BCB 100 - The Kinks
- geoffcowgill
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BCB 100 - The Kinks
"Stop Your Sobbing" is the song I most frequently change the lyrics to when singing commands to my children. "It is time for you to brush all of your teeth", or "It is time for you to go right to bed now", or "It is time for you to eat up your good breakfast", etc. I'm not sure if they've ever heard the real song. It's not my favorite song of theirs, though.
My knee-jerk reaction to this has long been "Waterloo Sunset", and "I'm So Tired" before that. I want to sound cooler now, though, so I'm going to say "Where Have All The Good Times Gone." I'm a sucker for mid-sixties pop songs where the singer swoops into a verse with an "ohh..." or "well...". It gives it a bit of a "Like A Rolling Stone" touch, as does the rave up at the end of the choruses. And Ray and Dave trade verses, which is nice.
Favorite Album - Something Else
Favorite Song - "Where Have All The Good Times Gone"
My knee-jerk reaction to this has long been "Waterloo Sunset", and "I'm So Tired" before that. I want to sound cooler now, though, so I'm going to say "Where Have All The Good Times Gone." I'm a sucker for mid-sixties pop songs where the singer swoops into a verse with an "ohh..." or "well...". It gives it a bit of a "Like A Rolling Stone" touch, as does the rave up at the end of the choruses. And Ray and Dave trade verses, which is nice.
Favorite Album - Something Else
Favorite Song - "Where Have All The Good Times Gone"
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Re: BCB 100 - The Kinks
Favorite Album - Arthur. The most compact. Every song is at least good, several (most notably "Shangri-La") are great.
Favorite Song - Days. I find it hard to imagine not being touched by this song.
This is too freaking cute.
Favorite Song - Days. I find it hard to imagine not being touched by this song.
geoffcowgill wrote:"Stop Your Sobbing" is the song I most frequently change the lyrics to when singing commands to my children. "It is time for you to brush all of your teeth", or "It is time for you to go right to bed now", or "It is time for you to eat up your good breakfast", etc. I'm not sure if they've ever heard the real song.
This is too freaking cute.
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Re: BCB 100 - The Kinks
toomanyhatz wrote:
Favorite Song - Days. I find it hard to imagine not being touched by this song.
Indeed. I'm not a fan. But 'Days' is a classic pop song, and best in the original.
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I will come back to this thread in a wee while, but I've recently written a very short piece on Face to Face, so I thought I might pull out a few extracts from that. Bear in mind it was written for a Student Magazine, hence its somewhat clumsy prose and the fact I had to give some background information. I've modified it slightly for this post, but hopefully there's enough material within it for later discussion, etc
[...]
Beginning with their early singles that sweated adolescent horniness, within the space of a few years, The Kinks’ music had pitched its worldview somewhere between uncertainty towards the present and nostalgia for an idealised England past [...]
But before the band retreated too far into its imaginary village green, the Kinks released a sequence of albums between 1966’s Face to Face and 1971’s Muswell Hillbillies that documented singer/songwriter Ray Davies’s apprehensions in eloquent—and tuneful—fashion. At times, Face to Face betrays Davies’s later admission that he was becoming more lax in his approach, but the band’s attacking riffing on tracks such as House in the Country still showed traces of the old musical toughness.
As a result, it’s their most ‘modern’ album, or at least the one that fully engages in its contemporary environment. Lyrically, it’s a litany of neuroses. Mocking telecommunication (‘Party Line’), packaged tourism (‘Holiday in Waikiki’), and the fashionably trendy (‘Dandy’); the frequent misanthropy disguises a deep sadness, particularly during Too Much on My Mind, Ray’s plea for solitude. Featuring a harpsichord arrangement from Nicky Hopkins, it’s the LP’s most delicate track.
Being quintessentially English, weather plays a key part: be it in the haunting vignette Rainy Day in June, or Sunny Afternoon, an ineffable evocation of his city's contradictory emotional geography. Perhaps the song is so upbeat, because its character, a bankrupt aristocrat, acknowledges that a crumbling life in London is better than a prosperous one anywhere else. Filled with great tunes and many ambiguities, Face to Face looks at its surroundings with jaundiced eyes.
