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

Elvis Costello tries something different and people love him for it

What? Are you on crack or something? People don't love him for it, they say "What the fuck are you doing writing for a fucking string quartet or writing a symphony or something, why can't you write another album like "Imperial Bedroom" and stop marrying jazz singers and writing albums for opera stars, you pointlessly eclectic cunt!"

I got the Percy soundtrack out the other day. The vocal numbers would make a killer EP, and the instrumentals are endearingly oddball.

Ok, been on a Kinks Rock Operas bender lately, but jesus has rock criticism ever been more wrong? I don't know that I'll ever have time to write up a full blow-by-blow, but Preservation 1 and 2 are both amazing, Soap Opera is great, and Schoolboys is apparently going to be a movie so we can all judge when it comes out.

I can't help but think there was some unspoken agenda against what these albums represented. I have to admit that all the hype managed to scare me off of them for like 20 years, which is sort of ridiculous and I should have known better.

Nice quote from somewhere or other, that's almost certainly true: "If the Beatles cut "Money Talks", it would be quoted every day."

Preservation 1 search at the moment would be:

Morning Song
Daylight
Sweet Lady Genevieve (that's the first three songs on the album, btw)
One of the Survivors
Money & Corruption/I Am Your Man (and I'm pretty fond of Cricket too, actually)
Sitting In The Midday Sun
Demolition

And that = "really strong album." The "Preservation" single isn't too shabby either.

From Preservation 2:

Introduction to Solution
When A Solution Comes
Money Talks (i.e. once again the first three tracks, and jesus Money Talks is amazing. Also, just as a point of interest, compare the middle bit around 2:20 to Bowie's "Candidate" which was also probably channeling the Stones in a twisted way.)
Second Hand Car Spiv
He's Evil (another massive and overlooked track...can't believe this isn't on all the Best Ofs)
Nobody Gives
Flash's Confession (another great faux Bowie track, and why doesn't a single review I've read mention the Bowie influence on this time period?)
Salvation Road

Easily 8 solid tracks, and I'm pretty fond of the rest too.

Most underrated song of this period has to be Ducks On The Wall, though, from Soap Opera. Christ.

Other classic bit on this period:

Circus: A few months ago Lou Reed said he only listens to two albums, "Preservation Act I" and "The Great Lost Kinks Album."

Ray: I don't play his stuff so I feel bad when you say that. I felt really ashamed when I never heard of his group before, the Velvet Underground, until I signed with RCA. I really thought I should have. There are so many things I miss, you know.

It's also screamingly obvious the precedent for Robyn Hitchcock's "Uncorrected Personality Traits" is on Preservation 2: "Shepherds of the Nation."

Got two tracks from Preservation on eMusic the other day 'cause of this recent talk- "One of the Survivors" isn't doing it for me. But "Sweet Lady Genevieve" is beyond fantastic, and might be the best one-song distillation of Davies strengths.

"One of the Survivors" has that fifties nostalgia feel of a lot glam, and it's long-winded like rock of the time. But it doesn't have the production values. It still sounds like 1968. I wonder how much the production and the stasis of the Kinks sound around this time had to do with the indifference they faced. Old hat when everyone was trying out funny new over-the-top hats.

Things I like about "One of the Survivors" off the top of my head:

It's basically "Taking Care of Business" (1973 must have been a good year for that riff)
The line about driving 100 miles an hour, but it don't mess up my D.A.
All that Stonesy riffing. Seems like right around this point in his career Ray starts paying a lot more attention to RS, Who, Bowie...

I kind of remember when I first heard this album, not being to thrilled w/much other than Demolition. It was a slow grower for sure, and production could be part of that.

Agree the Preservation albums are underrated, though I can see how coming so soon after the Kontroversy through Muswell run, they could sound like further confirmation post-Everybody's in Showbiz that the Kinks were in decline. The biggest problems are the vocals and, as alluded to above, the production. Davies singing is even more affected than usual throughout the albums, as he really indulges his penchant for campy overacting. The production is a mess, though that's one thing I rather like about the albums. The sloppy, shambolic quality keeps the music from achieving the larger than life grandeur maybe it could have had, but it also keeps the albums from being overcome by bombast- there's something fundamentally tossed off and funny about the Preservation songs that really appeals to me (and fits in well with the themes of the piece). That said, I'm currently working on a Kinks collection for the comp project, and I ultimately decided on using just a single track from the Preservation project, though it was painful to drop "Salvation Road" and "Money Talks." Another song I really like: "Mirror of Love," especially the alternate take available on the Preservation 2 CD.

I can't help but think there was some unspoken agenda against what these albums represented.

... them representing Ray disappearing up his own arse you mean? There are definitely some great songs on these albums, esp. "Preservation 1" and "A Soap Opera". Listening to all of "Preservation 2" is a chore however and "Schoolboys in Disgrace" is a total dog.

I know, "LOL rockstar trying to make serious statements" but, politically, "Preservation" is naive bordering on simple-minded

Schoolboys in Disgrace to be a film musical directed by Bobcat Goldthwait!

http://www.spinner.com/2010/06/30/bobcat-goldthwait-kinks-schoolboys-in-disgrace-movie/

"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.

