"The Video Shop" Whenever a thread about "songs with dated lyrics" comes up, this one is your starter for ten. Back in the late 80s/early 90s I would visit a video shop on the way home from work most nights to rent a movie to watch that evening. Not so much now... I commented about "Around The Dial" that it was a lot of lyrics about a very narrow subject, and I suppose the same can be said of this one. Perhaps it could have lost one bridge and the odd half verse along the way. I still think this is a great track, though. It sounds like The Kinks. If another band made this track we'd probably comment on how they're trying to sound like The Kinks, so why shouldn't The Kinks do it themselves? A jaunty, almost reggae or calypso beat, a wonderful tune with a few variations, Ray and Dave singing together, some "ooooh" backing vocals, and then the coup de grace - the dynamic drop where the "Lola" resonator guitar comes in gloriously, followed by a few bars of trebly chunky guitar. What more could you want? Well, probably a few less parping 80s synths, but as it's the only track on the album which is really afflicted by this, I'll let them get away with it. The lyrics are amusing and evocative of a truly bygone age. If you want to link this one to a previous track, well this is where the Celluloid Heroes live now - to be rented out for £1.50 from Ray's seedy shop and watched in pan and scan on a 14” telly. I really like this one and I think it's one of the highlights of the album. A great way to end an almost exemplary Side One.
Link for UK folks, for some (presumably copyright related) reason none of the Think Visual youtube links that Mark posts are showing as available here:
Um, this is ok: you could say it sounds like the 'classic Kinks sound' of lighter Britpop, but to me it's more like The Kinks aping Madness aping 60s Kinks but with the quality degrading each generation like the dodgy videos the Spiv peddles in the titular emporium. Which is to say I find it somewhat lacking, I dunno it's just a bit basic and on the nose. It's not like The Kinks of the 80s/90s had entirely lost the capability of hitting the bulleye with material highly rendolent of their 60s prime: there is one track coming up in a few years that I will be gushing (if you'll excuse the phrase) about in that respect.. so this just seems like The Kinks underperforming in a style they used to do effortlessly to me. I wonder if this song will actually age better as the years go on and on, and Video shops become as quaint and old timey in their own way as vanishing village greens or rugby scrums of of the mid 20th century.. ..
Oct 1963 - Nov 1966 - Apr 1967 - Feb 1970 Nov 1970 - Jun 1976 Feb 1977 - Dec 1983 Starstruck promo video/ Days video/ Sunny Afternoon TOTP Oh Tokyo live in 1982 - lyrics Album flow chart Live In Frankfurt in 1984 Nov 1984 Word Of Mouth Do It Again - video - live 84 - live 87 - SNL - interview Word Of Mouth - SNL - live 84 Good Day - live 84 - 12" Living On A Thin Line - live 84 - Dave 2001 - Sopranos Sold Me Out Massive Reductions Guilty - live 89 Too Hot - single Missing Persons Summer's Gone - Full length Going Solo - original album edit The Dave songs up to this point Kompilations part 4 - 1984 The Arista Years Kompilations Part 5 - 1985 extras - 69, 73, 77 Supersonic Rocketship alt mix Celluloid Heroes mono Moving Pictures alt mix Interview Magazines - 2 - 3 - 4 Jul 1985 Return To Waterloo - documentary - Fan Soundtrack - Movie Intro Return To Waterloo - alternate - info - promo video Ladder Of Success - the late mix Going Solo Missing Persons Sold Me Out - original lp mix Lonely Hearts - album version The Good Times Are Gone/Not Far Away Expectations Return To Waterloo/Voices In The Dark - alt mix The Great Lost Kinks Movie -Village Voice 1985 April 1986 Absolute Beginners/Quiet Life June 1986 Come Dancing With The Kinks Kompilations pt 6 - 1986 Ray promoting Think Visual Musician Magazine Interview record EC Rocker Magazine Ray 86 Interview People Magazine Nov 1986 Think Visual Working At The Factory Lost And Found - video - live 87 Repetition Welcome to Sleazy Town - live 89 - Ray Interview with Sue Video Shop Kinks live TOTP 1994 2001 Dave Davies Fragile Violet Dreams Dave Creeping Jean live 2004 2005 Thanksgiving Day Ray live on Conan Obrien Oct 2018 Dave Davies - Decade - interview If You Are Leaving (71) Cradle To The Grace (73) Midnight Sun (73) Mystic Woman (73) The Journey (73) Shadows (73) Web Of Time (75) Mr Moon (75) - Why Islands (78) Give You All My Love (78) Within Each Day (78) Same Old Blues (78) This Precious Time (78) Rob Kopp has made his 1999 Kinks discography 'Down All The days Till 1992' US Chart Stats The Music Industry Machine Mick Avory Pete Quaife - interview - Kast Off Kinks - I Could See It In Your Eyes - Dead End Street Rasa Didzpetris Davies John Dalton John Gosling Jim Rodford Ian Gibbons Andy Pyle Gordon Edwards Clive Davis Bob Henrit
It's interesting that this is the first album it has happened on ... I have had it happen before on threads, but here, so far it is just this album.... perhaps an MCA thing?