[...]
Okay admittedly, it's somewhat trite, but I hope it was interesting enough. I must admit that they're a band that fascinate me, partly because, during their mid-60s peak, they seemingly left much of their best material off their LPs. It astonishes me that "This is Where I Belong" or "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" were tucked away as B-sides to singles, not least because they seem to be pretty much defining statements for the band, even in terms of their titles. It's the sense of engagement that those songs carry, coupled with the desire to escape, possibly to an Island- documented wittily on a song called, well "I'm On An Island" (from Kink Kontroversy). In many ways Davies was quite an impressionistic songwriter, it's when he started to overstating the obvious that he began to grate.
Although I know RcL's not a fan of the group by any stretch, I'd be interested to hear his thoughts on them.
I might write more later, but I'm not sure whether anyone would be that interested, frankly!
[...]
Beginning with their early singles that sweated adolescent horniness, within the space of a few years, The Kinks’ music had pitched its worldview somewhere between uncertainty towards the present and nostalgia for an idealised England past [...]
But before the band retreated too far into its imaginary village green, the Kinks released a sequence of albums between 1966’s Face to Face and 1971’s Muswell Hillbillies that documented singer/songwriter Ray Davies’s apprehensions in eloquent—and tuneful—fashion. At times, Face to Face betrays Davies’s later admission that he was becoming more lax in his approach, but the band’s attacking riffing on tracks such as House in the Country still showed traces of the old musical toughness.
As a result, it’s their most ‘modern’ album, or at least the one that fully engages in its contemporary environment. Lyrically, it’s a litany of neuroses. Mocking telecommunication (‘Party Line’), packaged tourism (‘Holiday in Waikiki’), and the fashionably trendy (‘Dandy’); the frequent misanthropy disguises a deep sadness, particularly during Too Much on My Mind, Ray’s plea for solitude. Featuring a harpsichord arrangement from Nicky Hopkins, it’s the LP’s most delicate track.
Being quintessentially English, weather plays a key part: be it in the haunting vignette Rainy Day in June, or Sunny Afternoon, an ineffable evocation of his city's contradictory emotional geography. Perhaps the song is so upbeat, because its character, a bankrupt aristocrat, acknowledges that a crumbling life in London is better than a prosperous one anywhere else. Filled with great tunes and many ambiguities, Face to Face looks at its surroundings with jaundiced eyes.
[...]
Okay admittedly, it's somewhat trite, but I hope it was interesting enough. I must admit that they're a band that fascinate me, partly because, during their mid-60s peak, they seemingly left much of their best material off their LPs. It astonishes me that "This is Where I Belong" or "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" were tucked away as B-sides to singles, not least because they seem to be pretty much defining statements for the band, even in terms of their titles. It's the sense of engagement that those songs carry, coupled with the desire to escape, possibly to an Island- documented wittily on a song called, well "I'm On An Island" (from Kink Kontroversy). In many ways Davies was quite an impressionistic songwriter, it's when he started to overstating the obvious that he began to grate.
Although I know RcL's not a fan of the group by any stretch, I'd be interested to hear his thoughts on them.
I might write more later, but I'm not sure whether anyone would be that interested, frankly!
It's before my time but I've been told, he never came back from Karangahape Road.
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Album: Misfits.
For purely personal reasons, it was the first Kinks album I bought and listened to it A LOT. I think other albums are much better, but this still holds a place in my heart/mind. Trying to convince me otherwise, would be like telling me PF Flyers didn't make me run faster and jump higher. They did too, you boys.
Song: You Really Got Me/Waterloo Sunset.
When we formed a band in high school, the sole reason for our inception was to be able and play You Really Got Me. If we hadn't learned any other song, ya know I think it woulda been okay.
For Waterloo Sunset, The Kinks convey such a great melancholy in a compact arrangement of notes and lyrics, it is fucking unbelievable.
For purely personal reasons, it was the first Kinks album I bought and listened to it A LOT. I think other albums are much better, but this still holds a place in my heart/mind. Trying to convince me otherwise, would be like telling me PF Flyers didn't make me run faster and jump higher. They did too, you boys.
