Behind the Barricades: The Best of David Rovics
AK Press/Daemon Records
$25 from Hobart Resistance Bookshop or US$15 from <http://www.davidrovics.com>.

REVIEW BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE

I’m not normally inclined to enthusiasm about “best of” albums — where all or most of the tracks are available on previously released albums. However, during the last two years, I have come to await new David Rovics' releases with excitement and anticipation.

So as expected, Behind the Barricades is a great album. All the positive features that we’ve come to expect from Rovics’ music are there: the hard-hitting progressive political content; a compassionate, honest portrayal of our humanity; and inspiration and optimism about the future.

The album includes 15 songs drawn from albums released between 1998 and 2002. An additional three songs not previously released (except as MP3 files on Rovics’ web site) are also included.

One welcome aspect of this album is the inclusion of some of the particularly good songs from Rovics’ early albums. In particular, “Flag Desecration Rag”, “Henry Ford was a Fascist” and “If I Die Tomorrow”.

The three new songs include “Who Would Jesus Bomb?” — an answer to supposedly “Christian” justification for war. “Operation Iraqi Liberation” points out that the initials of the name originally given to the war operation, did indicate what the war was about.

Different fans will have different judgements about which songs truly are “the best”. Unsurprisingly, there are songs that aren’t on the album that I would have included and songs I would have left off had I been making the selection. Nevertheless, the album is certainly representative of Rovics’ work.

If you like left-wing, political music, you will almost certainly like David Rovics, including this album. The problem with this album is that you might find you like Rovics too much. If you want to get more of Rovics’ music you’ll end up spending more money to buy the same songs again (As far as I can tell, all of the songs are the original recordings, none have been re-recorded for this album).

If you’ve not heard Rovics before and you want to simply check him out, my advice would be to buy any of his other albums — all of which are full of great songs. Alternatively, you could download some MP3 files from his web site (see above). Even the new songs are as likely as not to be included on a future release and all can be found on his web site.

From Green Left Weekly, January 28, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

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