The Kinks post -1970. Classic or Dud + Search and Destroy

Destroy most everything from the arena era (his oil crisis song "Gallon of Gas"-gimme a break!) to the present day, though Ray did have a minor comeback on Give the People What They Want with the gorgeous and creepy pedophile ballad "Art Lover" and the just plain gorgeous "Better Things". And I think "Come Dancing" is a swell song and a great video. Also search: "Don't Forget to Dance", "Juke Box Music", "Misfits" and "Father Christmas" (they never play this on the radio during the holidays anymore, I wonder if they finally listened to the lyrics?).

I haven't heard anything from the last three Kinks albums or any Ray solo work, sorry.

(i haven't posted here in quite a long time. i never did post much, come to think about it, but i've always enjoyed reading the board. it's nice to be back).

still, how odd was it that they made it back onto AOR stations in the early 90's with a song about them trying not kill each other?

Any news on the R. Davies/ Yo La Tengo project I kept hearing about a year-or-so ago?

Destroy:
pretty much everything else. Soap Opera & Schoolboys In Disgrace Have their moments. Low Budget doesn't TOTALLY suck, though it has odd commercial metal undertones that annoy me & seem very out-of-place on a Kinks disc.

...and State of Confusion may get a lot of destroy votes for its limp-noodle approach, but c'mon, Kinks were always best as a pop band.

"Do It Again" is a great track, but still, it can't save Word of Mouth.

One might also slip in The Great Lost Kinks Album as it does contain some extraneous (but highly worthy) early 70's material.

Clearly, Clancy needs help.

MUSWELL HILLBILLIES - Incredibly let down by this album when I actually heard it. There's a lot of the plodding nondescript psuedo-pubrock that characterises the Kinks' from 1970-1975. Few of the songs have any real hooks but Ray Davies is incapable of not writing at least one or two great songs per album. Can I also say the lyrics and the "concept" of the album are brilliant. Ray Davies is one of the few writers in Rock ever to write accurately about working class life.

EVERYBODY'S SHOWBIZ - This has more of the dreary pub rock of "Hillbillies" but it has two stunning songs: "Celluloid Heroes" and "Sitting In My Hotel". The live section of the album is a waste of everyone's time.

PRESERVATION ACT 1 - Again this actually has some very good songs on it and the concept is so loose it doesn't get in the way. The songs which aren't good are pretty dire however.

PRESERVATION ACT 2 - I'm afraid this was the last straw for me, I haven't bothered listening to a Kinks album since this. About 4 good songs out of 24 - and the other 20 are dreadful. The concept of the album is really quite interesting because it's really about the conflict about Capitalism and Marxism and as such is a very rare example of a political rock album.

All sorts of wonderful, that song.

"Moving Pictures"
"No More Looking Back"
"Better Things"
"Art Lover"
"Juke Box Music"

destroy:

"Black Messiah"
"A Gallon Of Gas"
"Hay Fever"
"State Of Confusion"
"Destroyer"

"Slum Kids"
"Oklahoma USA"

also to destroy:

"Jack The Idiot Dunce"
"Have A Cuppa Tea"

The Kinks are my favourite band, and this era is definitely not their strongest, but I love a lot of the stuff that came out of it anyway

I've been just hugely loving "Demolition" from Preservation I...first got into it via the BBC version which *sounds* much better. The original goes on longer, sort of along the lines of "Australia" from Arthur (which is another off-the-beaten-path Kinks track that's turned into a favorite over the past few years). If I could find a version that combines the BBC sound with the album performance I'd be in heaven.

I fucking hated that 'Schoolboys In Disgrace' album from the 70's.

But I have The Kinks Present A Soap Opera from 1975 on vinyl and I always thought it was very charming.

