Post a controversial music opinion

Hoping you mean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In3x_8cI2vY

I'd rather hear Come Dancing or Apeman than You Really Got Me.

I'd hardly call myself a Kinks fan, but Apeman is a sweet song.

Not only is Apeman a good song, but (controp alert) the soundtrack to the movie "Club Paradise" - on which it appears - is a good record. Jimmy Cliff. Yellowman. Elvis Costello. Mighty Sparrow.

The movie itself is a goof but it has its charms. Twiggy, Peter O'Toole.

apeman is certainly the kinks most racist song. it's not where I'd begin my defense of them

The absolutely gorgeous "This Time Tomorrow" is on the same album and we're stanning for Apeman? They have 3-4 dozen better songs

Is it more racist than "Black Messiah", ogmor? (I'd probably take "Black Messiah" over "Apeman", musically, though, if only by default.)

"A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy" is my favourite of the Kinks songs I know. I don't really know why someone wouldn't also like "All Day and All of the Night" if they like "You Really Got Me".

I don't really know why someone wouldn't also like "All Day and All of the Night" if they like "You Really Got Me".

yeah this just weird to me, the sound of those records is just perfect

It had completely slipped my mind but yeah, I do like that song. Fuzzy Kinks are best Kinks.

Is it more racist than "Black Messiah", ogmor?

I was gonna say, "Black Messiah" is pretty much explicitly racist.

"Apeman" is by far my least favorite song on Lola, and the live versions -- especially in the '80s/'90s -- are atrocious. I'd take 3/4ths of the not-exactly-amazing Everybody's In Showbiz over "Apeman."

I don't really know why someone wouldn't also like "All Day and All of the Night" if they like "You Really Got Me".

yeah this just weird to me, the sound of those records is just perfect

― The Poppy Bush AutoZone (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, November 20, 2018 8:56 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I always associated "Until the End of the Day" as part of that trilogy in my mind

worst Kinks song lyrically has got to be "Art Lover", no question. despite Ray's reputation as a world-class lyricist he has a tendency to be really clunky when he writes outside his niche.

I'd not heard black messiah... I think the accent is less straight up offensive than the one used to sing "i'm a king kong man, i'm a voodoo man, no i'm an apeman", it sounds more like sting.

How do we think the track Lola has held up on the problematic/unproblematic spectrum?

I think it's -- considering it's age -- remarkably good natured

i love the kinks but lola is embarrassing imo

I think the “worst” line is, ”Well I'm not the world's most masculine man.” Why couldn’t the narrator be a masculine man?

I think the story is even “better” if he’s a masculine man, no?

this song was written in 1970

early 70s Ray Davies was like a proto-Nic Cage in the way he'd just randomly adopt non-existent accents

He's masculine enough to know he's a man. He's just not the world's most masculine man. xps

"Lola" seems fairly progressive to me tbh.

This is surely worse than any of the lyrical content in "Apeman"?:

"Everybody talking about racial equality
Yeah, everybody talking about equal rights
But white's white, black's black, that's that
And that's the way you should leave it"

I don't really know what's going on with Davies's accent a lot of the time. Even the pronunciation of "the only time I feel alive is by your side" in "All Day..." sounds like an imitation of an accent I can't really place. The rock history prof I TAd for in grad school told me it was just a British accent, though.

I think the story is even “better” if he’s a masculine man, no?

"I am the world's most masculine man" would have been a funnier line, for sure.

A valid point

I see that line — plus “I've never ever kissed a woman before” — as Davies’ way of assuring the listener that this isn’t a straight dude being seduced by Lola.

I always just read it as meaning that he was young and inexperienced. Assuming you're right, though, a sympathetic song about a gay man having a happy experience with a drag queen still seems fairly progressive to me.

Yeah, I agree; I don’t think it’s an uncool song

I think the Kinks were fairly progressive for the time considering it all, and Dave Davies wrote about being bisexual in the 60s in his autobio including a relationship with Long John Baldry

dave davies is touring!
i love the kinks i just think lola is not their best song by a huge wide gigantic margin

I'm surprised that "Shangri-La" never managed to become a huge hit. Maybe it was a couple years too early?

i love the kinks i just think lola is not their best song by a huge wide gigantic margin

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Tuesday, November 20, 2018 10:21 AM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah agreed it's not close to one of their best!
i like it overall though
part of it was it was a song i liked hearing on classic rock radio as a kid

which in that context it felt kind of daring to me

I always just read it as meaning that he was young and inexperienced.

"Well I left home just a week before
And I've never ever kissed a woman before"

... the preceding line suggests exactly that.

I think the story is even “better” if he’s a masculine man, no?

― my guitar friend wants his money (morrisp), Tuesday, November 20, 2018 9:47 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I am the world's most masculine man
High-T alpha with a red pill in my hand

xp Yeah, but there’s a difference btw. inexperienced and “no experience,” which is the choice made in the song. Even before “leaving home,” many blokes have snogged a crush or two (do I sound like I’m British?)

"Lola" is a great song whose sentiment has aged remarkably well imo

of the Brit pop songwriters of the era I don't think any of them were more sympathetic/empathetic to non-hetero-male POVs than Davies

Townsend, Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards all p much simplistic cavemen by comparison when it came to sexuality & gender roles

xp Yeah, but there’s a difference btw. inexperienced and “no experience,” which is the choice made in the song. Even before “leaving home,” many blokes have snogged a crush or two (do I sound like I’m British?)

I think you're over-thinking this tbh.

davies definitely doesn't know what accent he's doing a lot of the time, he has a lot of fun with it

Y-O-D-A YOOOOODA

xp oh, I’m nitpicking for sure... it’s just the one aspect of the song that jumped out at me a little, from the “modern” pov (in response to the original question).

"life on the road" --underappreciated kinks song written from a POV of inexperience described in colorful detail (with a few lyrics that are nagl by today's standards) fun song, lots of good lyrics in spite of the bad ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsybNX5I2tQ

dedicated follower of fashion tho

any of those ruffle-shirted kinks songs are better representatives of the inexperienced narrator than "lola", which i realize now has always had a distinctively broey vibe to me

ok maybe not ANY but many

Townsend, Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards all p much simplistic cavemen by comparison when it came to sexuality & gender roles

"Two Sisters" is a pretty gender-demeaning song.

it's not as empowering as Lennon's "Run For Your Life"

lol

The two characters in the lyrics of "Two Sisters" (Sybilla and Priscilla) were inspired by Ray Davies and his brother, Dave Davies. Ray was more introverted (and was the only one of the two married) while Dave was a party animal who was very outgoing. This clash of personalities was often the cause of many band in-fights, which would come out in their songs (ex. "Dandy", which is often thought to be about Dave).