Archives for April 2017

Certain Songs #865: The Kinks – “Strangers”

April 30, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Lola Versus Powerman and The Moneygoround, Part One
Year: 1970

If I think that Lola Versus Powerman and The Moneygoround, Part One is the fourth straight utterly unassailable Kinks album — capping a run that puts them up there with any four-album run by any artist ever — that seems to be a slightly controversial position, as its critical reputation hasn’t held up as well as the four albums that preceded it, or the one that came after.

But that’s horseshit, because while Lola Versus Powerman and The Moneygoround doesn’t completely hang together as a concept album, per se, it’s an absolutely fantastic collection of folk-rock songs that often drift into rock-rock songs, free of the horns that fought for space in Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of The British Empire) or the sometimes fussy arrangements from The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society or Something Else By The Kinks.

Certain Songs #864: The Kinks – “Lola”

April 29, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One
Year: 1970

The Kinks recorded better songs. The Kinks recorded more popular songs. But The Kinks never recorded a more iconic song.

Not “You Really Got Me,” which got co-opted by Van Halen for better and worse. Not “Celluloid Heroes,” even if I sing it to myself every time I walk down Hollywood Blvd. Not even “Waterloo Sunset,” no matter how beautiful it was.

No, it’s “Lola.” “El-oh-el-Ay, Lola.” From the percussive riff that anchors it to the sing-along fade out, “Lola” was the song that — more than any other — would forever be associated with The Kinks. Its unexpected popularity — their first top ten hit in the U.S. in 5 years (and their last one for 13) — was credited by Dave Davies for saving the band.

Certain Songs #863: The Kinks – “Mindless Child of Motherhood”

April 28, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Kink Kronikles
Year: 1969

I know that I’m spending over a month writing about the amazing oeuvre of The Kinks, because the songwriting of Raymond Douglas Davies has spoken so clearly to me for most of my life, but the irony is that my favorite Kinks song might not be “Till The End of The Day” or “Shangri-La” or “Waterloo Sunset” but rather this b-side written by David Russell Gordon Davies.

And I swear that I’m not even being contrary: that’s how beautiful, how powerful and how wonderful I think “Mindless Child of Motherhood” is. It can stand with pop songs that are universally acclaimed as being among the greatest ones ever written.

Certain Songs #862: The Kinks – “Arthur”

April 27, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
Year: 1969

After a whole album that basically spanned the history of the U.K., the Kinks finish the album that they started off exhorting her majesty Queen Victoria with a paean to the titular character, about whom they’re worrying way more than the Queen.

Musically, “Arthur” is the simplest, least-cluttered song on the record — no keyboards, no horns, driven mostly a Dave Davies’ 12-string guitar riff that barely kept from tripping over itself.

Certain Songs #861: The Kinks – “Shangri-La”

April 26, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of The British Empire)
Year: 1969

“Shangri-La” is my favorite song on Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of The British Empire), and is probably one of my top 5 Kinks songs overall.

As the first song after you flip the record over after “Australia,” it always felt like also kind of a compare and contrast piece to that song as well. While the former is all about celebrating the endless possibilities of uprooting your life and moving to the other side of the world, the latter is a slowly burning satire of putting down roots in your very own uniquely-named home.

Certain Songs #860: The Kinks – “Australia”

April 25, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of The British Empire)
Year: 1969

After a pair of anti-war songs, a look at the disruptive technology of the car, and Ray ranting at the government, the first side of Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of The British Empire) ends its first side with the longest song The Kinks had recorded up to that point, the epic “Australia.”

Inspired by Ray and Dave’s older sister, Rose, who emigrated to Australia a few years prior, “Australia” is a seven increasingly loopy minutes of reasons to get the hell out of England that nevertheless must have the been the soundtrack to more than one newly-minted immigrant.

Certain Songs #859: The Kinks – “Victoria”

April 24, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: Arthur (Or The Fall And Decline of The British Empire)
Year: 1969

And then everything changed again. After the relatively intimate songs of Something Else By The Kinks and The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation, Ray Davies took up Granada TV’s offer to write a concept album that was based upon, um, the history of Great Britain in the 20th century.

But Ray Davies being Ray Davies, it was really about his brother-in-law, Arthur, who had recently emigrated to Australia with his favorite older sister, Rose.

Certain Songs #858: The Kinks – “All of My Friends Were There”

April 23, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
Year: 1968

One of the things about The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society is that it’s one of those albums that is so loaded with weird, disparate songs that — outside of the title track and probably “Big Sky,” — there isn’t a whole lot of consensus as to what the best songs are.

So I’m guessing that people those who were scandalized, or at least puzzled, by me picking “Phenomenal Cat” yesterday are probably utterly gobsmacked by “All Of My Friends Were There,” which might be the weirdest song on the whole record.

Certain Songs #857: The Kinks – “Phenomenal Cat”

April 22, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
Year: 1968

Right. While other bands could emulate The Kinks riff-rocking and social commentary songs ::coughs:: The Who ::coughs:: there were songs on The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society that were totally and utterly unemulatable, that really could really have come from Raymond Douglas Davies.

“Phenomenal Cat” is one of those songs.

Certain Songs #856: The Kinks – “Big Sky”

April 21, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
Year: 1968

And how about that lovely album cover? Framing the four Kinks outdoors, none of them smiling, situated somehow simultaneously in front of and behind a glowing, swirling canopy, it represented the music within much better than the garish, overthought covers of Face to Face, Arthur, Lola or even Something Else by The Kinks.

That cover — like the music on the album — is mysterious and eternal, capturing a moment that was somehow out of time. Pete Quaife left The Kinks for good just after The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, so among other things, that cover photo is one of the last ones taken of the original quartet.