I don't know Preservation. I fully admit I didn't get all the Kinks stuff I could have though, but this was partially because of a romantic falling out with someone who loved the Kinks. I never owned Arthur and I know this is a major flaw on my part.

it seemed like in the 80s/90s they fell into this pattern of making dull records with seemingly "commercial" aspirations that had one or two songs that were absurdly better than everything else on the record. specifically, "come dancing" (beats the hell outta everything else on state of confusion), "working in the factory" (the rest of think visual is as embarrassing as any music they've ever made), and "scattered," a song that sounded so fresh and out-of-place on the otherwise disappointing phobia that i wasn't particularly surprised to learn that it was a holdover from the muswell hillbillies days.

the 70s operas aren't without their merits; preservation act 1 is pretty listenable, and schoolboys in disgrace is by far the most focused (and rocking) of those records. as for the 70s aor stuff, i've always had a soft spot for sleepwalker; "full moon" is as beautiful as anything from something else or village green.

as a side note, when i saw the kinks in 1993 they opened with "sweet lady genevieve" from preservation act 1. a pleasant shock for the kinks fanatics in the crowd, with everyone else asking us why we were so excited about this song they didn't know.

How come there was only one mention of This Time Tomorrow?? I had to leave it to Wes Anderson to bring it to me, which is shameful.

Also, search: Get Back In Line.

And to second Oklahoma USA.

Soap Opera is great.

Preservation 1 AND 2 are good if you treat them in isolation. I think most people were just cranky that neither was as good as Village Green.

Elvis Costello tries something different and people love him for it. Ray Davies tries something different and they all have a big cry. I never understood this.

btw I know Davies has apologised profusely for his vaudeville period, but I can't help thinking he let himself be convinced that the work wasn't great and so feels he needs to make excuses.

"Celluloid Heroes" has such a lovely tune, but I'm very ambivalent about the lyrics - sort of irksome how all the male movie stars are portrayed as cool and solid while all the women are oh so tragic and vulnerable. Great song nonetheless.

Can you believe this piece of crap is the highest charting Kinks album of all time in the US? It got to #11, wtf?

Actually, their 1966 Greatest Hits! is the highest (#9 in the US). But it makes sense that Low Budget charted as high as it did: they’d been on a slow and steady climb back into larger halls and getting more radio play, and Low Budget was the perfect summit (not artistically speaking, that is). But it’s interesting that their biggest US chart success after 1966 was the decidedly un-arena-rock “Come Dancing.”

"Come Dancing" was more Pop than they'd been since "Lola" the song, and the video was huge.

True, though I wonder why that didn't translate into a higher chart peak for State of Confusion?

Dunno, probably just new fans buying the single and perhaps concert tickets instead of the LP.

Low Budget peaking so high is possibly explained by it coming out at peak FM radio, when an album could sell as an album on name recognition and AOR radio play without necessarily having crossover appeal.

"State of Confusion" was the second most successful non-compliation Kinks album in the US in their history, so it did pretty well.

The career of the Kinks is a head-scratcher almost from beginning to end though.

Clive Davis was somewhat famously against "Come Dancing" being released as a single, pushing instead for the other song about dancing on the album, the ballad "Don't Forget To Dance". I wonder if that contributed to why the vid for the latter was a literal Pt.2 to the one for the former.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRUE0aAI5o8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmk5ZasgEp0

I’d never seen the “Don’t Forget” video before!

Strange how Word Of Mouth stiffed only a year later. It’s no classic, but it’s got some solid tunes. “Do It Again” is an all-time Kinks fave of mine, and I remembered being shocked that the musicians playing so furiously on “Sold Me Out” were (gasp) in their early 40s! They did an arena tour that year, appeared on SNL, “Do It Again” was on the radio…and few were buying.

Last week I found and watched a free streaming copy of the SNL In The '80s doc, and the "Do It Again" performance clip figured in heavily.

"Do It Again" was the first new Kinks song I heard when it came out, I'd have to ponder if they or Ray have done anything as good since.

The first proper Ray solo album, Other People's Lives, is pretty solid, and the CD booklet has terrific liners from Ray talking about each track.

