That was stupid but given that people were full of praise for the same guy's sleevenotes on "Kinks Kronikles" it's a bit silly to all of a sudden dismiss him as a hack. I find that "Who do they think they are and what makes them think their opinions so important?" thing people pull about music critics a bit pathetic, their opinions are important enough that they get paid for it, I don't get paid for this!
I like reading Dave Marsh. I like reading Metal Mike so I am not anti-critic/reviewer. My own remark was pointedly addressing just that one section. But I understand what you’re saying. It’s a different time now but I sure used the red Rolling Stone Record Guide as an important resource when it first came out.
It’s a brand new record to me but one of the first thoughts I had was that this record fit right into the 1972 timeframe. I think I even said that about individual songs as we worked our way through the album. So it wasn’t particularly quirky (? I’m not sure that’s the word I’m looking for!). Country rock and a bit of campy glam. Elton John. If it didn’t have that album cover it’s something I would have reached for in real-time. The songs are all well-crafted, I think. (Obviously, I disagree with those who think otherwise about Celluloid Heroes.) Even the food song lyrics are well-thought out, cleverly put together. But, back to impressions. It just feels like a comfortable album to me; not quite the ‘wow’ of Muswell Hillbillies. One of the ‘72 pack instead of being atop the pyramid. (Starting to sound like a hated critic, ha!)
I've read both versions several times & all the stories do relate w/Ray's songs. Also, there's a Kinks podcast called The Waterloo Underground, co-hosted by Norton Records supremo Miriam Linna. One of her guests was actually John Mendelssohn: Show Archive — WATERLOO UNDERGROUND
You are correct Avid Vangro. Later on, she & her late husband Billy Miller co-founded first Kicks magazine & then Norton Records, while drumming for the A-Bones. In the mid 2010s, she put a couple of solo albums full of great 60s songs. Here's a taste:
As I said that, I'll assume it is pretty much directed at me. First I would say, I wasn't particularly full of praise for his Kronikles sleeve notes. I said it was interesting and had a lot of obscure references. But as to the Hack-ism of the article just posted. "But John, how about "Celluloid Heroes", which wound up getting more airplay than any other track our heroes did for RCA?" To which I would reply, with absolutely lacerating wit, "What about it?" - this is childish churlish rubbish. There is nothing particularly witty about using the same argument technique as a small child. Why do I find "Heroes" the single most overrated track in the Kinks' long recording history? - as a song that the majority of people who aren't Kinks fans don't know, that makes pretty much a nonsense of this statement. If the majority of the fans like it, and consider it to be a great Kinks song, it isn't the fans who are overrating it, it is the writer who is under-appreciating it. It's tempo's sufficiently dirge like to begin with - this person apparently raved about earlier Kinks recordings, many of which were at moderate, or even slower tempos, so essentially this is an empty vacuous statement, clutching at straws for something to put down. Either that, or his ability to have any consistency is void, which would make him the worst kind of critical reviewer, because you would never know from one moment to the next what to base his opinion on. One of the most important things a critic needs to be in their opinion is consistent, particularly if you are reviewing music, because if you are going to be a gauge for whether people try something or not, the gauge can't be broken. Mick Avory seems intent in all but the loudest passages on slowing it down even further. - the song is at one tempo, so either our critic has little understanding of tempo, or is incapable of sharing what he is trying to say. Only people that aren't really fluent in music state that volume has anything to do with tempo. The melody tries way too hard. - this is a nothing statement. It is a sort of pseudo-intellectual dismissal, because he probably feels he won't sound clever if he just says "I don't like the melody". Ray introduces the wimpy -yes, let it be said!-this is really heartfelt voice without which he'd henceforth seem to imagine his audience incapable of recognizing when he was trying to be touching. - being pretty much the same type of vocal he used on Waterloo Sunset, this statement just looks like the guy is doing a hatchet job. Of course breaking out the "wimpy" is hilarious for a guy who sits behind a typewriter for a living, because of course that is such a macho pursuit Rhythmically, his phrasing on such lines as "If you walk down Hollywood Boulevard, their names are written in concrete," is as clumsy as the lines themselves are foolish (if one doesn't walk down Hollywood Boulevard, are the names then not written in concrete?). If he'd written it just as recordist Mike Bobak rolled tape, he could hardly made less musical sense of it. - The way that line flows is one of the hooks, it is not rhythmically awkward in any sense of the word, and once again we would only need to reference material from the era that this guy apparently loves to prove this is an empty attack..... it is merely clutching at straws to find a reason to dislike this song, which again really just proves that whoever this person is, they don't really have any place critiquing music, as they have no understanding of music, or an ability to be consistent in their references..... the whole idea that the line makes no sense has already been debunked, because it is a nonsense. And the song's whole premise is embarrisingly fatuous-one doesn't step on Marilyn or Greta or Bela when he walks down Hollywood Boulevard, for Pete's sake, but on bronze plaques bearing their names!" - to say that the whole premise of the song is fatuous (silly and pointless) is to suggest either a complete inability to understand the lyrics at all, or a sociopathic disregard for people in pain, and concerned about dying. As for the nonsense about stepping on all the corpses on Hollywood Boulevard, I think that has been dismissed as bunkum anyway. ------------------------------------------- I'm not having a go at you here, because I do understand the premise of your post, but this is hack writing. It bears little to no resemblance to the song he is supposedly reviewing, and that is the purpose of him writing in the first place. Whatever the context of the article, or book this comes from, this little description of Celluloid Heroes is so far off the mark, and filled with empty fangs, attempting to put to death the song, with absolutely no venom of any substance. The review comes across as a hissy fit. It sounds more like Ray must have stolen his girlfriend, than this guy listened to the song and thoughtfully rejected it.
