I admit that's undoubtedly what I was unconsciously paraphrasing in my post. The 80s are a very interesting decade for the surviving 60s artists, because they start the decade still as contemporary hitmakers, (McCartney, Stones, Who Kinks etc all still having proper pop hits) but they end the decade perceived/rebranded as heritage figures for an older, middle aged audience (1989 being the first big year of that kind of self conscious 'their best since...' type of silver age coffee table stuff like Oh Mercy, Flowers In The Dirt Steel Wheels kinda thang) .. so what happens in the middle? A very painful and awkward transition for most, not made any smoother by the rapidly evolving production trends of the time.
Think Visual I remember playing this album quite a bit when it came out but not all the songs have stuck in my head, which suggests I skipped a few tracks. The ones I do remember well - Lost and Found, How Are You, Natural Gift, Working At The Factory - all still leave a positive impression on me. Unlike The Video Shop, which I look forward to panning at the appropriate time.
This is a great comment. @pyrrhicvictory has already noted the lyrics issues with many of these artists in that transition period. It's like growing pains I guess. They are trying to keep growing as contemporary artists. But the more they try, the more fans and critics compare their new music and lyrics unfavourably to their glory years.
Think Visual Chanced upon a used CD of this about 20 years ago so welcomed it to the fray as i had recently began amassing a "see-de" Kinks Kollection. It sounded very clean & not overly produced (or memorable lyrically) it was just a pleasant play that nothing stood out from and remained just a bit vanilla for me. Now I had no intention to sell or dump it but in 2009 I met Dave's old friend Lindy who was unspeakably kind to me when i was very low so one thing appropriate that I did (following on from learning of her friendship with Dave and love of their music) was give her my CD's of Sleepwalker & Think Visual. Interestingly she had never heard of the latter title but was intrigued to give it a listen. Fast forward a decade and i re-bought the title on vinyl as i had intended to some day. The song that I first liked was Lost And Found which has a neat little melody and quiet charm and whilst some others don't appeal to me i have very recently realised that there sure are some 60's musical links at work here. I am finally hearing Ray lucidly borrowing here and mostly from the rich fields of his youthful self so who said his preservation society was dead?
The Kinks left Arista and went to MCA for the most basic of reasons: MCA offered the most money. The proposed deal was prematurely announced by MTV before Arista could make a counteroffer. As a lot of Avids know through sports, just because a team or label offers more money, it doesn’t mean that it’s a better fit than the previous one. Ray was hoping that MCA would finance some of his video ideas, given its corporate reach, but he was disabused of that notion from the very first. The Kinks no longer had someone like Clive Davis behind them and Ray complained about that at a few concerts, as documented in Doug Hinman’s book. Another problem for the Kinks at this time, which the other Avids have pointed out, was that Ray felt dried up for inspiration and that the Kinks were on the verge of collapse. What Ray did was to schedule a short Spanish tour that apparently restored morale in the ranks. He was able to cobble together an album to start the MCA deal, which was Think Visual. Again, as the other Avids have stated, one of the main problems w/Think Visual is the cover art. You would expect the first album under a new label to have artwork that would “pop out” of the racks or at least be attractive enough to get positive attention. Instead, we get this solid black cover w/lettering taken from Jon Savage’s authorized biography w/a muscular women in the front and a small picture of Ray taken through a lens smeared w/butter. It would have been an improvement to use that cassette cover and just put a TV around the group photo. As for the album itself, there are several good to almost great songs on it, even one from Dave, but nothing that really stands out, which you really need to start out on a new label like the Everly Brothers’ “Cathy’s Clown” or Green by R.E.M.
Halfway through and I can see why this was in the cut-out bins (I think I read that upthread). Though I’m tapping my toe right at this moment to the one track that Mark said he was having issues with. The best track so far!
This time period would be when I was living in Tokyo, working in Shibuya (the 5-way crossing that always gets shown…and was referenced in Anthony Bourdain’s first book (causing me, for the first time in this book lover’s life, to toss a book in the trash), up Dogen-zaka. At lunch I’d frequent a place that had an album menu that customer’s could pick from and, in turn, one side would be played in full. I can distinctly recall listening to Neil Young’s ‘Landing On Water’ there (an act I’ve yet to recover from), The Waterboys, Jason & the Scorchers, Beat Farmers and Long Ryders. Fond memories (at least of lunch!). I guess I can’t imagine being enamored with this Kinks release, per my initial impression.
Yeah, there's a noticeable change in tone since the Return to Waterloo documentary. The clip of young woman and the hip veejay goofing around and sharing a sardonic laugh about how they missed those theatrical Kinks shows in the 70's was telling. But in time they, and MTV itself would grow old and irrelevant; as do we all.