Always wondered why Dave was not in the "Do It Again" video. Guess he was on a Kinks rumspringa at that point.

I’ll rep for “Look Through Any Doorway” (from the 1991 Did Ya EP) (the 1991 what what?) and especially for “Scattered” from Phobia. Hell, I’ll go so far as to rep for most of UK Jive — “War Is Over” and “How Do I Get Close” are comparable with “Do It Again.”

xxp

Always wondered why Dave was not in the "Do It Again" video. Guess he was on a Kinks rumspringa at that point.

He’s in it! He’s there at 3:50 offering his guitar to the crowd. More weirdly, Mick Avory is in the video, but didn’t play on the song — Dave told Ray that he couldn’t work with Mick anymore, so Bob Henrit plays on most of Word Of Mouth.

Guess I missed him in that clown get up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBZh5mB66Tk

What was that song he wrote about waking up in New Orleans' Charity Hospital, observing the people around him? Was it "Morphine Song"? (He'd chased down the guy who snatched his girl friend's purse, I think.) That was really good, unlike most of the other tracks on whatever album, which sported airhead snottiness and auto-bombastic guitars, of an already dated kind at that. I may be forgetting some other keepers, but there do seem to be just 2-3 at most on much if not all of his post-1970 offerings.

"How Are You" is a good song. Funny that although I think he started playing it even before he picked up a guitar, I don't think I've ever seen Ray playing (or miming) piano before that video.

I agree that "Morphine song" was a highlight of Working Man's Cafe. The second Americana album had some good songs too, but the first was a big disappointment. The sound, playing and production were all perfect, which meant that the dismay arose solely from the mediocre quality of Ray's songs.

I don't think I've ever seen Ray playing (or miming) piano before that video.

He plays a lot of piano in this, I believe.

https://forgottentelevisiondrama.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/long-distance-cover.jpg

Also miming here - not that you see much of the piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVRyTao8zv0

Live album, "One for the Road" is pretty fun, even the songs from "Low Budget" sound OK on it. Ray's "punk voice", a kind of gruff gorblimey bark is pretty silly though.

I saw them on tour shortly before that album, sat pretty far up front, couldn't hear properly for a few days, wasn't really into it until Dave sang "Bird Dog."

I was in the fourth row for a show on that Low Budget tour, and Ray was bouncing back and forth across the stage pretty well. I have distinct memories of a long trail of spit following behind him.

I've always liked "Rats" (b-side of "Apeman")

I was in the fourth row for a show on that Low Budget tour, and Ray was bouncing back and forth across the stage pretty well. I have distinct memories of a long trail of spit following behind him.

Apparently Dave was into spitting in other band members' faces or kicking them in the shins - onstage - at the time, don't know if that explains it.

I think Ray was just so energized he couldn't control it, no malice intended. I recall Dave spitting on stage too, but not in the direction of any of the band, or audience. This was one of my first concerts, and I had never imagined that musicians outside the realm of punk rock spit while performing, so it left an indelible image.

There's a good story in the Ray Davies biography which sums up what being in a band with the Davies brothers could be like. They're playing a gig somewhere in the States, late 70s/early 80s, crowd's going nuts, Dave Davies walks over to keyboard player, John Gosling, and spits at him full in his face. At the end of the gig, as they're preparing to go back on stage for the encore, Gosling says, "I'm not getting on stage with that cunt", Ray says, "Get on that stage or I'll knock you out". Gosling refuses, Ray knocks him clean out, dives back on stage all smiles and plays the keyboards himself - ever the pro!

It's awfully hard for me to imagine Ray Davies knocking anybody out. Outrunning them perhaps, but not knocking them out.

Re: live albums, I was dismayed to learn this week that my 1998 CD of Everybody's in Showbiz doesn't contain the full original vinyl. Songs and banter were cut in order to make room for two not-very-necessary bonus songs; some of the cuts were incredibly fussy, like cutting out a second or two in the intro of "Alcohol", or replacing the transitions between songs with looped crowd noise. This is assuming, of course, that the deluxe edition is faithful to the original vinyl, and not the product of another attack of reworked mastering.

