Billy Bragg - Workers Playtime (Solid Red Vinyl)

VINYL New Preorder
Solid Red Vinyl Limited Colored Vinyl Run Gatefold Sleeve Remastered By John Webber At Air Studios
Release Date Nov 27, 2026
Pre-order Regular price $39.00
Pre-order Release Date: Nov 27, 2026
Media condition
Sleeve condition
Pre-order is available for the selected condition.

Share this product on social media!

Product details

  • Label Cooking Vinyl
  • Format Vinyl, LP, Album
  • Format details Solid Red Vinyl Limited Colored Vinyl Run Gatefold Sleeve Remastered By John Webber At Air Studios
  • Media 1 x Vinyl
  • Release date Nov 27, 2026
  • Originally released Sep 20, 1988
  • Region Worldwide
  • Genres Folk
  • UPC 711297150988
Releases Nov 27, 2026

Reserve now; not available yet.

Ships on/around release

Preorders ship on around release date · Shipping

Cancel anytime before it ships

Full refund up until dispatch · Policy

Secure checkoutView Privacy Policy

Solid Red Vinyl LP In Gatefold Sleeve

Workers Playtime returns to vinyl here on a single solid red LP, one of the limited colored pressings in Cooking Vinyl's 2026 reissue, packed in a gatefold sleeve. The audio is a new remaster by John Webber at Air Studios, made from high-resolution transfers of master tapes kept in Bragg's own archive.

Bragg's fourth release and his third full-length album, Workers Playtime was first issued by Go! Discs on September 20, 1988. Joe Boyd, whose production credits include Nick Drake and Fairport Convention, produced it with Wiggy, Bragg's former bandmate in Riff Raff, at Pavilion Studios in London. Danny Thompson plays double bass, BJ Cole pedal steel, Bruce Thomas of the Attractions bass guitar and Micky Waller drums.

Cooking Vinyl's notes place the writing of "Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards" after Margaret Thatcher's victory in the 1987 general election, and describe the unaccompanied "Tender Comrade" as a challenge to the prejudice of the moral majority. "Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards" and "She's Got A New Spell" were both released as singles. The original sleeve carried the subtitle "Capitalism Is Killing Music," a reference to the British Phonographic Industry's "Home Taping Is Killing Music" campaign, and early copies printed a maximum price on the artwork, £4.99 for the LP in the UK, which later editions dropped.

The album reached No. 18 on the UK Albums Chart. Rolling Stone rated it four stars out of five, and it was voted No. 499 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.

Tracklist

  1. She's Got A New Spell
  2. Must I Paint You A Picture
  3. Tender Comrade
  4. The Price I Pay
  5. Little Time Bomb
  6. Rotting On Remand
  7. Valentine's Day Is Over
  8. Life With The Lions
  9. The Only One
  10. The Short Answer
  11. Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards

Complete the Collection (4)

UPC: 711297150988
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Release Date: 11.27.26
Format: Vinyl