On Billy Bragg & Wilco - Mermaid Avenue

I haven't much time to describe this album in detail, but I listened to it today and really liked it. It's Billy Bragg singing unreleased songs of Woody Guthrie with backing from Wilco and other vocalists. I've thought of Wilco as being good from all I've heard of them, but I haven't been really blown away by anything of theirs. This, on the other hand, struck me immediately. The songs are mostly short and simple, but they seem so real and precious, and so much like some lost folk musings on the world (which I guess they are), though they're played in a variety of styles.



I think the songs that I listened to on repeat the most the first time through are Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key and Eisler on the Go, though I really enjoy the repeating theme, playful as it is, in Walt Whitman's Niece and the sweetness of Hesitating Beauty. And there's the sincere, childlike love song to Ingrid Bergman. Really, all the songs are good, not a single seemed out of place to me. The music is always sweet and creative, and this is especially impressive when you think of how eclectic it is, taken as a whole.