Talking With The Taxman About Poetry
by Billy Bragg

Album
Talking With The Taxman About Poetry by Billy Bragg
Year: 1986
Release date: 1986-09-22
Overall rank: 3,069th   Overall chart history
Average Rating: 
77/100 (from 130 votes)
  Ratings distribution   Average rating history
Accolades:
Award Top albums of 1986 (40th)
Award Top albums of of the 1980s (452nd)
Award Best albums of all time (3,069th)

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Billy Bragg bestography

Talking With The Taxman About Poetry is ranked as the best album by Billy Bragg.

Billy Bragg album bestography « Higher ranked
- This album (3,069th)
Talking With The Taxman About Poetry Lower ranked (4,083rd) »
Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy

(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).

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Talking With The Taxman About Poetry rankings

Talking With The Taxman About Poetry rankings summary
Overall rank: 3,069th | 1980s rank: 452nd | 1986 rank: 40th  Overall chart history
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings).Help Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 7 hours ago)

Talking With The Taxman About Poetry collection

Talking With The Taxman About Poetry ratings

Average Rating: 
77/100 (from 130 votes)
  Ratings distribution Help Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

Showing latest 3 ratings for this album.  | Show all 130 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
70/100
 !		5 days ago Exist-en-ciel  Ratings distribution  16,45070/100
 
60/100
 !		03/13/2026 15:54 jonny5244  Ratings distribution  8,46963/100
 
70/100
 !		02/28/2026 16:48 DaveH68  Ratings distribution  1,36376/100

Rating metrics: Help Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 4% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 76.6/100, a mean average of 75.7/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 77.0/100. The standard deviation for this album is 14.6.


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Talking With The Taxman About Poetry favourites

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Talking With The Taxman About Poetry forum mentions

This album has been referenced 37 times on the forums, Explore the wider forum discussion to see what members have said about it.
From Romanelli 09/27/2026 16:01 in What album are you listening to? (cont.)
“Disc 1 of 2”
View topic (9 mentions) →

From BestEverAlbums 07/15/2026 08:00 in Chart of the day (#5374): By Dankel
“Today's chart of the day Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by ) 1. by by (1979) 3. by by (1973) 5. by (1977) 7. by (2004) 8. by (1979) 9. by (2007) 10. by (1996) 11. by (1981) 12. by (1988) 13. by (1980) 14. by (1978) 15. by by (1977) 17. by (1992) 18. by (1980) 19. by (1990) 20. by (1978) 21. by by…”
(1 mentions across Chart of the Day topics)
View latest topic →

From Romanelli 12/02/2023 17:19 in What album are you listening to right now?
“MY CHARTS: Overall - #895 1986 - #16”
View topic (16 mentions) →

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Talking With The Taxman About Poetry comments

Showing all 5 comments |
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Rating:  
85/100
From 05/15/2017 12:10 | #190830 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Bragg paints a wonderfully gloomy and politically desolate picture of 80s Britain, whilst advancing his simple singer-songwriter style excellently. It's an essential piece of political music, that doesn't shy from being brilliantly honest, and delivers itself via the humble charm of Bragg's voice.
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Rating:  
80/100
From 02/12/2017 20:21 | #185481 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
A very good record. Extremely political album with a nod to Dylan's, Chimes of freedom, on, Ideology. Gritty and energetic.
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From 10/14/2014 11:38 | #124465 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Nice album. Only criticism is maybe bit too political. Bragg shouldn't use a 22 track album to convey his socialist ideals.
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Rating:  
70/100
From 01/22/2015 04:03 | #132194 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Love how blatantly political this is...
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Rating:  
65/100
From 02/18/2018 09:37 | #208649
E' un folk elettrico, dinamico ma gentile; Bob Dylan suonato dai Clash o il contrario.
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Best Albums of  1986
1. The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths
2. Master Of Puppets by Metallica
3. Graceland by Paul Simon
4. So by Peter Gabriel
5. Skylarking by XTC
6. The Colour Of Spring by Talk Talk
7. Reign In Blood by Slayer
8. Lifes Rich Pageant by R.E.M.
9. Licensed To Ill by Beastie Boys
10. Black Celebration by Depeche Mode