Billy Bragg: Don't Try This at Home (Elektra)

ALTHOUGH BILLY Bragg is often a great songwriter, it's no surprise that his socialist-propaganda ditties haven't converted young Americans to the teachings of Marx and Lenin — it's often impossible for us to tell what the hell he's going on about. His songs are so full of Britannia — Anna Ford, The Sun, Wormwood Scrubs — that his albums should come with footnotes. In a country where Richard Nixon is a more potent political force than socialism, Bragg's lyrics can often make little sense.