The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

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

  1. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Stormy Sky

    I'll paraphrase my earlier post.....

    This is yacht rock?
    Yeah,
    But its really good yacht rock
     
  2. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    Not only that, but he's the only musician that played with both the Kinks and the Pretty Things (his gig prior to the Kinks).
     
  3. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Thank you Mark.
     
    DISKOJOE and mark winstanley like this.
  4. Fortuleo

    Fortuleo Used to be a Forum Resident

    True, one of his best coke & Spector induced songs! Happy to see it mentioned.

    And now for something completely different, an important matter. When we discussed Sleepless Night, I thought of Wino Junko by Wings immediately but refrained from saying anything about it. Eventually, @The late man and @Brian x duly mentioned 76-78 Macca Wings in their posts. Today, I heard the Here Comes the Sun "Little Darling" nod in the first verse, another weather song by the way, but didn't write it either, relieved to see @ajsmith do it. I also stopped myself from saying that stylistically, Stormy Sky's really close to (only arguably much better than) some Paul falsetto tunes like the ultra cheesy Girlfriend and So Bad, or the more recent (and very nice) laid back groove of Heaven on a Sunday. Thing is, I'm always wary of posting any of those McCartney&Beatles-nerd references myself because the second thing I dread the most on the Steve Hoffman forum is to give rise to the customary "hey, don't turn this thread into another Beatles/McCartney conversation" abrupt replies. The number one thing I dread the most being to turn a thread into another Beatles/McCartney conversation myself… :D
    But I now see @Endicott, @Paul Mazz and even a famous Beatles relativist like our leader @mark winstanley all shamelessly doing it, like there's nothing to it! Order please!! Order in the thread !!!:cop::cop::nyah::cop:
     
  5. donstemple

    donstemple Member of the Club

    Location:
    Maplewood, NJ
    Stormy Sky

    While this is not "Essential" Yacht Rock, I do believe this would be one of the few Kinks songs to make it on the boat. According to the creators of the term itself, here is the main criteria:
    • Lyrical themes that trend toward heartbroken, foolish men
    • High production value
    • Produced in the 70’s and 80’s
    • Inclusion of core Yacht Rock musicians. This includes The Doobie Brothers, Toto, Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross and a few others.
    • Preferably a Southern-California or West-coast geographic connection
    • Tangible jazz or R&B influence, though this can get murky
    This song hits roughly half of the criteria. The other thing that I think evokes the mellow/soft rock feeling of this song is that it seems a few years later in 1980 Robbie Dupree used the same chord progressions on his very Yachty song Steal Away.

    Ok now that that's out of the way.... I love this song, and I think it's my 2nd favorite song on the album after Juke Box Music. It's like a cousin to Sitting in the Midday Sun, and I can see this being sung by the Tramp. There is something so gentle and loving, yet pleading, about the "I feel it. Do you feel it? Can you feel it?" and "I see it. Do you see it? Can't you see it?" verses. What's interesting there is that the narrator seems to sense that the argument is coming, but his partner may not yet... What news is the narrator going to share here? I hear this as him almost pleading to his partner, "hey, you may not like what I'm going to tell, but I hope we can get through this and get to the morning light together."

    Dave's lead guitar break around 2:45 is really catchy and distinctive... and its almost a bit unsettling because to my ears, it just seems a little... off... Mick's crashes are like -- slightly delayed from where you'd expect them to be, or am I myself off about that?

    Ray's final chorus really lifts this songs up to another level and does Kinkify it a bit more!

    I really enjoyed that live version... I think it's funny and interesting that almost dismissed it as "another weather song...". Yes, I suppose it is, but as we have seen, it's not REALLY about the weather...
     
  6. LX200GPS

    LX200GPS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Somewhere Else
    Well, I presume you are talking about stations like Radio 2 (in the afternoon) and the few similar stations that have popped up since the coming of digital radio. I haven't listened to Radio 2, or any music radio station, since about 1979 - I would rather listen to the music I choose instead of having some over-paid dj choose it for me. I'm getting on now but back then I was in my early twenties so it's not an oldie thing for me. Having said that, I do love radio and listen to about four hours a day on average, more if I'm working as I am fortunate enough to work outdoors on my own. One reason I stopped listening to music radio stations was that you never heard any new Kinks music, instead, you would get the same endless shi*e from Slade, Bay City Rollers and the Osmonds.

    When Sleepwalker was released it was obvious that something had changed. The Kinks had been in a slump for years and they were too good a band for that to have happened to them. I guess Davies, along with Clive Davis, took the decision to try to remedy that situation and I cannot blame them for that. I appreciate the album is not to everyone's taste but which Kinks album is? For what it's worth, Give The People What They Want contains some of my favourite Kinks songs but I rarely listen to it because that sound is so harsh it makes my ears bleed. Were those drums recorded in someone's bathroom?!

