The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by mark winstanley, Apr 4, 2021.

  1. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    Musically, I must say I like it a lot less than the previous song. I hear it as a straightforward boogie vaudeville tune, somehow lacking grace, movement, and definitely lacking swing. The band is still good (nice piano break), but less inspired and less exciting than on the first two tracks in my opinion. Lyrically, I may be wrong, but I don't share Mark's entertainment industry interpretation. For me, this is essentially 20th Century Man part 2, or even God’s Children part 3. God’s Children was a philosophical plea against the excesses of the “modern” world. 20th Century Man was its direct cultural/sociological follow up. Unreal Reality is the same idea experienced in the form of personal/clinical alienation. Him, the great pop “observer”, has lost his grip on the distorted world surrounding him. This time, it’s not a simple sociological critique or satire, it’s a panic attack! The turning point is the couplet “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”. From these lines, one can get the cinematic sense that watching the skyscraper from outside, the singer can actually see himself in it staring back, in a kind of nightmarish Twilight Zone two-way loop. Furthermore, those lines are clearly reminiscent of This Time Tomorrow, in which the artist looked at the world below from an airplane, while said world below was looking up at him. You’ve got to give it to Ray that in this 70-72 period, he kept exploring his themes, motifs and obsessions, digging deep into his own dissatisfaction with the world and his sense of disconnection from it. This time tomorrow, where will we be? he’d asked. Then, from God’s Children to 20th Century Man to Unreal Reality, the focus never stopped zooming in from macro to micro on his disturbed psyche, on the verge of collapse, oppressed by an environment that he couldn’t make sense of anymore.
     
  2. stewedandkeefed

    stewedandkeefed Came Ashore In The Dead Of The Night

    One thing I find about the Kinks is that they are always interesting, I don't think "Unreal Reality" falls in my wheelhouse musically but there is quite the arrangement going on in this recording and I can certainly appreciate that. I am also drawn to the silver face verse which is interesting as 1972 was the year glam really broke in England with Ziggy Stardust descending from outer space to save us all.
     
  3. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    So he opted for an Act of (self) Preservation.
     
  4. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "Unreal Reality"

    Possibly the least memorable track on the album, but still a hoot.

    I was thinking this morning that I couldn't remember how the chorus went, then I listened again and realised it doesn't have one.

    The verse melody is basically that of "Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues". In fact the track as a whole is probably the most MH-like of any on the album, yet I have no problem with this one. I like the general boozy rollicking feel, the horns, the lyrics and Ray's audacious delivery.
     
  5. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    I never liked this one and I still don’t I’m afraid. It sounds like something a children’s TV presenter would burst into at the end of a craft session on how to make your own optical illusions. And I appreciate that that opinion doesn’t make that much sense given how often that Ray has gone to the well of the corniest and most childlike melodies and concepts in the past and brought them up shining of gold, (I even LOVE ‘Tin Soldier Man’!) but I dunno.. there’s just something missing from this one. Maybe too mannered, too little of a rock group base/contrast to it? I dunno?

    I did enjoy this video I found this morning though, where someone has synched it up to footage of Clara Bow and her boozy beau in the 1927 film ‘Wings’:

     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2021
  6. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    Unreal Reality

    Not too fond of this one. I don't like the intro. The music is fine, but Ray's vocals are too weak to carry the intent to fruition. The words are more fun than I had understood, though. Still, Ray has a tendancy to overuse the word "fantasy", I guess, and the "is this real" theme is a bit overplayed here. Even if it is a theme that I generally am very fond of.

    I thing Fortuleo's interpretation can be reconciled with Mark's. The feeling of "derealisation" you get when you land in a foreign city, what is more when you already don't feel much connection to the time of history you were born into, is exacerbated by the excesses of the entertainment industry, which happens to be the narrator's trade.

    I was thinking of taking this song off the album and replace it with "History", but I have to convince myself first that rock stars spend their days in History museums when they've got some time to spare. Well maybe Ray does, after all.
     
  7. Scottsol

    Scottsol Forum Resident

    Location:
    Evanston, IL
    This would be a lot more listenable if Ray backed off on the theatricality of his vocals. As it is, it gives me the hebee jeebees.
     
