The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

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

  1. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    It's weird how they put 4 songs from Give The People What They Want, which was 6-7 years old already, and only 3 from the last album.
     
  2. The late man

    The late man Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    Living on a Thin Line

    When listening to it yesterday I felt it lacked some energy, but then I listened to the studio version again and it sounded too fast. Now both versions are ruined for me. :mad:
     
  3. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "Cliches Of The World"

    This is a decent version of the track, albeit that snare is very loud and distracting. It's not going to replace the studio version for me, but again I'd be happy hearing this if I was at the gig.

    "Think Visual"

    I'm one of the few who has absolutely no problems at all with the studio version, indeed I'd rate it among my very favourite 80s Kinks tracks. In this instance I wouldn't be happy at having a minute slashed off a song which is only three minutes long to start with - it just feels as though they're getting it out of the way as quickly as possible.
     
  4. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "Living On A Thin Line"

    No "Dave 'Death of a Clown' Davies" intro? A good vocal from Dave - most of the backing vocals from the verse are missing, but Ray joins in on the chorus after the second verse. I presume that's someone else singing the echoing "living on a thin line" vocal? The audio on that YouTube link sounds a little distorted, but this is another decent performance.
     
  5. pyrrhicvictory

    pyrrhicvictory Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manhattan
    Cliches of the World (B Movie) closes side one in workmanlike fashion. We can’t see them, but the ‘dancing girls’ were out working the crowd during this one. Think Visual is a song I despise but it comes over better in a live setting, it’s played looser and it’s inner Tusk really shows in that middle section. Still, this is not a song I want to see on any set list. Dave’s Living on a Thin Line is next. For me, performed live, this song never lived up to its stature on record. It has a studio mystique that can’t quite be replicated in concert. It never helped that Dave frequently messed up his own lyrics. If you listen to that Chicago ‘87 radio broadcast, a great concert which some of us here have listened to, you’ll hear Dave not only miss his cue (seemingly), but also flub one of the first few lines. Lost and Found sounds sturdy here. Ray has mentioned it was pieced together from two different nights, and the edit is easy to notice. I’m still not sure I’ve picked it out.
     
  6. Zack

    Zack Senior Member

    Location:
    Easton, MD
    Pregnant Tension. Good name for a punk band. :edthumbs:
     
  7. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "Lost And Found"

    An OK rendition, but such is my high opinion of Think Visual that any of it played live isn't going to live up to the studio versions that are etched into my brain.

    I think the edit is at 2:56, coming out of the solo into the chorus.
     
  8. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    The next four songs on The Road, if nothing else, Ray’s determination to keep the Kinks as contemporary as he can, at least on record. Indeed, the first song, “Cliches of the World” was one of the most recent experimental songs that they did. “Think Visual” follows, in a half decent manner, followed by “Living On A Thin Line”, Dave’s song of the album and well on its way in being an ultimate Kinks classic. We end up w/“Lost and Found”, which like the previous song, loses a bit of its studio subtlety live but was nice to hear it in concert like I did.

    Speaking of Kinks concerts, I has the exact opposite situation from some of our Avids in that not only that I got to see them in their last year of touring, I also got to see them in the next town over from me, in the North Shore Music Theater in Beverly, MA.That made up for not seeing them in Lynn, MA in 1985.
     
  9. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    I only ever saw The Kinks live once, in 1989. More on that when we get to UK Jive.
     
  10. markelis

    markelis Forum Resident

    Location:
    Miami Beach FL
    I saw them once, in 1982 with Bryan Adams as the opener on the GTPWTW tour. Fantastic show. I can’t recall if it was at the arena in Springfield MA or New Haven CT.

    With respect to these current, live songs, other than Apeman and Destroyer, none of them are catching my fancy that much. I find it surprising since I really love One for the Road and I can find so many other stray live tracks from the kinks that show what a great live band they are.

    It seems to me that Ray must have been pretty annoyed when he was told this album couldn’t be another double live album and decided to self sabotage in an effort to show the record company who is boss. I suspect that if Ray had been a slightly better businessman, the legacy of the Kinks would look very different.
     
  11. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Lost And Found

    I wouldn't be heading to the bar or toilet as I like this track and it's humble charms.
    I enjoy both it's studio and live versions and happily here it is thankfully not abbreviated and is given a suitable playing time.
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2022
  12. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    I’m baffled that such a seasoned veteran of the music biz would continue to concoct these grandiose plans. The second album on a new label? A double live? Promoting the same material on the first album (on the label)? And then try and sabotage it? I can’t imagine the sabotage, by the way. Ray might grouse on stage but he’s not going to deliberately impede The Kinks’ career. (Been there, done that.)
     
  13. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    This is sounding like a soap opera.
     
  14. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    :D (Except in my version it’s veering away from Soap Operaland!)
     
  15. I'm a bit behind in the thread, but just a quick comment on Think Visual. I had the CD in the 80s when it was current, and I liked it well enough. I guess I sold the CD at some point, I can't recall. But listening to the samples in this thread reminded me that I really like this album. I think it gets an unjustified bad rap, at least on this site. Anyway, thanks to this thread, I ordered the CD. I just want to say this album sounds great through headphones, I'm happy to have it back.

    Thanks for indulging me, and thanks to @mark winstanley for this excellent thread. I'll be back for To The Bone (we are doing To The Bone, right?).
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2022
  16. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    It's an interesting discussion...