    So, having decided to change tack with Sleepwalker it would seem that the decision, whoever made it, was the right one because it was the first Kinks album to chart in too long a time. The years of set-back and hard slog had finally paid off. I was delighted for them. Could they have held on to that "Kinks sound" and be successful too? I doubt it and so I have come to regard this album as a stepping stone to their successful arena period.

    If there was ever a Kinks album where every track could be a single then this was it. Must remember to take it along the next time I sail my yacht.
     
  7. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    The fact of the matter is, the Liverpool band covered so much musical ground together and solo, comparisons are somewhat inevitable at some point....

    As long as we don't get stuck on it, I don't mind.... there are enough threads about them to be it's own forum here.... and as much as I like them, the forum sours me on them a lot, overkill and hyperbole to the extreme....
     
  8. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    "Stormy Sky" is a nice, mellow song about a couple huddled together in the face of an imaginary or actual storm. It reminds me lyrically of the Lovin' Spoonful's "Rain on the Roof" or a post Jim Morrison Doors song from 1972 called "Treetrunk".
     
  9. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    Was this the couple you were talking about, Avid All Down the Line?
    P.S.: All the best on your basement situation

     
  10. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    Ha ha. Keeping the review short and to the point! I feel the same way.

    I mentioned Stephen Bishop earlier on another song and there is no reason why I would want to reference him twice on a Kinks album. For some that do not know him, he had a song called “On and On” which was a late 70s soft rock hit. It also came out in 1977. I know this song because I heard an older couple singing it on a seaside boardwalk many years ago when I was on holiday. It got planted in my brain permanently, and every time I hear a song that reminds me of it, I am back on the pier laughing and swaying to a summer breeze.

    Like a “Stormy Sky” it has a sweet and catchy melody, but it’s so saccharine it can make me sick to my stomach. It kind of feels like sea sickness, like I’m on a yacht during a massive storm.
     
  11. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    While we're in the midst of his short tenure with the band, (okay I know Dalton is on today's track, but Pyle played on it on the OGWT!), does anyone else think Andy Pyle resembled Pete Quaife facially quite a bit? Ok he had lank blonde hair not curly dark hair but otherwise there is a similarity I think. I do wonder if he was ever mistaken for his bass predecessor but one by folks who hadn't been paying attention to the line up changes during the theatrical era.
    [​IMG]
     
  12. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I'm not super familiar with them, but that pic certainly has a Quaife look
     
  13. ThereOnceWasANote

    ThereOnceWasANote Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cape May, NJ
    It was addressed in an earlier respone that Arista didn't fully promote the album because the Kinks were signing with MCA but that deal wasn't until Jan. 86. It was released awfully late in year in Nov. so that probably didn't help but
    Played and sang lead on a song on Death Wish II ST.
     
  14. ThereOnceWasANote

    ThereOnceWasANote Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cape May, NJ
    Sped up, discofied, and given female vocals someone re-purposed the melody of this song into a huge hit a year later or so: I Love The Nightlife by Alicia Bridge. At least that's what I hear.
     
  15. Brian x

    Brian x the beautiful ones are not yet born

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Stormy Sky

    Playing this the last couple of days, I kept getting to the end of the song and realizing that I hadn't listened to the lyrics or tried to parse the music. Well, I'd think, it must be because this is kind of an insubstantial song, and I'd play it again. And again I'd forget to do a critical listen, and again I'd hit repeat. "Okay, yeah," I thought, "this is a throwaway song, there's nothing in it to latch onto, to draw me in, not even one line like nothing hurts people like other people do."

    But I realized that every time I hit repeat, I was really happy to be listening to the song again. Like, really happy. And it wasn't so much that the song is insubstantial (is it, anyway? I like @mark winstanley's interpretation), but that I was getting lost in it -- so drawn in that I didn't even know what it was doing to me.

    I happened to get a new car this weekend w/ a good sound system and a sunroof, and while listening to Stormy Sky (at least at stoplights) I'd find myself looking up into the sky, watching the clouds & the treetops blowing in the high winds, sort of drifting into a meditative state -- like the song was awakening & enhancing everything around. & the reason the lyrics weren't standing out was because they were at one with the whole song, just sort of giving little guidelines for immersion into the moment: sky, storm, feel, see, clouds.

    10cc's I'm not in Love came out the year before I started getting high, and I always thought, oh, this is what being on drugs must be like. A drifting, sensual, immersive, third-eye-opening feeling. This song has a similar effect.

    (Thinking of Kinks playlists done in chronological order, I thought of hitting shuffle. What would it be like to segue from this song into Autumn Almanac, or from Sitting in My Hotel to this song? So I tried it, expecting the transitions to be jarring. But nope: Incredibly smooth).
     
