The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

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

  1. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    The website looks to have some really fascinating articles, is that your take on it?
     
  2. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    They did play ‘Do It Again’ on SNL: it was the other song they played on that show. (I think
    @Michael Streett posted that clip earlier in the thread).
     
  3. Steve62

    Steve62 Vinyl hunter

    Location:
    Murrumbateman
    Word of Mouth
    This is a step down from the opening song but still a serviceable rocker. I find the simple repetitive riff more annoying than Shouty Ray's presence. But to me they are redeemed by the lyrics and chorus, which I quite like. I wouldn't have chosen this for SNL but I also wouldn't argue with Ray Davies.
    I really don't get the Start Me Up comparison. Maybe if I try really really try hard. Both songs have prominent guitars: that's about it for me. Love Removal Machine, on the other hand. :winkgrin:
     
  4. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Oh my bad then!
     
    mark winstanley and DISKOJOE like this.
  5. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Since I appear to be all alone in seeing this (a mirage?)…here’s The Raspberries. Compare intro-to-intro:
     
  6. Michael Streett

    Michael Streett Senior Member

    Location:
    Florence, SC
    They did. It didn't.

    And just to clear up any confusion about whether Arista stopped or slowed the promotional machinery for the Word Of Mouth album or the singles due to Ray and the band moving to MCA. That timeline doesn't work here. The album was released in Nov 1984 and that report of the MCA talks was not known by Clive Davis or Arista until Nov of 1985. A year later by which time the album, the singles, and the videos had run their course. The report of them signing with MCA (on MTV no less) was premature as the band had not actually signed, but the leak effectively killed any chances the band had of re-signing with Arista. The MCA deal was actually signed in Jan 1986.
     
  7. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Ok I misunderstood your previous post by assuming they hadn't played Do It Again but they Did It Again and as a single It Didn't Again reach the top 40 for the Kinks!
     
  8. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Naming a song "Do It Again" does seem to be a guarantee of quality ... though no doubt there's dozens of terrible songs called "Do It Again" I've never heard.
     
  9. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    Difficult to surpass this lyrical and musical take on the matter. From one of my favorite albums of all time.

     
  10. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    “Word Of Mouth”

    I never noticed the Stones similarities in the riff. It’s there, but the songs have a completely different groove. Has Ray or Dave ever commented on the album cover? Is it some kind of nod or dig at the Stones?

    “Word of Mouth” probably shouldn’t have been the title song or the second track, but it’s a serviceable album track that could have been on any of the last few records. Shouty Ray is kind of annoying me, but he is also making me think of Motörhead and their killer song “Overkill”. “Don’t sweat it, we’ll get it back to you”, sings Lemmy. “The word of mouth, will get right back to you”, sings Ray.

    There are a few songs on this album that are growing on me. I have had a couple of them swimming in my head all through the night. I haven’t decided if that’s a good thing or not. It depends if today will be a “Good Day” or a bad day.
     
  11. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    I always thought of this track as a psychedelized version of the ‘You Really Got Me’ riff.
     
  12. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    Indeed! I never thought about it! At least not in the present slice of consciousness.
     
  13. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    It's really been a while since I read it. My hazy take on much of the material is that many of the contributors used topics like the English class system and Romanticism
    in discussing the Kinks. I'll have to go back and re read it and get back to you.
     
  14. fast'n'bulbous

    fast'n'bulbous tight also

    Location:
    New York, NY
    I just started reading this thread and may never catch up. On a recently-started Rolling Stones thread I posted a flowchart of US vs. UK releases that people seemed to like, so I'll put the equivalent Kinks flowchart here. It's not as interesting as the Stones' picture, and it doesn't say anything Mark doesn't say in words, but it gives a good big-picture overview and is kinda fun. Its focus is the US LPs - where their songs came from, etc. It doesn't list individual tracks or tracks that were non-LP in both markets. Look for the number of tracks on each arrow. Enjoy.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2022
  15. Smiler

    Smiler Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston TX
    "Word of Mouth" - It starts off well, but now that Mark and @markelis have mentioned it, that guitar tone is a bit grating. At first the riff felt Stones-y to me, then I picked up on the similarity to "Start Me Up," but it's not close enough to bother me. A killer bridge would have kicked this up above average, but it seems Ray's bridges are often fairly rote by this point. Lyrically it's OK. Ultimately it's a decent album track that I had hoped would grow on me more. 3/5

    I'm surprised no one has mentioned that Ray's delivery of "Shut your mouth" is like Bowie's in "China Girl" from the previous year!
     