Ok, I think this is now the complete run up to 2000, and how we'll lay it out, unless I misunderstood something.... Think Visual - Nov 86 The Kinks Are Well Respected Men - Sep 87 The Road - Jan 88 - You Really Got Me Ray Davies 80 Days - 1988 Greatest Hits - 1989 Ultimate Collection - 1989 UK Jive - Oct 89 - Million Pound Semi Detached Lost And Found (86-89) - 1991 Did Ya (single and EP) - Oct 91 Weird Nightmare 92/93 The Definitive Collection - 1993 A Portrait Of The Kinks - 1993 Phobia - Mar 93 - I've Got Your Number (Dave Demo) - Eternity (Dave Demo) To The Bone - Oct 94 Waterloo Sunset 94 EP - Oct 94 In The Mouth Of Madness first track 95 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame - All Day And All Of The Night Village Of The Damned - John Carpenter/Dave Davies - 1995 To The Bone - recalibrated 1996 - To the Bone (demo) - The Shirt - My Diary - A Rock And Roll Fantasy (live) The Definitive Collection - 1996 You Really Got Me The Very Best Of The Kinks - 1997 The Singles Collection - 1997 Ray Davies Storyteller - 1998 Crystal Radio (dave and russ davies) - purusha and the spiritual planet 1998 Dave Davies - Fortis Green 1999 Dave - Unfinished Business 1999
I haven't much to add in our listen to Think Visual. So far, I reckon it's OK but I'm not thinking I need to find a copy right quick. My overall feel is that it doesn't really sound like a band record. I could easily see this as a Ray solo record where he's throwing songs against the wall to see what sticks. New label and let's see what 80's sounds will crack the charts? I like Sleazy Town as a fun change of pace. It reminds me of Dire Straits as Knopfler was winding the band down with the On Every Street record. I've also enjoyed the smattering of Genesis comments. You never know what you'll get on this thread. Just fantastic stuff!
I don't know how everyone feels about 'Video Shop', but I love it. I love when Ray writes songs that give me a chuckle. Examples: Superman, Low Budget, Jack the Idiot Dunce, Lavinia (sorry, bad spelling), and many more.
The Video Shop The third song on side one to mention ‘the corporation’, this is seemingly another first draft of a lyric that harbors a few clunkers. One line that stands out as being vintage Davies is: See it in the eyes Of all the lonely wives If they’re bored and they feel like a change But one or two inspired lines doth not a song maketh, not in my book. At the back end, there is some Dire Straits style strumming, but all in all it’s an underwhelming song. To think, even late in the game this was being considered as the title track. Here is an extremely awkward Ray, haplessly (and half-heartedly) promoting Think Visual at a video shop (Video Haven) out on Long Island.
This is gold! Ray is indeed awkward but drops some brilliantly acidic comments: Of 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane'.. 'this could be called the life story of Ray and Dave Davies' On beyond trashy mondo exploitation snuff movie 'Faces Of Death' .. 'quite a good film actually'.. er ok then :0 : Faces of Death - Wikipedia Best of all we get his straight from the horses mouth take on Genesis to follow on from yesterdays detour: 'I used to think they were boring, they took themselves too seriously.. but they've never looked better than they do in their latest video..'' cue:
Video Shop: I should like this song a lot more than I do (which is not at all). Again, if you look at the lyrics alone, this isn't far off from Springsteen in working-class mode. (In America, it wouldn't have been an oversea corporation shutting down the factory. It would have been the owners of an American small or big business realizing they could make a small fortune with foreign labor and shutting down the plant. The plant wouldn't get knocked down either. It would sit there forever in disrepair, a hulking, empty vestige of better times. This would really come into play later when NAFTA was enacted in 1994, which was a like a neutron bomb going off in rural white America. You didn't see immediate effects, but now you can see how economically destructive it was.) Stated simply, the song sounds fruity. I can't tell if he was using real horns on this, or they're synethic, or a mix? That's not a good sign since I'm commenting more on slick 80s production effects than the instruments themselves. Normally, Ray adopts a ska/reggae type backing, I'm in (barring "Black Messiah"), but this feels like something you'd hear in the background of the movie Cocktail while Tom Cruise juggles vodka bottles to a cheering crowd of barhoppers dressed like refugees from a Til Tuesday video. In my mind, a good set of lyrics blown on a really bland song. It was at this point in the album that I recall thinking, "Man, things are migrating to a new, lower level with me and one of my cherished bands." Would I have felt the same if I had been a 60s fan and encountered the nutty 70s concept albums? Or a nutty 70s concept album fan who encountered the Arista years? I don't know. And maybe my negative take at the time was based on being fully immersed in the American indie scene and giving short shrift to older/more established recording artists I had worshipped until then. This was not for me - surely the first time I felt that listening to new/real-time Kinks music.
