casts his eyes on, be it Iraq or making the case that “the time that it takes to make a baby/ can be the time it takes to make a cup of tea,” another fine example of a musician gracefully growing older without setting up camp in “I just called to say I love you” territory.  Bragg’s voice has aged over the years, too, giving him an authoritative edge that his younger self couldn’t quite reach.  It’s probably what made all the Mermaid Avenue songs he composed sound more like Woody Gurthie than Wilco. Seriously, who else can say “fascist” and, instead of sounding like a disgruntled teenage girl who violated the high school dress code, evoke struggles for freedom amid power hungry dictators hellbent on every conceivable oppression?  All this from a man who sips tea in between songs.

— Gregory Garabedian