"Lola" gave the Kinks an unexpected hit and its crisp, muscular sound, pitched halfway between acoustic folk and hard rock, provided a new style for the band. However, the song only hinted at what its accompanying album Lola vs. the Powerman & the Money-Go-Round, Pt. 1 was all about. It didn't matter that Ray Davies just had his first hit in years ...
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) extends the British-oriented themes of Village Green Preservation Society, telling the story of a London man's decision to move to Australia during the aftermath of World War II. It's a detailed and loving song cycle, capturing the minutiae of suburban life, the numbing effect of bureaucracy, ...
Ray Davies' sentimental, nostalgic streak emerged on Something Else, but it developed into a manifesto on The Village Green Preservation Society, a concept album lamenting the passing of old-fashioned English traditions. As the opening title song says, the Kinks -- meaning Ray himself, in this case -- were for preserving "draught beer and ...
At the end of each episode of The Sopranos, a different song plays under the credits. Sometimes the song has been featured elsewhere in the episode, sometimes it is first heard at the end. What the songs have in common is that none of them are mentioned in the credits. Viewers may recognize the familiar ones, a song by Otis Redding, say, or Them's ...
Riding high on the success of Low Budget, the Kinks turned out another collection of hard-driving, arena-ready rock & roll with Give the People What They Want -- in short, they delivered exactly what the title suggests. Throughout the record, the band kicks up a storm, rocking out with a surprising amount of precision, and although Ray Davies' ...
PolyGram Special Markets' 1994 budget compilation A Rock 'N' Roll Christmas is a nice little find. Elton John's relentlessly joyful rocker "Step Into Christmas" is the standout because this album is the easiest to find and most inexpensive source. Old-fashioned rock & roll is represented by Bob Seger's (technically Bob Seger and the Last Heard) ...
The Kinks' scattershot U.S. career never fully flourished like that of their British Invasion peers. The most quintessentially British of British bands -- especially in the increasingly nostalgic songs of vocalist/rhythm guitarist Ray Davies -- the Kinks enjoyed a spike in popularity in America in the late '70s and early '80s. The gold-selling ...
Face to Face was a remarkable record, but its follow-up, Something Else, expands its accomplishments, offering 13 classic British pop songs. As Ray Davies' songwriting becomes more refined, he becomes more nostalgic and sentimental, retreating from the psychedelic and mod posturings that had dominated the rock world. Indeed, Something Else sounds ...
Since these tracks date back to the '60s and early '70s, this upbeat collection of happy sunshiny tunes should have an "oldies" tag attached to its boasting, clumsy title. Otherwise there's little about this collection that doesn't live up to its rather grandiose moniker. OK, so the unfortunate exclusion of the Beach Boys as well as fellow ...
The Kinks became arena rockers with Sleepwalker, and its follow-up, Misfits, follows in the same vein, but it's a considerable improvement on its predecessor. Ray Davies has learned how to write within the confines of the arena rock formula, and Misfits is one of rock & roll's great mid-life crisis albums, finding Davies considering whether he ...
This is the CD version of the Marble Arch LP released in 1966, and consists of several of the Kinks' hits from 1964 and 1965. The expected tracks are here -- "A Well Respected Man," "Where Have All the Good Times Gone," "All Day and All of the Night," and "You Really Got Me" -- but so are a couple of lesser known gems: "Don't You Fret" and "Wait ...
How did the Kinks respond to the fresh start afforded by Lola? By delivering a skewed, distinctly British, cabaret take on Americana, all pinned down by Ray Davies' loose autobiography and intense yearning to be anywhere else but here -- or, as he says on the opening track, "I'm a 20th century man, but I don't want to be here." Unlike its ...
Is it possible that the early Kinks could be even rawer and more exciting in BBC halls than on their known Pye Records recordings? Sometimes yes, otherwise very nearly. A few of these -- notably a breathless rave-up of Bo Diddley's "Cadillac" -- are indeed even more spark-ridden than the LP versions. Most of the merely curious will delight in new ...
Everybody's in Show-Biz is a double album with one record devoted to stories from the road and another devoted to songs from the road. It could be labeled "the drunkest album ever made," without a trace of hyperbole, since this is a charmingly loose, rowdy, silly record. It comes through strongest on the live record, of course, as it's filled with ...
I Love Rock & Roll: Hits of the '60s is an excellent mid-line collection that contains 20 hits. Although the packaging is a little skimpy, all of the recordings are the original hit versions, which makes the compilation an excellent choice for casual listeners and the budget-minded. Among the highlights on Hits of the '60s are the Kinks' "All Day ...
Arista had made it clear they would not accept any concept albums from the Kinks, and Sleepwalker, their first effort for the label, makes good on the band's promise. Comprised entirely of glossy arena-rockers and power ballads, the album is more of a stylistic exercise than a collection of first-rate songs. Davies contributed a handful of fairly ...
Strictly speaking, the double-album compilation The Kink Kronikles isn't a greatest-hits collection. Covering the years 1966 through 1970, The Kink Kronikles may not be packed with hits -- out of the album's 28 tracks, only nine were hits in the U.K. or the U.S. -- yet it's a definitive overview of this era, which was one of Ray Davies' most ...
Priority's Chart Toppers series is an excellent budget-line collection, offering a strong selection of 15 original hits, grouped by a specific theme and decade, on each disc. Chart Toppers: Rock Hits of the 60's combines rock & roll, British Invasion, girl group, blue-eyed soul, hard-rock, garage rock, psychedelic, folk-rock, R&B, soul, surf and ...
The 2006 box set The Arista Years collects Velvel's expanded and remastered versions of the Kinks' six albums for Arista (Sleepwalker, Misfits, Low Budget, One for the Road, Give the People What They Want, State of Confusion, and Word of Mouth), originally released between 1977 and 1984 and originally reissued in 1999. No new material has been ...
The 2006 box set The RCA Years collects Velvel's expanded and remastered versions of the Kinks' six albums for RCA (Muswell Hillbillies, Everybody's in Show-Biz, Preservation: Act 1, Preservation: Act 2, A Soap Opera, Schoolboys in Disgrace), originally released between 1971 and 1975 and originally reissued in 1998. No new material has been added ...
Instead of offering a brand-new compilation, the 2007 Kinks Greatest 1970-1986 repackages two previously released -- and quite good -- compilations in one slipcase: the 1976 set Celluloid Heroes, which covered their recordings for RCA in the early '70s, and the 1986 collection Come Dancing: The Best of the Kinks, which picked up where its ...
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