{"id":42026,"date":"2010-06-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/lifes-a-riot-with-spy-v-spy-special-reissue-bonus-edition\/"},"modified":"2010-06-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-30T00:00:00","slug":"lifes-a-riot-with-spy-v-spy-special-reissue-bonus-edition","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/lifes-a-riot-with-spy-v-spy-special-reissue-bonus-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Life’s A Riot With Spy V Spy (Special Reissue Bonus Edition)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am slowly in the process of replacing my old vinyl record collection with CDs; the originals met a very unfortunate demise over ten years ago, going missing in a house move, and while the collection wasn\u2019t big in quantity (I had much more on tape and disc), it was of high sentimental quality. Now, the replacement process hasn\u2019t been easy, as a number of records weren\u2019t available and until recently, had not been rereleased. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Still, this results in a dilemma over which CD to buy \u2013 the normal album, or as all seem to have nowadays, the Special Bonus Edition (but, as I keep discovering, more is not always better).<\/o:p><\/p>\n

This brings me to Billy Bragg\u2019s debut release from 1983, Life\u2019s A Riot With Spy V Spy<\/i>, which I will review in two parts, as this is the 2007 Special Reissue Bonus Edition. Billy Bragg, who could be described as a modern British folk singer with punk influences, is featured here singing in his very distinctive Essex accent, and his songs cover both politics and relationships.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The original record was distinctive for a number of reasons; first, it clocked in at only 15.57, which required it to be played at 45 rather than 33 1\/3 RPM ; secondly, due to his Socialist politics, the disc featured the slogan on the front cover \u201cPay no more than \u00a32.99.\u201d<\/o:p><\/p>\n

On the first disc, which contains the original album, all the tracks are very simply musically, involving just Billy and his electric guitar. The majority of the material here leans towards love\/relationships. The album opens with very upbeat \u201cThe Milkman Of Human Kindness,\u201d and it\u2019s clear that a lot of the guitar on this record owes a nod towards The Clash.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cTo Have And To Have Not\u201d is the only overtly political song, which looks at the inequality of the education system between private and state education. Meanwhile, \u201cBut I\u2019ve Come To See In The Land Of The Free, There\u2019s Only A Future For The Chosen Few\u201d shows his future direction, as Billy supported a number of left wing causes and even formed Red Wedge, a collection of artists that included Paul Weller, Madness, and The Smiths in a campaign supporting the Labour Party against Margaret Thatcher\u2019s Conservative government.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The standout cut is \u201cA New England,\u201d which is a song about unrequited love that begins with the same opening lines as Paul Simon\u2019s \u201cLeaves That Are Green:\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI Was twenty-one years when I wrote this song \/ I\u2019m twenty-two now, but I won\u2019t be for long,\u201d and contains the brilliant tragicomic image, \u201cI saw two shooting stars last night \/ I wished on them but they were only satellites \/ It is wrong to wish on space hardware? \/ I wish, I wish, you\u2019d care.\u201d This song was later covered by Kirsty MacColl, making the UK Top 10 in 1984 (with an extra verse written by Bragg).<\/o:p><\/p>\n

This is followed by the heartbreaking \u201cMan In The Iron Mask,\u201d about a man accepting that his wife is having an affair. The album is rounded off with \u201cThe Busy Girl Buys Beauty,\u201d which refers to the power of women\u2019s magazines, and \u201cLovers Town Revisited,\u201d covering trouble on Saturday nights out.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Overall, it is surprising that so much can be packed into fifteen minutes, and also how much this contrasted with the British music scene of the time, which was very much in its New Romantic phase.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Musically, the second bonus disc features more instruments; however, on a number of tracks, these are very dated drum machines and keyboards, which sound decidedly cheap, especially on \u201cLove Lives Here\u201d and \u201cLove Gets Dangerous,\u201d and end up detracting from the songs.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The rest of the material is pleasant but feels very much like B-sides; even the alternative version of \u201cMan In The Iron Mask\u201d with added trumpet is not as good as the original<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The one must-have highlight is an alternative take on \u201cRoute 66,\u201d which rather than starting in St. Louis and finishing in California, is rebranded as \u201cA13, Trunk Road To The Sea\u201d and travels Wapping to Southend \u2013 and if you know the road, the contrast couldn\u2019t more marked.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Life\u2019s A Riot<\/i> is as short and exciting as I remember it, and as a collector I want to have the extra tracks, but perhaps on a separate B-sides and rarities release so they don\u2019t devalue the strength of the original. <\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":30366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8594],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-42026","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-billy-bragg","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42026"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42026"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}