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  8. markelis

    markelis Forum Resident

    Location:
    Miami Beach FL
    Unreal Reality:

    This one has taken some time to sink its hooks in. I didn’t care for the initial 40 seconds at first, it sounds like the end of the song rather than the beginning. Then the last 30 seconds are effectively a repeat of the fiirst 40 seconds. That leaves the middle 2 minutes or so, that part I’ll admit rocks a bit. That said, after repeated spins, now when I hear it start, I know that within 40 seconds or so I will be grooving. To me, this song is like an Oreo cookie. I love the cream inside, don’t care much for the two chocolate wafers on the outside, but taken as a whole, it’s a darn good cookie

    Lyrically it’s a bit more of the same, we are living in a fake world and it would be better if we went back to basics is clearly the message, but musically, the center 2/3 percolates along so overall I am good with it. One of the weaker songs on the album so the jury is out on whether it will make the playlist, but maybe with a few more listens.
     
  9. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    Sounds like Cheese Whiz to me. Did you get it even if you ordered a hamburger?
     
  10. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Unreal Reality

    So our esteemed leader @mark winstanley and leading Avid @Fortuleo have diametrically opposing views of this song.

    I think they're both right.

    Personally, not having listented to this album in a long time, I'm enjoying it. I'm hoping this is part of a trend of learning to appreciate the whole Showbiz/Preservation/Soap sequence which has previously been a sort of Kinks appreciation gap for me.
     
  11. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    "Unreal Reality": Hot dog, we're not talking about food anymore (until the next song, that is). This song is probably about the peculiar bubble that Ray & the Kinks found themselves in the early 70s, relentlessly touring the States, seeing a mismash of people from the Warhol crowd to the fans ( see the "Road" video for glimpses), all sped up. I do like the vaudeville, boogie woogie style of the song, as well as Ray's warble of a vocal.
     
  12. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Anything and everything so I just gave up.
     
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  13. Martyj

    Martyj Who dares to wake me from my slumber? -- Mr. Flash

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    I love Everybody’s in Showbiz. Everything about it, every uninhibited, loose-limbed, loopy lick. And I love “Unreal Reality,” it’s vocal warble and cliches built around a New Orlean’s Bourbon Street vamp. But loving it doesn’t mean I don’t acknowledge the disc’s—and this songs—short comings.

    “Unreal Reality” is only mediocre. I can love mediocre. The Indianapolis Colts are mostly mediocre, and I love them, too.

    Anyway, it is here at this point, the third track in, the middle song of the five songs on side one, that a Kinks fan pauses to mourn—and celebrate—the Greatness that is the Kinks. For it is at this precise point, IMO, that for the first time since the Autumn of 1965, that the Kinks give the world mediocrity. Some might say that was yesterday’s song. But, nah…”Maximum Consumption” was plain ol’ drunken fun with “Dave Davies on lead guitar!.” Today’s song is just a rinse, wash, and repeat.

    But instead of wallowing in the disappointment at where we’ve arrived, let’s think about where we’ve been. Between The Kink Kontroversy’s forgettable side two closer “You Can’t Win” and “Unreal Reality” the band has given us what can be considered one of Rock and Roll’s great Streaks—7 studio albums (comprising cuts too many I’m willing to count) of undiluted, uniquely Kinksian excellence spread across seven years. And yes, I am including the singles, B-sides, outtakes, half-baked, and unpolished jewels that have cropped up in the years since on reissues and the like. Seven years worth of Ray and Dave gold that has enriched my life in so many ways. Has a second of it passed without a wonderful sonic remembrance of a Davies creation from this streak ever been too far from being conjured at will to bring a bounce to my ear and a smile to my heart? I don’t think so.

    Seven Years. That’s a long time. Who knows how many Gabor sister’s marriages seven years covers? I don’t. Heck, the Beatles active recording career was roughly the same number of months as the Kink’s golden streak, and I’ll put the Kinks output of 1966-1972 next to The Fabs any day. (now, before someone corrects me on my Beatles math, I’m counting from Ringo joining to John quitting—7 years and a month.) If the Kinks never recorded another track beyond this point on Showbiz, I would still consider them my favorite band.

    So I greet the mid-point of side One of Showbiz with the sort of feeling one gets when all great streaks come to an end. Joe DiMaggio’s 56 consecutive hits? I wasn’t alive for that. But Ken Jennings 74 game winning streak on Jeopardy—yeah, I was watching. When that one hit the door stop my let down was quickly replaced by the feeling: “the dude couldn’t keep it going forever, but man, it was a great ride.”

    So that’s what “Unreal Reality” means to me. Big Black Smoke. Two Sisters. Johnny Thunder, Some Mothers Son, Strangers, …man, it was a great ride.