    To me there is nothing essentially wrong with the performances.
    I don't even think this is a case of self sabotaging....

    I love the opening track, and it is an interesting way to open a live album, but is it the best way.... particularly being a short live album.

    I sort of think the album is slightly misdirected.
    A live album, to me, is a very specific sort of album. Its intent should be to capture the feel of a concert for the listener, and here we have a sort of disjointed feel for the album...... which I think is due in part to opening with a 6 minute studio track.

    I think Ray was trying to keep the band contemporary, and show that "hey, we have all this great new material, we aren't legacy artists yet, but it doesn't quite work as a live album.

    I think this and the live album from Everybody's In Showbiz suffer similar issues, but from different angles. Both are too small a sample from the concert to work properly.
    Showbiz has a disproportionate amount of novelty tracks, that would work well longform, but don't really satisfy in the short form.
    Here we have a batch of good tracks, played well, but once we get passed Destroyer there isn't that much personality tied into it.... it sort of feels like it would be best just to put one of the studio albums on.

    Perhaps, and we'll never know probably, this would have worked as a double live album, or 80 minute cd... sequence it a bit better, and leave some of the personality in, with stage banter and a few more tracks to flesh out the feel of the album, rather than just slotting a series of songs in...
    I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the songs on here, and I actually don't agree with those that say Apeman stands out as a shining star amongst them, it's just the only old song included.
    The song that stands out to me is Destroyer, because they have a bit of fun with it.
     
  17. donstemple

    donstemple Member of the Club

    Location:
    Maplewood, NJ
    Cliches of the World / Think Visual / Living on a Thin Line / Lost and Found

    To me, I don't think any of these really add that much or provide any better experience over listening to the original studio tracks. I liked the studio Think Visual, and I like this one too. But it isn’t much more energetic, or different enough of a live arrangement or an opened up solo, or have anything to really grab me here. I think the difference is that these live tracks use the same synthetic synth sounds as the studio, so it doesn't seem particularly organic and raw like many of the performances on One for the Road did. These sound almost as clean as the studio recordings, and half the songs today are certainly more mellow. This sounds like one of those PBS SoundStage productions that would have legacy bands like Chicago, and sounds completely different from all the other live Kinks LPs. It's hard to explain, but I have tried!
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2022
  18. Michael Streett

    Michael Streett Senior Member

    Location:
    Florence, SC
    I received my copy of "The Road" UK 7" on Saturday and can confirm it is the same alternate edit as on that US promo 12" I posted and yes it has the crowd noise on the end. But this single's picture sleeve uses that alternate West German album sleeve so that's nice to have even if it's redundant from a song standpoint for me.
     
  19. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    Sorry if this has been covered above, but is it known why MCA asked for a live album as The Kinks second release on the label (if that is indeed even what happened?) .. were they hoping for a 'live greatest hits' package to make a quick buck on a signing they didn't have much faith in? If so, they were kind of on a hiding to nothing as the setlist that these shows were drawn from that Mark posted upthread were very light on the oldies, with just YRGM, All Day, WRM and Lola being performed that evening in addition to 'Apeman' which did make the album. And 'I Gotta Move' was the only other Pye era song played! I do appreciate how The Kinks setlists were usually pretty uncompromising in terms of not leaning on the 20 greatest hits everyone knows.
     
  20. sharedon

    sharedon Forum Zonophone

    Location:
    Boomer OK
    Maybe they thought that a new live album would yield them some of the success of the Arista set?
     
  21. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    "Cliches Of the World"- I love that they did this live. Maybe it's for all the people who may have missed it the first time around? They sound great. I prefer the studio version, but this is the type of song that I would love to see live. I like when a band surprises you. I doubt many people in the audience expected this one.

    Here is a live video. Ray's performance with the hand gestures are reminding me of Robert Smith.
     
  22. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    "Think Visual"- I want to hear the new material when I go see a band, so this would have been another tune I would have liked to see live. I have no interest in seeing artists who just play greatest hits tours for 30 years. Waving my hands in the air and singing "Let It Be" with a crowd of people, sounds like a nightmare to me. At this stage of The Kinks, I don't need to hear the big hits live anymore.

    "Living On a Thin Line"- I like this slowed down version. It's different enough from the album version that you can enjoy both for what they are. I'm not sure if this was posted before, but here is a live version.


    "Lost and Found"- It gets a big applause from the audience, so it must have been a concert favorite at the time. This doesn't add anything from the studio version. They are both mellow and lost in a big 80s style ballad. Nice vocal by Ray and it's a song that he seems to enjoy playing. Did this stay in the set list for a few years?
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2022
  23. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Personally that's what I think.
    After the relative disappointment of Think Visual, from a sales perspective, I reckon the record company and the band figured a One For The Road type album would punch them back in.

    I think that's why we get The Road.... the short form version.
     
  24. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    This is great. I love seeing how Ray is right in there as part of the backing group (on vocals, in energy, in showmanship).
     
  25. LX200GPS

    LX200GPS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Somewhere Else
    Clapham Grand March 93 and Shepherds Bush Empire Nov 94 were my last two outings. Great shows they were too. After that I went to see Ray's Storyteller at RFH and an appearance at Kenwood House one summer during an amazing thunderstorm in June 2009 (rainy day in June).

    RAY DAVIES: Looking forward to Kenwood
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2022

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