― Daniel_Rf, Friday, November 9, 2007 9:05 AM (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

anachronistic rock criticism at its finest

Search: 'Ducks on the Wall'

never listened to Sleepwalker before, I'm digging it

I'm kind of agnostic about their post-Muswell work but I put "Here Comes Yet Another Day" on a playlist a long time ago and I'm really digging it now

I love Schoolboys In Disgrace, especially No More Looking Back. Is that Bobcat Goldthwait movie still happening? I think I'd like a Schoolboys In Disgrace movie directed by Wes Anderson, it seems like it would be a good fit for him - institutional setting, focused on the pain/pleasure of wallowing in the past, people cloistering themselves away from the world

Juke Box Music on Sleepwalker is one of their very best. Same goes for Rock and Roll Fantasy on Misfits.

you keep all your smart modern writers

OTM. As is

Juke Box Music on Sleepwalker is one of their very best. Same goes for Rock and Roll Fantasy on Misfits.

"Lola vs. Powerman" - Ray's Jewish accent on "Top of the Pops" is a bit :-O but a good album with some reservations.

I find "Muswell Hillbillies" to be an irritatingly sequenced album, all the boring crap like "Complicated Life", "Here Come the People in Grey", "Acute Schizophrenia etc" seems to be crammed into the first half of the album, making it a chore to sit through, then the last four songs are great. Also I don't like "Holiday" or "Alcohol" much, two songs which people seem to consider highlights of the album. And what does, "Skin and Bones" have to do with the concept (so-called) of the album?

I'm not bored enough yet to listen to "Everybody's in Showbiz".

Ha. The latter was one of the only ones I could find back in the late 70s and early 80s I can confirm that it’s pretty bad.

I've got it I just don't want to listen to it.

"This Time Tomorrow" (mentioned a couple of times earlier in this thread) is one of their greatest. Somehow I missed it in The Darjeeling Limited (not to mention missing it on the album I played two or three times 35 years ago and then shelved), but I've since come across it on The Regular Lovers, a French film from 2005, and the new Mrs. America on F/X.

I've got it I just don't want to listen to it.

Just put on The Great Lost Kinks Album, which I could never find a copy of back in the day, heard the backing vocals on "Lavender Hill," was reminded of the magic that Rasa seemed to add and then this grand theory: https://andrewhickey.info/2018/01/28/did-a-teenage-girl-make-the-kinks-great/

I really disliked The Darjeeling Limited but it did make me realize what a fuckin' great song that is

Yup

Better than the hotel movie, I thought, but nothing special. The Kinks song couldn't have been very prominent--I don't think I would have missed it if it had been (or else I immediately forgot it in the wake of the movie's averageness).

I love Sleepwalker (the album) even though it's about half stinkers. The songs I like I like a lot.
Also God's Children has everything I love about the Kinks and is, imo, a great song, even though maybe some of the lyrics are uncomfortably related to the plot of Percy (which I haven't seen)

Jukebox Music is super condescending to little ladies who like records and it *still* hits the spot. The title track of Sleepwalker and Mr. Big Man are also perennial faves for me.

LL otm. Misfits was kind of a further fall-off in quality but I still have kind of a soft spot for it.

Wondering if the Kinks have been mentioned on that other thread I haven’t really looked at, Great Bands with Crap Albums or whatever it’s called.

that article about Rasa is pretty interesting. obviously there are a lot of musicians who captured greatness for a few years and then fell off but even still, Ray Davies just seemed like a totally different songwriter after Lola. its not even that so much of that is crap but rather just how much blatant plagiarism there is on those later records. he just has no new song ideas

Yeah, he didn't really seem to have a knack for churning out somewhat better-than-average material, it was a bimodal distribution of great stuff surrounded by lots of dreck. Maybe he should be compared with somebody like, say, Burt Bacharach.

"God's Children" was on one of those Mojo samplers, one that was soundtrack-based and it always sounded so awesome on that. Don't know what I did with it, the whole thing flowed really well, it had the theme from "The Taking of Pelham 123" on it, for one thing.

This: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/63KbGAD9A8hZKxDqvj9kMs

Here is some further discussion: http://5mudg3blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/thanks-mojo-best-cover-mounted-cds-ever.html

I have seen "Percy" but I don't remember anything about it apart from a bit where they're wondering around a zoo - hence "Animals in the Zoo". I might even have seen "Percy's Progress" too.

This playlist seems to have the whole thing, nothing grayed out:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2E7rDi38F9ZCPFoT8EdYUt?si=2_5JsnN4RsCD0Ya5dh68Aw

Oh wait! Life on the Road is good too!!
"Mama always told me city ladies were bawdy & bold, so I searched night and day to catch the kiss of a lady but all that I caught was a cold" -- that's funny!

Cheap looking Kinks documentary on London Live (Channel 8, Freeview) at the moment. No sign of Ray.

... Dave, interviewed in 1981, voice only.

Mick Avory, like some old geezer in a pub who can't be bothered speaking to anyone, just wants to be left alone to sup his pint.

John Dalton, second billed guest star on "Minder" ca. 1983.

John Gosling off to a bad start, claiming that before joined the Kinks he was considering an offer to replace Jools Holland in Squeeze - Jools Holland would have been 12 years old at the time.

So bad it's good!

So bad I turned it off.

And started listening to Everybody's in Show-Biz instead?

Ennio Morricone's soundtrack to "Orca" actually.

Cool!

Forgot he did that one

Of course I could probably say that about thousands of soundtracks and it would mean "I never knew he composed that one too!"