Cloudland Revisited: the Kinks

[mme_hardy]

 This is actually a side trip to somebody else's cloudland, because as far as I'm concerned the 1960s and 1970s happened to somebody else.  (There were books.   All else was irrelevant.)  

I have just discovered The Kinks.   Of course I knew "Lola" and "Come Dancing": IIRC the former shocked me when I was a young thing, which just goes to show.)  But I've spent the last week or so grinding a pixel-dragon game, and I needed a soundtrack.   I started running through the British Invasion -- the Animals, the Zombies, like that.  Then I came to the Kinks, and suddenly I had to keep the Youtube window open and pay attention.   The two things that blew me away were the intelligence of the lyrics and their essential kindness.  The speaker feels sympathy, or at least empathy, for the twentieth-century man, the narrator in "Lola", the grandmother in "Cuppa Tea", the lonely observer in "Waterloo Sunset"*.   The songs don't punch down; they punch sideways.  This essential sweetness doesn' t keep the band from rocking out; far from it. In live performances, Ray Davies sings with a singularly sweet smile; I don't know if it's love for what he's doing or a performer's correction for a tendency to sing flat.  See Joan Sutherland's habitual singing face.

I've ordered "The Village Green Preservation Society" and more will follow; I don't think the Greatest Hits album will come close to satisfying me.


* Which American TV entirely omitted from the Olympic Closing Ceremony.  I ask you.

Comments

[florence_craye]

yeah, the Kinks! I also love Muswell Hillbillies.

[mme_hardy]

"Cuppa Tea" is off Muswell Hillbillies, I'm pretty sure. I just saw Ray Davies on Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977, saying plaintively that this song was off a loser album, but he still thought it was a good song ... and launching into "Celluloid Heroes".

Don't worry, 1977 Ray Davies! It'll be OK! Pinky swear!

[florence_craye]

yes it is! The rest of the album is great, too... different than many of their other albums, but lots of good tracks on it.

[oyceter]

I should find more of their stuff! Their "Better Things" is one of my go to songs when I'm feeling depressed.

[mme_hardy]

Me, too! I played the Dar Williams cover for about a year solid when it came out.

Right now, I recommend "Apeman", which is ridiculously cheerful song with somewhat gloomy lyrics. It's on YouTube.

[oracne]

Yay the Kinks!

[wordweaverlynn]

They are fabulous in concert. And I love "Captain America."

[ironed_orchid]

It's been ages since I listened to them, but the other day I was earwormed by "Sunny Afternoon".

I love Ray Davies style of storytelling.

[rachelmanija]

The Kinks are great. I saw them live in high school.

Some of my favorite songs that you didn't mention (and aren't on Village Green): "Better Things," "Rock and Roll Fantasy," and a bunch from the two albums I mention below:

I think you would really like Arthur. It's a concept album, and you have to listen to it as a whole. Lola Vs. Powerman is also a concept album of sorts, but really just the first half. It has a lot of very beautiful songs on it.

[mme_hardy]

"Better Things" has been on my comfort list since Dar Williams released her cover in the mid-1990s.

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

One of us, one of us...

It was Ray's lyrics that got me, too, some 40 years ago, and they're still my favorites, especially "Cuppa Tea". You know that Dar Williams' "Better Days" is one of his, too, right?

Village Green is a good place to start. Fater thinks it's their all time best album. I don't think they've ever actually released a greatest hits album. The closest thing to one is The Kinks Kronikles which isn't a greatest hits album, but rather a collection of tracks from their years with Reprise Records (which ended shortly after "Lola" was released) that serves as a terrific introduction to their music. It includes most of their best early tracks, plus others, and has terrific liner notes*. Nicky Hopkins did a lot of the piano work on those early tracks.

* Those liner notes, having nothing else to read while some friends and I sat in a broken down VW Bus awaiting for help on I-95 outside of Philly, plus a couple of loving reviews in Rolling Stone, are what got me to try the band.

They released albums for 20 years, plus Ray's had some good solo albums, so there's lots of material to choose from. The only real clunker in the bunch (IMO) is Preservation, Act II, which has a handful of songs worth listening to, amidst a huge pile of self-indulgent crap. (Preservation, Act I, OTOH, has got some terrific songs.)

Let me know if I can hook you up with anything.