Think Visual The album that I would always see in the dollar bin at the record store. I never bought it, and now I can't find it anymore! Along with Phobia, it's the only album I need to complete the studio album discography. The album cover always turned me off. Yikes! What were they thinking? Surely, they weren't thinking visual! I also felt the same way about Return To Waterloo, and I was completely wrong about that one! I downloaded this album soon after this thread started. I have been listening to it on and off for the last few months. My first reaction was that it wasn't nearly as bad as the album cover suggests. I was relieved! What's odd is that most of it sounds many years away from the last album. It doesn't have as much of the typical 80s sound. It still exists on this album, but it feels like the start of a new era. It's the beginning of a style that Ray has continued with throughout the rest of his career. There are songs on here that wouldn't be out of place on his next two solo albums. That's not necessarily a good thing, because I find a lot of the production to be on the safe and dull side. I can imagine many fans in 1986 thinking the same thing. My main problem is that it doesn't have any major stand outs like the last few albums, but it also doesn't have too many low points either. It's just a pleasant album that neither excites me or horrifies me. There are several good songs, but are they top notch Kinks? I guess we will find out! Going through these albums on this thread usually makes me appreciate songs more. We will now be living with this album for the next couple of weeks. I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on it. I wish I could play it loud on my turntable right now. I may have to resort to Discogs and pick up a copy, but that's not as fun as stumbling upon it at a local record store. With a different album cover and a different single it could have been a much more popular album. "Rock n Roll Cities" with "Welcome To Sleazy Town" as the first single is insanity! It has to be the worst lead off single in Kinks history. At least they quickly followed it up with "How Are You" with the B side "Killing Time". That is a much more appropriate lead single.
Think Visual: I had not heard this album, or any of the tracks from it, until a few weeks ago. I don’t recall hearing anything from the album on FM radio at the time of the release except for Rock and Roll Cities and then only once or twice. Clearly I was not favorably impressed enough by R&RC at the time to buy the album. I will leave deeper analysis of my thoughts on the album until after we do the song-by-song, but I will say I think it is a very solid album. Sneak Peak though: I am going to give very high marks to the song everyone seems to have hated on. Just because something is just a dumb rocker doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its place. I have no issue with the album cover, I’d call it better than average (and thus above average for a Kinks album cover).
Think Visual In the mid-80’s I was going through that phase one encounters in life (normally between ages mid-20's to mid-30's) where one evolves from a carefree, irresponsible young adult to an actual grown up, with grown up responsibilities and behaviors. My outlook on many things changed, including my tastes in music. Yes, I continued to amass older stuff for my collection (I went through a Fats Domino/Lee Dorsey/New Orleans phase around then) but I had gravitated towards the Indie scene, immersing myself in new discoveries. I think They Might Be Giants had just entered the picture. And The Dead Milkmen, too. Circa 1986, this was the music that scratched me where I itched. The release of a new Kinks album was met with a shrug and a yawn. This was surprising considering how much the band meant to me throughout the Arista years. But if I was honest with myself, the Arista Kinks had offered up a type of music that was at odds with where my proclivities lay. Mind you I was (and remain) a Kinks partisan, so now with the band on a new label, when I first saw that underwhelming cover in a record store while in route home from a vacation, buying it was an obligation that I didn't question. I dunno…I lived with an undying hope right up to those final studio cuts on "To The Bone" that somehow—magically—new music from Ray and co. would reconnect with me as much as the older stuff had. So what do I make of Think Visual? I like the first two songs well enough, a promising start to the disc. Then…meh…the LP just sort of loses my interest. I have a hard time remembering some of these tracks, among them some of the least distinguishable cuts of their careers. That was then, however. My ever expanding tastes in music allow me to appreciate things today that I didn’t 30 or 40 years ago. I have replayed Think Visual many times over the years hoping to detect some sort of under-appreciated worthiness that has been hiding in plain sight. I’ll see if the upcoming discussions can point me towards them. I respect Fortuleo’s take on things, and he certainly finds merits in this LP. Still…even if I do elevate this work in esteem…I don’t see any scenario where it still doesn’t rank among the bottom 3 Kinks album—such is the strength of everything else they offered the world.
The opinions @Martyj and @palisantrancho have just posted, along with the manner in which they expressed them, are so similar to my inner monologues on the subject that I’m currently looking over my shoulder.
Think Visual Only have listened to this the last couple weeks a few times. A few valleys, but overall a nice pop/rock record with some great songs. I see and hear the 60s feel of some of the melodies and backing vocals. Looking forward to the song by song! On a side note, today we visited this windmill in Chatham, MA. Originally built in 1797, it still occasionally mills corn. It last did so on Memorial Day. Anyway, to bring this to the Kinks, this sign is out front. It didn’t say which Act, though.
I was eating my paisley on a daily basis in 1986. I wore that Dead Milkmen cassette out. I still love that album and band. The debut by They Might Be Giants was also one of the first records I bought with my paper route money. Both albums made my list on the recent thread 1986...in 10 songs
Despite not really being a fan of this album, I have 12 » singles for How are You, and Lost and Found which apparently has a Ray interview on thé b-side. Wonder if it’s on YouTube.
