Workers Playtime [Bonus CD]

Artist	Billy Bragg
Producer	Joe Boyd
Label Name	Yep Roc
Song List	1: She's Got a New Spell (3:25) 2: Must I Paint You a Picture? (5:32) 3: Tender Comrade (2:50) 4: The Price I Pay (3:34) 5: Little Time Bomb (2:17) 6: Rotting on Remand (3:39) 7: Valentine's Day Is Over (4:53) 8: Life with the Lions (3:06) 9: The Only One (3:26) 10: The Short Answer (4:59) 11: Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards (4:36) 12: The Only One [#][*][Demo Version] (3:36) 13: The Price I Pay [#][*][Demo Version] (4:01) 14: Love Has No Pride [#][*] (3:35) 15: That's Entertainment [#][*] (3:53) 16: She's Got a New Spell [#][*][Demo Version] (2:44) 17: The Short Answer [#][*][Demo Version] (5:21) 18: Little Time Bomb [#][*][Demo Version] (2:21) 19: Bad Penny [#][*][Demo Version] (3:05) 20: Reason to Believe [Live][*] (2:12) 21: Must I Paint You a Picture? [Extended Version][#][*] (7:13) 22: Raglan Road [Live][#][*] (3:46)
Format	CD
Release Date	2006 10 17
Genre	Rock
Style.Categories	College Rock, Alternative Folk, Anti-Folk, British Folk, Folk-Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Urban Folk

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By the time Billy Bragg began recording Workers Playtime in the fall of 1987, he'd gone from a rabble-rousing leftist songwriter and D.I.Y. one-man punk band to a bona fide pop star in the U.K., and had won a sizable cult following (and a major-label recording contract) in the United States. In addition, Bragg had begun expanding the stark sound of his early recordings on his 1986 album Talking with the Taxman About Poetry, and the sessions for Workers Playtime found Bragg and producer Joe Boyd building actual arrangements around his tunes as he struggled to balance a broader and more eclectic musical approach with the small-p politics that were his stock in trade. This struggle is practically audible on Workers Playtime, and this time out Bragg's songs about the ups and downs of relationships outnumber (and are more satisfying than) his polemics, and he seems torn between the comfort of the spartan simplicity of numbers like "The Only One," "Valentine's Day Is Over," and "Must I Paint You a Picture" and the more expansive approach of the rollicking "Life with the Lions" and the appropriately mysterious "She's Got a New Spell." Significantly, two of the album's most explicitly political numbers, "Rotting on Remand" and "Tender Comrade," are also the least satisfying tracks here, and the album reaches its finest moment when Bragg musically and lyrically faces the contradictions of this turning point in his career head on with the splendid final number, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards." Workers Playtime has a number of pearly moments, but it was also Bragg's first genuine disappointment, and was the first step in the uncertain second act of his recording career. [In 2006, an expanded and remastered edition of Workers Playtime was released by Yep Roc in the United States and Cooking Vinyl in the U.K. In addition to the complete original album, a bonus disc adds 11 songs to the package, eight of which are demos or outtakes from the Workers Playtime sessions. The stripped-to-the-frame acoustic takes of "The Only One" and "The Price I Pay" contrast with the warmer full-band approach of "The Short Answer" and "She's Got a New Spell," which suggest the influence of classic pub rock, and Bragg's cover of Paul Weller's "That's Entertainment" would have fit perfectly on Brewing Up with Billy Bragg. The double-disc version of Workers Playtime doesn't resolve the album's stylistic contradictions, but at least the alternate takes display an easy confidence and certainty that would have served the original album well. This edition of Workers Playtime was also included in the Volume 2 box set.] ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide