Here’s the rub. There is an exemption to the no ketchup rule. Children under twelve years old are allowed to use ketchup. Now, the skinless abomination you described is only fit for children (any sane adult lusts after the snap of a properly cooked natural skin hot dog) and it is precisely this made for kids sausage that is intended for a ketchup kovering.
I certainly hope so! I feel the same way about some later albums. So far I don't think I have been dismissive of any song. There will be songs I strongly dislike, but I find it so hard to be negative on anything by this band. Will there be a song on this entire thread where nobody likes it? It will be interesting to find out!
There are a couple I am unsure about.... but they are mainly lyrical, and I am hoping someone can illuminate me on them, because I mainly am not sure what to think about them. There is a chance that there is a song that nobody likes, but we'll get there and see I guess.
Pretty sure I may know what you are referring to. We must take notice of the first song that nobody likes. If it happens, I don't think it will be for a long while.
When I have mustard on my hot dogs, I usually have Gulden's, although I'm frankly very upset w/them because they don't use the containers they used to have, only the squeeze bottles, which I hate. I mostly have my hot dogs chopped up & placed in a pan of Campbell's pork & beans, heat up the whole mess & serve w/toasted French or Italian bread (if a day old) or english muffins & a glass of milk. It's even better when I use a kielbasa (Polish Sausage) instead of the hot dogs. It seems that when it comes to ketchup & hot dogs that "I'm Not Like Everybody Else"
My second least liked Kinks album… Part II is worse. I like School Boys and Soap Opera better and those are far from great albums.
That’s certainly in your purview. The exemption simply means that an adult in Cook County who allows a child to use ketchup on a hotdog is safe from investigation by social services.
I will be attending Christkindlmarkt with my 4 1/2 year old daughter (and MAJOR Kinks fan) tomorrow at the local Germania Hall where we shall dine on the finest Bratwurst and Weisswursts in the New World. Can't wait!
Speaking of yellow matter perhaps Mark or one of our American friends can help me out here? When visiting Oahu eateries in '92 (be it the fast food or restaurant type) I learnt promptly to discontinue asking for one of my favourite foods cheese! Whether a hot dog or anything else I discovered that cheese served with any type of food was dispensed like milkshake flavoring out of sauce type bottle & was a runny yellow chemical liquid/paste that tasted unlike cheese. What's going on with that?
Being French, I didn't notice any mention of actual food in this song. What was it again ? (OK I'll stop here, I don't want the thread to be closed by my fault).
Maximum Consumption - the lyrics fit the album theme well, and it fits well with the first track, but musically I'm not a fan.
Well what an interesting discussion yesterday it sort of stepped into the realm of Unreal Reality. stereo mix (3:32), recorded May-Jun 1972 at Morgan Studios, Willesden, London All that I see, seems so unreal to me, Is it the truth or is it only fantasy, Is it a dream or is it unreal reality? All around me is such unreality, Optical illusions as far as my eyes can see, Is the whole thing a fake, or the ultimate reality? That house is so big that it reaches right up to the clouds It's got hundreds of windows, so the people inside can look out, And they look down below and wonder what it's all about. Look at that lady she got silver all over her face, Is she a human being or a creature from outer space, Is she authentic or phoney, I guess it's just a matter of taste. Oh because they can feel it, it's gotta be the real thing, Because they can touch it, it's gotta be reality. If they say it's real, it's gotta be the real thing. See that fella, looking all spick and span, Is he a tailor's dummy or is he a real man, Is he genuine, or straight off the assembly line. All round me is such unreality, Optical illusions as far as my eyes can see, Is the whole thing a fake or the ultimate reality? Is it a dream, or is it the real reality? Written by: Ray Davies Published by: Davray Music Ltd. This song is a wonderful poke of fun at the entertainment industry, or so it seems to me….. I suppose from a working class perspective, it seems like Ray is just making fun of the whole idea of Hollweird, and based on the time we are in here Glam. We get this double verse that restates that everything around seems completely unreal …. Everything looks like a series of optical illusions. Then we move into the first example….. Look at that house that reaches up to the clouds, with hundreds of windows so the people inside can look out and wonder what on earth is going on outside of the plastic bubble. Then my favourite line in the song… maybe… Look at that lady she got silver all over her face, Is she a human being or a creature from outer space, Is she authentic or phoney, I guess it's just a matter of taste. To me this seems like typically sarcastic Ray, making fun of, but leaving the option open. Is this strange looking lady authentic, or is she just a faker? Well, it