Today my age is tweedle and twee - I'm prettier than I used to be

Continuing my journey across the output of The Bard Of Barking...

Mermaid Avenue Vol. II (with Wilco) (2000)




The last one was received well enough (by others, but not so much by me), so why not do it again? I'm expecting a mixed bag - and hopefully not too boring and stompy.

1. Airline to Heaven
This is boring, stompy and sounds like Bob Dylan - which means that some people will love it, but not me.

2. My Flying Saucer
This isn't a million miles off a normal up-beat Billy Bragg tragg - it's nothing special mind, but I didn't hate it.

3. Feed of Man
Yeah, I guess this is fine - one of the better Wilco numbers, but I'd not cross the road for it.

4. Hot Rod Hotel
I assume this is a Billy number, but it doesn't really sound like him.

5. I Was Born
Natalie Merchant is back from the previous album - I like this one because it's nicely quirky.

6. Secret of the Sea
I quite liked this one but it didn't really feel like it fitted in - it was more like a Big Star track or something.

7. Stetson Kennedy
This was more what I was expecting - I didn't really like it though.

8. Remember the Mountain Bed
Ditto with this one.

9. Blood of the Lamb
This album is starting to feel like it's not really for me...

10. Aginst th' Law
Fine, I guess

11. All You Fascists
This is a very Billy song - "all you fascists are bound to lose". But unfortunately, recent history has proved him wrong (oooh - a little bit of politics!)

12. Joe DiMaggio Done It Again
One of the better ones, but a bit dull...

13. Meanest Man
...whereas this is just bad!

14. Black Wind Blowing
This is a nicely atmospheric slower track - that doesn't mean I particularly liked it, but at least I didn't hate it.

15. Someday Some Morning Sometime
Finally - another track I actually quite liked. It's a Wilco one, but it actually sounds more like The National or Bright Eyes to me - it's got a very nice noodly background to it.

So - that wasn't a great success, was it? Two tracks that I like (neither of which are obviously Billy related) and many that I actively dislike - no tracks for the playlist here, I'm afraid. And there's absolutely nothing in the Wikipedia entry that we haven't already learned from the previous album.

"Customers also listened to" Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, Old 97s and Neko Case - some more fine names. But unfortunately this is not a fine album, with the best thing about it easily being the album cover. I've also just noticed that Amazon has a Vol III - but fortunately that's a load of demos that were released as part of a completist box-set, so I'm very pleased that I can justifiably ignore it. Because otherwise I think I'd have had to just ignore it anyway...

Mermaid Avenue - Not as bad as I feared
England, Half English - Just not very good

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