POP MUSIC REVIEWS : NO HYPE ON THIS BRAGG AT THE ROXY

At his worst, self-described “loony Limey leftist” Billy Bragg comes across as the sort of earnest young man who’ll talk your leg off over a cup of cold coffee. At his best, which is to say during most of the singer-songwriter’s hour-plus first show Sunday at the Roxy, Bragg divides his time and tunes between “thoughts of love and thoughts of Chairman Mao.” And at his very best--such as on “Levi Stubbs’ Tears” he integrates the reality of domestic violence with the romantic ideal of pop music with so much invention and passion that you wish the Four Tops would record the song themselves.

While his latest album, “Talking With the Taxman About Poetry,” boasts a bevy of nifty production touches, Bragg, a thorny vocalist who accompanies himself solely on electric guitar, charmed the capacity crowd with his rocking intensity and a mocking sense of humor that not only allowed him to interpolate a couple verses of Patsy Cline into a barroom ballad of sexual politics, but also pulled him through some perilously long-winded introductions to songs. Greater reputations rest on less. No Bragg, just fact.