It's awfully hard for me to imagine Ray Davies knocking anybody out. Outrunning them perhaps, but not knocking them out.

He's a big guy, slim certainly, but tall - plus have you seen John Gosling? He was also a star athlete at school, in various sports, I think he might even have done some boxing?

(xp) The live part of "Everybody's In Showbiz" is weird anyway, like they, or rather, Ray went out of the way to sabotage it by including all those silly covers and having "Lola" reduced to a chant by the audience. They left out a lot of much stronger and more commercial material that was recorded at the same time. I wonder if it gave Lou Reed the idea for "Take No Prisoners"!

Yes, it's like a snapshot of a certain drunken, horn-laden idea of the Kinks in 1972, more Fandango than Made in Japan.

(now thinking of Lou Reed interrupting "I Wanna Be Black" with a rendition of "The Banana Boat Song")

"I wanna be black
I wanna have a banana..."

"Take No Prisoners" = methamphetamine
"Everybody's in Showbiz" = Tetley's Bitter

lol

The record is kind of lost, but the version of Celluloid Heroes on To the Bone is absolutely terrific.

"Give the People What They Want".

This album is pretty much a write-off until the last three songs. So much of it consists of an out-of-touch middle aged rocker's idea of what punk/new wave sounds like, with shouty vocals from Ray and hideous heavy rock guitar from Dave. The song that recycles "All of the Day and All of the Night" is an abomination. Plus it just sounds crap. Then Ray comes up with a jokey song written from the point of view of a would-be paedophile, a pretty bleak song about spousal abuse and follows those up with a song hoping for better times!

That's what the people wanted!

Not I.

I'd actually rather listen to "Destroyer" than "All Day and All of the Night", I don't even mind the medley of the two that Ray did with Billy Corgan.

Para-noi-a! the destroy-er!

It's absolutely appalling! I really wish Ray had split the band up some time in the mid 70s.

Pretty much

I think it's the one "heavy" song they did in their arena rock phase that can handle the overstatement.

lol it even starts with "met a girl named Lola..."

funny enough I am listening to the Kink Kronikles right now and it is nuts how Ray could basically do no wrong for like that entire 5 year period. practically every song here is gold and it's still missing a lot of the best album tracks. then he just kind of fucked around for a few years and when he tried to make hit records again it's like he forgot how to write a song. I remember reading some article about all the stuff from Sleepwalker on pointing out all the instances of self-plagiarism and stolen riffs. it's like two-thirds of the songs. kinda goes with his fuck-you-I'm-a-star attitude I guess

Ray Davies used to - and still does probably - make a song and dance about how Pete Townshend had ripped the Kinks off on "Can't Explain", which Townshend admitted to, and so kick started the Who's career. So what does Ray do? He rips off the Who on at least one track on every second album from the mid 70s onwards.

Nice use of "fa fa fa fa fa" here (not really)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QhUma34j7s

Recycled the Father Christmas riff too, it seems.

I don’t think Ray was too upset about “I Can’t Explain” at the time, but it probably stung considerably in the ensuing years when the Who got huge while the Kinks floundered commercially (and ended up opening for the Who in 1969). Similarly, the Kinks initially outsold the Stones in the US (and Avory had been a Stone), but the Stones quickly overtook them; and “Zeppelin?! That Page kid used to play on our records!” Ray seemed content to follow his muse in the ‘70s with the theatrical records — he knew those albums weren’t trying to compete with the Who, Stones, or Zep — but probably felt frustrated by 1976 since the Kinks had laid the groundwork for those stadium-filling bands while not able to fill stadiums (or arenas) themselves. So the clumsy following of trends, and jumping head-first into arena-rock hackery, became their defining qualities.