Song: You Really Got Me/Waterloo Sunset.
When we formed a band in high school, the sole reason for our inception was to be able and play You Really Got Me. If we hadn't learned any other song, ya know I think it woulda been okay.
For Waterloo Sunset, The Kinks convey such a great melancholy in a compact arrangement of notes and lyrics, it is fucking unbelievable.
Don't fake the funk on a nasty dunk!
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Nice post Matthew, I enjoyed reading that. I still can't help thinking of them as a singles band first and foremost ( which I regard as being equal to an album band anyway) although their albums are held in such high esteem here, I'm re-evaluating this. I'm gonna give Arthur a spin now in view of all the praise it's received and I might add my thoughts on that later.
Album: Something Else
Song: See My Friend
Album: Something Else
Song: See My Friend
I've just finished with Arthur, and I'm not entirely convinced by it.
It's not that i don't enjoy it, I do. Certainly it's highs -victoria, Shangri-La, Australia are up there with anything from the period. It also has a warm, good natured glow about it and certainly can't be faulted for attempting a range of styles and moods.
But you feel Davies was moving away from his earlier crafted songwriting approach, too much of the album feels fragmented to me and melodically non-descript. Too often they fall into a lazy feel good romp (Arthur for example) which doesn't really go anywhere. You feel the music has taken a backseat to the lyrics and concepts and feels almost like an afterthought.
This is probably more critical than I wanted it to be but it sums up why I don't feel as passionately about late sixties Kinks as some others.
It's not that i don't enjoy it, I do. Certainly it's highs -victoria, Shangri-La, Australia are up there with anything from the period. It also has a warm, good natured glow about it and certainly can't be faulted for attempting a range of styles and moods.
But you feel Davies was moving away from his earlier crafted songwriting approach, too much of the album feels fragmented to me and melodically non-descript. Too often they fall into a lazy feel good romp (Arthur for example) which doesn't really go anywhere. You feel the music has taken a backseat to the lyrics and concepts and feels almost like an afterthought.
This is probably more critical than I wanted it to be but it sums up why I don't feel as passionately about late sixties Kinks as some others.
The Unique Modernist! wrote:I've just finished with Arthur, and I'm not entirely convinced by it.
It's not that i don't enjoy it, I do. Certainly it's highs -victoria, Shangri-La, Australia are up there with anything from the period. It also has a warm, good natured glow about it and certainly can't be faulted for attempting a range of styles and moods.
But you feel Davies was moving away from his earlier crafted songwriting approach, too much of the album feels fragmented to me and melodically non-descript. Too often they fall into a lazy feel good romp (Arthur for example) which doesn't really go anywhere. You feel the music has taken a backseat to the lyrics and concepts and feels almost like an afterthought.
This is probably more critical than I wanted it to be but it sums up why I don't feel as passionately about late sixties Kinks as some others.
I agree, in the main (altho' you didn't mention 'Yes Sir, No Sir' which, with its lovely and clever 'sectioned' songwriting, is another major highlight for me) and yet it's my favourite Kinks' album. I simply don't think they managed to put together a genuinely great, consistent collection - Village Green Preservation Society be damned. How many non-single album tracks are there that are truly great? 'David Watts'? 'Village Green Preservation Society'? I'm running out...
Not a problem, 'cos they're still perhaps our greatest ever singles band. Really - ever. I can't think of a band that evolved so naturally, so sweetly, and yet were so consistently fucking great, and so in tune with the times.
I played 'Dead End Street' to the trainees in a music input this aft - where the horns come in, on the second verse, I wanted to shout 'can't you hear this, fuckos?'. But of course I didn't. But it's a very moving moment, and another example of Ray Davies' enormous talent.
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album: Muswell Hillbillies.
song: 'See My Friends'.
song: 'See My Friends'.
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I'd agree with everything you say there as well John. A kind of sloppiness, perhaps even indulgence, comes into the later albums, the earlier period and singles in particular seem so much more focused. But I don't want to seem overly critical, I enjoy Arthur.
I nearly picked Dead End Street as my favourite Kinks song.
I nearly picked Dead End Street as my favourite Kinks song.