smoe.org mailing lists
ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com> |
| Subject | Re: kronikling the kinks |
| Date | Mon, 14 Jul 2003 02:35:03 -0500 |
[Part 1 text/plain (3.1 kilobytes)]
(View Text in a separate window)
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 13:29:18 -0400
> From: "*Bill Holmes*" <bholmes_fm@msn.com>
> To: <audities@smoe.org>
> Subject: Re: kronikling the kinks
> Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV5hQ8UVEtDYZ00001b5a@hotmail.com>
>
> I'm biased, as I think Ray Davies is the best songwriter of the rock era,
> bar none
>
Hey, we're all biased in that regard, Bill ... but more and more I
find myself concurring with this particular bias of yours.
I love almost all of the great British Invasion bands, but for me
none of them (incl. the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Yardbirds, the
Hollies, etc.) have aged as well as the Kinks. Ray Davies' observational and
understated lyrical sense has a timeless quality that few songwriters share.
Of course, he was a master pop composer to boot. And the Kinks as a band had
an unerring sense of knowing when to rock and when not to rock.
I can go a year without playing a Yardbirds album. I can go a month
or two without playing a Beatles album. But it seems like I play a Kinks
album at least once a week.
> ...but even I had to cringe when songs like "Paranoia" saw Davies
> ripping off his own "All Day And All Of The Night" for the third or fourth
> time, and songs like "Rock And Roll Cities"...well, when they were even
> recorded, period. But to writ eoff the post-60s, post-70s or even post-80s
> Kinks is a serious error.
>
Yeah, I agree. I'm also with David Bash in that I really enjoy the
late-seventies arena rock albums (*Sleepwalker*, *Misfits*, *Low Budget*)
that the Kinks put out. And even their weaker 80s albums always had at least
a couple decent tracks.
> There's brilliant wit among the chaff of the Preservation series; Soap
> Opera
> is a misunderstood wonderland and Schoolboys In Disgrace might jut be my
> favorite Kinks album to listen to LOUD (check out "No More Looking Back" -
> a
> GREAT song).
>
"No More Looking Back" is one of my top four or five Kinks songs of
all time. The concept-album era of the band is my least favorite, yet even
then Ray Davies continually offered very strong material mixed in with the
dross.
> My holy grail of Kinkdom remains an early triumverate - "Sunny Afternoon",
> "Waterloo Sunset" and "Victoria" are my all time favorite three - but from
> Muswell Hillbillies to Lola ("Get Back In The Line" could be my #4) to Low
> Budget to Storyteller, Ray's wry sense of humor, unflinching eye and
> introspective deprication have always combined to bullseye my heart and
> mind
> and soul. God Save The Kinks.
>
I certainly add my voice to the chorus that puts the late-sixties
material at the top, although I'm probably a little heterodox in slightly
preferring *Something Else* and *Face to Face* over *Village Green*. Maybe
that's just the noise enthusiast in me speaking. Likewise, I absolutely love
their early Shel Talmy stuff, because I find the buzzy, let's-make-a-racket
dirty sound of "You Really Got Me", "All Day and All Of the Night", and
their ilk to be as glorious in its own way as the softer, subtler material
that Ray, Dave, Pete, and Mick were doing later in the decade.
Gregory Sager
For assistance, please contact
the smoe.org administrators.