I know nothing about this guy. I have read half of the Kronikles essay, and that statement about Celluloid Heroes. Aside from that, this could be anyone to me. I am not suggesting everything he ever wrote is rubbish, but as I say, based on the incredibly poor way he describes that song, I would have no interest in reading anything he has written, because he doesn't seem to know what he is talking about, and perhaps he was just having an emotional outburst about something unrelated, but that isn't a good quality for a critical writer to have. I have never paid any attention to writers to be honest. I have always bought music that interested to me, and listened to it. I have never needed anyone to explain it to me. If he is a musician, then his statement becomes even more remarkably ignorant
I have never shared the sort of antipathy, bordering on contempt, towards music journalists and music critics which is rife on this forum. So what if they don't like something I like? By the way, I have often needed music if not explained to me then introduced to me - and a lot of that has come from music journalists!
That's fair, I wasn't criticising you. I wasn't suggesting folks shouldn't have some reference to help them appreciate music. In my opinion, which is what it is, that piece of writing fails on all levels as an attempt to convey what Celluloid Heroes is.
I don't disagree that it's mostly garbage, by the way. But, if that's what he feels, that's what he feels.
That review of Celluloid Heroes is shockingly bad and biased but I can still understand where the guy's coming from (he was the Kinks' expert from a certain – Pye – era and as most experts, he just could not "let go" of his own theories and views about what the band should sound like or write about). I really think it's best to leave it at that and to look a little on the sunny side . Now, to move on. One thing I was thinking along the way in the last ten days or so is the transitional nature of this LP. Musically, brighter and lighter as it may be, it’s still the immediate follow up to Muswell Hillbillies: same musicians, brass songs, comedy, movie lyrics, RCA, plus a live LP consisting mostly of Muswell tunes. But I can also see why @ARL thinks some deliberately more conventional and less sophisticated rock song structures, lyrics or melodies announce the Arista years. Thematically, as many've pointed out, it’s as good an approximation of Lola Part 2 as there ever was (especially – but not only – Supersonic Rocket Ship). But it’s also clearly the impetus that gave birth to 1975's A Soap Opera, a concept album seemingly born out of the Celluloid Heroes key phrase “Everybody’s a Star” which, lest we forget, became the title of A Soap Opera’s first song, its “overture” if you will. In a way, we get two distinct Ray/Kinks timelines, almost two parallel careers, during the “concept albums” decade (1968-1978): the nostalgia/childhood/preservation records (Village Green/Arthur/Muswell Hillbillies/Preservation Acts/Schoolboys in Disgrace) and the rock’n roll/star-making/ambition LPs (Lola/Showbiz/Soap Opera/ and most of the concept ideas hidden somewhere between the Sleepwalker/Misfits diptych).
A Sunday morning side note re: Mendelssohn and the Savaging of Celluloid Heroes. ‘Supersonic Rocket Ship’ was the biggest RCA-era hit, not ‘Heroes.’ So Mendelssohn can rest easy. I just checked my trusty Apple Music Kinks top songs (I’m assuming based on plays). I have no idea whether Apple mirrors Spotify or not, but ‘Supersonic Rocket Ship’ comes in at #9 (not counting duplicate sources for same title). Celluloid Heroes is at #19 (#34 overall). And the former is listed twice so to really be accurate both play totals need to be added up. In short, all these years later it’s Supersonic Rocket Ship that gets the plays. Arista years, by the way, comes out pretty good in the streaming sweepstakes.
I would have been curious to see where Supersonic Rocket Ship would have rank before the Avengers movie.
Yea, that would be interesting. I find it remarkable how many songs have become modern favourites due to movie and tv exposure. That certainly isn't a criticism, I guess it just isn't how I generally got into bands or songs.
I like John Mendelssohn's writing. It's amusing. I don't care if I agree with him or not. By the way, my understanding is there are Led Zeppelin fans who want to kill him over stuff he wrote. And, yeah....I remember the snarky press aimed at him in Creem magazine over his own budding music career (His band, best to my memory, had the word "Milk" in their name.) . =I heard a bit of it. It wasn't too bad, IMO, but fairly inconsequential.
I wondered that myself ... like a bad cross between the guy from the Canned Heat hits, and Tim Buckley on a bad acid trip