just depends on how you look at it. The verse that challenges the silver faced lady is the spick and span man, who could be a tailors dummy …. Or a real man?.... or perhaps an assembly line construction of the system …. These are some cutting, observational lyrics, but they have that ever present Ray delicate touch. Nobody is directly torn down, as we get the option to believe what we want, but the idea that it could be real, or it could be a fantasy is the thing that softens what otherwise would be a vitriolic attack on the posturing and falsehood of the entertainment industry. The façade that appeals to people as flash, but is essentially just a mask of flash. We get a repeat of the second verse near the end, and I think that it works as an emphasis point. This is all an optical illusion, it’s a fake, it’s a sham……. Or is it the ultimate reality? To some degree musically we have the seventies …. Or perhaps the RCA era Ray fully opened to the public here. This is Vaudeville rock, and we are going to get a little bit of this across the next few albums. It may wear a slightly different jacket, but the body underneath is the same. It is almost like the birth of Ray, the seventies showman. This song has so many different faces, and runs through a series of quite different sections, that somehow come together and make a wonderful whole. We open with a kind of free time slow introduction. Ray dragging out the words, as the piano and the horns, seemingly, follow his cues. It seems to be deliberately soaked in melodrama, as if to emphasise the whole idea of the song. The dog and pony show has started ladies and gentlemen …. Or is a variation on the sideshow, freakshow? The intro is probably longer than one would expect, but I think it works really well. Then mixed quite low we get the acoustic guitar playing an old time boogie lick, and we punch in with the whole band. Again, those swinging horns are adding their two cents. The beat here is much more straight, but there is still this hint of drunken revelry. We have moved back into that New Orleans zone, and we switch between funeral dirge and and drunken midnight revelry. Again we get some nice drum slapping from Mick. Dalton is keeping it solid with persistent bass, using some nice walk up techniques. Gosling is pumping on that piano really nicely, and we move between some early rock and roll style playing to some New Orleans blue/jazz type stuff, and the whole song lurches forward. We get a couple of stops and starts that work almost like we have stopped to think about whether this is all reality or unreality, and at the end we move back into that free time zone, kind of like we're still not sure. I love this track. I think it is a really entertaining jaunt, and I think the lyrics and music are sharp, and work to get across Ray's picture here. From the perspective of the album and its thematic qualities, this almost seems like our nonstop, travelling entertainer with a penchant for eating too much, has lost his grip on what is real, and what is just the show, and perhaps that is due to the perpetual travel-show-travel-show scenario he has described to us ... anyway, I like it.
I think that the horns work well here. With different instrumentation, I can almost imagine Ronnie Lane's Slim Chance covering it!
Unreal Reality: The lesser twin of Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues, I’ve gone back and forth with this one over the past couple of weeks. To playlist or not to playlist? 3 for 3 in the brass section album-track-list-count, I find that I prefer the mid-point verse without the horns and where, instead, the honky tonk piano is highlighted. Initially, I didn’t put ‘Unreal Reality’ on my playlist. Then I did. But I played my preliminary picks in succession yesterday; then played ‘Unreal’ back-to-back with ‘Acute’…and dropped it from consideration. It’ll take a miracle for the song to finagle a way back into a coveted spot! Still, it’s a good song and, so far, it’s a perfectly respectable album with a run of three songs that I like.
The song itself is OK I suppose but pretty insubstantial, some effort has gone into the arrangement at least. Unfortunately I just don't like this style, whether you call it 'vaudeville rock' or whatever - I didn't like it on "Muswell Hillbillies" either. Lyrically I suppose you could say it fits the concept of touring leading to losing touch with reality, but it's a bit of a stretch, the lyric would fit on any (non-concept) Kinks album. The music makes it seem more light-hearted but I think the lyric is pretty serious.
Unreal Reality Given the album seemed to receive less than consistently optimistic reviews, I just wonder what (the critics &) the average 1972 rock fan thought of the slow melodramatic vaudeville intro & outro unearthed from 40 odd years previous? The warble returns as does the funeral dirge/march as Mark has already pointed out. Ray can poke fun and even turn the mirror on his and the band's privileged unreal reality as he's sitting in his ex$pensive hotel room and looking out one of many windows pondering just what it is he may have seen. The melody and tragi-comedy make this a grower but it's still not near to the first rate Kink which will book end our next week.