  16. ThereOnceWasANote

    ThereOnceWasANote Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cape May, NJ
    Stormy Sky

    If not to be released as a single I don't really see the reason for this song's existence. It's tailor-made for airplay. It's a boring song and if there's one thing the Kinks were not was boring. I do like when Dave's Beatleesque guitar comes in and Ray sings great in the higher register but it is a wisp of smoke of a song.

    How anyone could criticize the 80s Kinks, hell even their final two albums, as noisy as they are and like this dreck (granted Kinks MOR dreck is gold compared to your garden variety MOR dreck). I could see the likes of Perry Como or Bread doing this one. Credit to the band's performance but maybe Ray should've laid off the valium when writing this one.

    Thankfully this was a one-off dipping the toe into what would become Yacht-rock. An edited version should've been released as a single though because it would've done well on easy listening radio of the time.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2022
  17. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    Nice catch. I can hear that. It’s the one time when I can say I prefer Alicia Bridges over The Kinks.:yikes: It’s one of the very few disco songs I like and even have on my iPod. The movie Love At First Bite is to blame. I loved that movie as a youngster and this song is featured in it. I haven’t seen the movie in a long time. Because of licensing issues, this song was removed from all tv broadcasts and dvd releases for many years. No way I’m watching it without this tune! I do believe it was finally released with “I Love the Nightlife” back in all its boogie glory.
     
  18. Luckless Pedestrian

    Luckless Pedestrian Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire, USA
    Agreed - whatever the style, the Kinks do it better!

    Or I suppose I should qualify that by saying: I like when the Kinks do it better. The artistic sensibilities of the Davies brothers consistently puts their work on a higher level than that of their contemporaries, in my aesthetic judgement.

    Witness, the lovely, melodic guitar figure by brother Dave, the full-bodied Les Paul tone that transforms into a menacing growl when he drops to a lower register as the storm approaches. Ray’s ability to sing with sensitivity and sincerity, never approaching within miles of maudlin. Ray using the storm metaphor to raise several ideas at the same time: The storm that threatens to disturb a peaceful day, a relationship, existence. (“But I can’t see a cloud in sight” is a great example of Ray’s ability to efficiently add complexity and irony to a lyric - the entire song “turns” on this line, opening it up to multiple interpretations). Also note the skillful way Ray builds anxiety and doubt with the vulnerable repetition of “I feel it / Do you feel it / Can you feel it” with chords steadily rising underneath. (Followed by a later repetition of the figure but with slightly different lyrics, another classic Davies technique). Finally, the seamless and beautifully melodic transitions across the different sections of the song make this yet another gem unearthed from the rich vein of the Kinks Katalogue, with many more to come!
     
  19. Martyj

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

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    Not to argue with you---and I respect all the varying opinions here and could well have picked any other of a number of posts to respond to the yacht rock observations--but here's why it doesn't bother me: as much as the Kinks dabbled in varying genre's through their golden Pye eras (think songs like the Indian drone of Fancy, or the country bounce of Act Nice and Gentle, or the oompah of Till Death Do Us Part, etc.) it's kind of a stylistically diverse throw back to those days to have a single track that sounds different from the rest. Honestly, to me the rest of sleepwalker songs have a sort of sameness to them, which makes it the first Kinks LP since perhaps Kinks Size to merit that criticism. This one stands out for it's difference as an overt yacht rock song. Its presence improves Sleepwalker for that reason, IMO. I say this not being a particularly big fan of the types of songs typically categorized as yacht rock.
     
  20. Steve62

    Steve62 Vinyl hunter

    Location:
    Murrumbateman
  21. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    I would like to address this further along the discography when I will feel qualified to have an opinion. It’s too soon for me to comment (in writing!).
     
  22. zipp

    zipp Forum Resident

  23. pyrrhicvictory

    pyrrhicvictory Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manhattan
    Michael Farady, at various times the Kinks guitar tech/drum tech/tour manager has averred that Arista stopped shipping the album at 450,000 copies. The MCA deal became official in early 1986 but they and other labels were courting Ray before Word of Mouth was released. Imagine breaking that news to Ray.
     
  24. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Stormy Sky

    Holy 1970s! I've only glanced at a few folks takes on this thus far. I saw someone mention "easy listening" and yes, this certainly fits that bill. This song is very much of its time.

    ...but I really kinda love it! When becoming familiar with this album, I felt like I already knew this one. I wonder if FM radio played it? Or I just heard it at my friend's house way back when.

    Ray's delicate falsetto voice is certainly different than what we're used to. No shouty Ray in ear shot. Even though the song may be about a couple fighting...I think it feels like a rare love song from Ray. You know that they'll get through this little bump in the road. Or at least he's very hopeful.

    And I really like the twangy guitar underneath the chorus. I always dig a good twang...even though I wish it wasn't as muddied in the mix.

    I think the song is beautiful. And something you wouldn't expect to come from the Kinks.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2022
  25. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Seriously guys let it be.
     

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