  16. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Cheers mate:righton:
     
  17. Michael Streett

    Michael Streett Senior Member

    Location:
    Florence, SC
    Here's a live version recorded in West Germany late Nov 1984 after the SNL appearance. They were in Frankfurt rehearsing for the US tour starting on Nov 27th and this show was for a West German radio broadcast and filmed for video release. They never toured this song to my knowledge, so apparently just did it live for SNL and this one off concert.

     
  18. donstemple

    donstemple Member of the Club

    Location:
    Maplewood, NJ
    Word of Mouth

    A new song for me, which will be true for all the remaining songs on this album (except Living on a Thin Line). Seems a bit Low Budget to me. I agree with the tone of the riff is too harsh yet also thin at the same time. I don't really hear much of Start Me Up in here. When that was mentioned by some folks is discussing the album, I had to scratch my head and see if I could find something Start Me Uppish in Do It Again, because I didn't associate it with this track after several listens.

    I think I like the SNL performance better than the studio take. This is my least favorite title track so far (which they strangely only started when they started with Arista). It just seems pretty generic as others have stated, and is not as memorable as their other songs.

    I do wonder why this was chosen as the title track. Did the album name come first, and Ray wrote to order? Or did they think so highly of this? I think The Kinks Do It Again would have been a better album title, and would have called back to their other full sentence titles Something Else by the Kinks and of course, The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society.
     
  19. pyrrhicvictory

    pyrrhicvictory Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manhattan
    It was definitely played, and almost nightly, on the Word of Mouth tour, then vanished for good. I have a few boots from that tour with WOM in the set list and I remember it performed at my first ever Kinks concert.
     
  20. Brian Kelly

    Brian Kelly 1964-73 rock's best decade

    Word Of Mouth
    My memory was that this song wasn't very good. In this case, I guess my memory isn't fading. This struggles to be even an average album track. When I think, "gosh this has gone on for about 5 minutes, it must be just about over" and when I check, I see it hasn't even hit the 3 minute mark, that's not a good thing.
     
  21. Michael Streett

    Michael Streett Senior Member

    Location:
    Florence, SC
    Thanks for the correction. I read some setlists and didn't see it listed so those setlists are obviously wrong or incomplete.
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2022
  22. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    Thanks! It's less complicated than I thought. I have to check this Rolling Stones diagram, which must be very helpful indeed. They carried on with the discrepancies until 1967 and I'm totally lost.
     
  23. Brian x

    Brian x the beautiful ones are not yet born

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Word of Mouth

    Yes, it gets a bit monotonous. And, as noted above, it would be nice to have a bridge or something somewhere. And no, I don't see any great call-backs or hidden thematic lyrical threads harking back to RD's preoccupations (except generalized frustration with technology).

    The guitar tone, riff, RD/DD harmonies, and little lead sprinkles all work nicely, but still feel a bit thin to build a title track around.

    Confession: Other than the fabs, I don't really *research* bands, their inner dynamics, or their personal lives. (I have a strange & somewhat obsessive neighbor who literally only reads rock biographies and keeps pressing stuff like Hammer of the Gods and Shakey on me, none of which I've read).

    So, from RD's fey "it's so lovely to be wanted" throw-away on Everybody's In Showbiz and, I guess, just a general feeling that a solid subset of British rock stars were bi-leaning-towards-gay, I had it in my head that RD played for that team.

    And somewhere, from someone, or something I read, or something I assumed -- maybe word of mouth? -- I though that Chrissie Hynde, knowing RD was gay, popped over to have a baby with the greatest songwriter of the '60s, then popped home to drive Thumbalina back to Ohio. Is there any way this assumption was spurred-encouraged-suggested by the contemporary music press/rumor mill? Probably just me being ignorant, but I did relate that theory to a couple of people, so maybe, you know, RD is telling me to shut my face.
     
  24. stewedandkeefed

    stewedandkeefed Came Ashore In The Dead Of The Night

    Chrissie Hynde was certainly living a complicated life at this time. She gave birth in 1983 but when I saw the Pretenders in August of 1984, she was married to Jim Kerr of Simple Minds and was pregnant by him at that time. More recently, she has referred to RD as a thousand times the songwriter she is.
     
  25. donstemple

    donstemple Member of the Club

    Location:
    Maplewood, NJ
    I am so glad that you clarified which Jim Kerr, because here in the NYC metro area, another Jim Kerr has been a longtime morning radio host on WPLJ and more recently Q104 classic rock radio.
     

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