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

Preservation and Soap Opera don't convince me that Ray has a great ear for spoken dialogue.

Let's just hope he's not speaking it too.

Wonder who's gonna deliver the "it means you can earn some real money!" line.

Low Budget.

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

I don't really like anything from this record, but when I saw Ray in 2006, the title track was the only song he played later than Muswell Hillbillies except for his new songs, and it was actually fun.

"Moving Pictures" is kind of fun.

The title track is amusing because Ray Davies is famously the biggest tightwad on planet Earth, the song is still shit though. The "Superman" song is admittedly catchy.

As is "In a Space" and "National Health." A full one third of the album is a toe-tapper.

I beg to differ.

One of the kinks' ogwt sessions was shown on bbc4 recently, and now I can't shake off "Have a cuppa tea" for months on end. All it takes is to see the words "Muswell Hillbillies" and here we go again.

I should have said hallelujah there

In one of the Kinks biographies, one of the bass players on Misfits complains about doing dozens of takes of "Hay Fever" in different keys, different tempos, etc. Ray was probably becoming more neurotic about getting everything "right" for the arena-size audience.

More neurotic? Is that even possible? Yes, right now I am reading that same biography.

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.