    Moving forward I no longer expect my favorite band to hit every pitch thrown over the plate. That’s okay. They are still capable of putting homers over the fence. There’s one coming just two days from now. But with “Unreal Reality,” it softens the blow a bit for things like “Labour of Love” and “Natural Gift” to come along in the future. A forgettable track here and there doesn’t get one kicked out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, after all.

    But that seven year/seven album streak….man, they were Rock and Roll Gods.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2021
  14. side3

    side3 Younger Than Yesterday

    Location:
    Tulsa, OK
    I was thinking the same thing, although it might have fit as a b-side for Lola-era cuts as well. The Ray quaver is present, which is always a little weird for me. I am not sure why he thought that was a good thing. John Gosling sounds great on this. He really added something to the era of albums. Since I had sort of dropped the Kinks after Lola, and picked them up again around Sleepwalker, I had never realized what an impact he had on their sound. Keyboards had been employed on Kinks records since the beginning, but Gosling's sound was much different than Nicky Hopkins (or Ray's).

    Overall, I am enjoying this album much more than I thought I would would. I had always though of the RCA years as a wasteland between the preferred 60's through Lola albums to the Arista albums. It looks like I was wrong...and that is a good thing!
     
  15. Martyj

    Martyj Who dares to wake me from my slumber? -- Mr. Flash

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    My thoughts exactly. With these lyrics Ray has abandoned what has made him so unique among rock and roll writers and has settled for the type of "observation" any mediocre lyricist would do.
     
  16. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    I don't know about that but he's somewhat wondering into the navel-gazing arena of 70s singer/songwriterdom - though there's nothing wrong with that if you can get a good lyric (and song) out of it.
     
  17. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    Even on one of the songs that's not about food, food still gets in there :)
     
  18. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Today in Kinks History:
    A Well Respected Man, saw its release in the Netherlands on this day in 1965. A Kinks classic, the song appears in films such as Juno (2007) and Love & Other Drugs (2011) and is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll along with "You Really Got Me," "Waterloo Sunset," and "Lola".

    [​IMG]
     
  19. Martyj

    Martyj Who dares to wake me from my slumber? -- Mr. Flash

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    Ha. Thanks for pointing this out for me to correct within the 30 minute window before the Forum locks me out from editing.
     
  20. Martyj

    Martyj Who dares to wake me from my slumber? -- Mr. Flash

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    Interesting, as I do not hear Vaudeville in "Unreal Reality" at all. I hear pure New Orleans Dixieland.
     
  21. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    It must be a Hawaiian thing, like Spam. I never get Cheese Whiz when I order something like a cheeseburger or nachos.
     
  22. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I'm probably just not a very good writer...

    It was a two part thought split between two different paragraphs.
    To me this is vaudeville rock in the sense of the style and presentation, probably it is mainly Ray's vocal and delivery, but as I state later it is with a New Orleans musical styling..... perhaps I'm not making sense, or explaining myself well?

    It's kind of like, I can see Ray, in my mind, with a ringmaster's top hat and cane, with all the over the top showmanship and character acting, that in my mind at least, I picture as vaudevillian, and the backing track played by the band is stylized in New Orleans jazz....

    Idk, that's the best I can explain how I hear it.
     
  23. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    My cheez input for the day.

    In Albuquerque, we have the world's largest hot air balloon festival. During that week, all our restaurants are overfull.
    I was eating out at one of our many legit New Mexican diners and when checking out was talking with the owner and asked how much boost to their business this was and they said a lot.

    But they also noted that more than one Midwesterner requested cheese on things that no legit New Mexican would ask for cheese on. And then when the restaurant added good quality Monterey Jack or Cheddar, the customer was disappointed that is wasn't some sort of processed cheez spread!

    I can tell you that, outside of the traditional meat & potates & apple pie, most midwesterners have critical culinary deficiency! The stereotype is real.
     
  24. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I hate that liquid cheese, and that's saying something, because cheese is one of my favourite foods :)
     
  25. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    This is the point in the album where it veers into sounding like Muswell Hillbillies outtakes. There are a few moments where it sounds like he is gonna start singing "There ain't no cure for acute schizophrenia disease". Even the lyrical content could be considered similar. There isn't much difference in Ray's interpretation of a "Unreal Reality" or "Acute schizophrenia Paranoia Blues". "Is it truth or is it only a fantasy?" I like both songs. I do think he chose to use the stronger one first, but there is still something to love on this version. The lyrics are humorous and Ray delivers them with his campy warble. I may not search this song out on its own, but when I hear it on the album I enjoy it.
     

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