Man, that's one for the time capsule. I kept waiting for the camera to pan over to Randall behind the counter, listlessly reading a local free newspaper, before Jay and Silent Bob walk in, Jay takes one look at Ray and says, "Yo, dude, the gay video section is just behind those swinging saloon doors."
Video Shop: I really wanted to hate this song. A song about Blockbuster Video, how un-rock and roll can you get? Like Too Hot before it (another song I really wanted to hate (a song about working out, how un-rock and roll)), I also ended up loving this silly song. Like Lost and Found, it just wiggled right in to my ear and wouldn’t let go. ...and it has continued springing forth unbidden at random times as I wandered aimlessly through my apartment for several weeks now. I can't critique the music, as Mark noted a fun little ska/rock meld that is just fine. Ray has some funny lines and its catchy! ...but its about a video shop (minus 1/2 a point then). Ray should update this song so its about streaming. Here is my spitball take on that: I've got a bootleg version of Nothing to Say A n unreleased version of Yo Yo I've found them on the dark web so there's no need to pay And there's no guarantee Ray'll ever get my money again From my internet spot My internet spot Whether video or audio, that is the now and the foreseeable future. Guys like us that even understand the concept of an album are becoming dinosaurs and may well be extinct soon. Thank goodness for people like Brian X and Dons Temple (I may be wrong but I think you both are two of the few young 'uns on here that are carrying the torch of the value of things like "side one opener", Side one closer", "b-sides", "cover art" etc.). Oh well, welcome to today's world. At least when I download a song I can go on the internet and get the album art of free, even if its the size of a postage stamp on my computer screen.
‘The Video Shop’: back into The Kinks Caribbean mode, sounding light, sunny and bouncy. This track has a heavy horn presence that I like quite a bit. Harmonies are nice, lyrics (as a given) are well-crafted and clever. I don’t like the song title (and I didn’t like yesterday’s song title, either) and can’t imagine a radio DJ announcing, “and here’s The Kinks with ‘The Video Shop’!” It makes me think of Lollipop! And the chorus gets old really fast, meaning that I’d cut off the ending of the song, trim it down a bit. Still, overall it is a pleasant enough song.
“The Video Shop” to me feels like corporate-think of one of the three types of songs the Kinks are supposed to do: rockers, ballads, and this…a sort of direct lineage from “Sunny Afternoon” up through “Come Dancing.” Thus, it seems too self-consciously an attempt to be a Kinks song rather than something that is inspired. Does that paragraph make sense? I’m not sure. Put another way, I can’t hear this song without hearing the MCA executives telling Ray “….and for the first album for us, give us another “Come Dancing”-type thing.” I just don’t pick up a subliminal enthusiasm underneath it all, as if Ray is just painting a Kinks song to order, based on what he thinks a customer expects a Kinks song to sound like. Talk about working in a factory—this cut is pure product. Actually I wouldn’t mind it if it ran 2:10 instead of (are you kidding me?) 5:15! That’s a lot of padding for what should be a fun, bouncy little number instead of one that has you glancing down at your wristwatch.
The Video Shop I wasn’t sure what to make of this when I first heard it. I was trying to listen with a critical ear as I drove around doing some errands, got distracted by having to concentrate on driving for a second, and when I stopped thinking about the song and just let it in, I grew to like it quite a bit - before the song was even over. I found I was bopping along to it, and quickly got over the idea of it’s dated subject matter. It’s strange to think that the concept of a video rental shop will have to be explained to people growing up with only streaming, but my grown daughters still remember going to the store to rent movies. I love the convenience of streaming, but do have some fond memories of going to browse through the selection at a video rental store. It made movie night more of an adventure. Think Visual is almost turning into a concept album. The factory from the first song has closed, and you can find something to occupy your mind and escape the dull repetition of daily life. Not quite sleazy town, but Ray can even do a swop for the ordinary bored housewives. Wonder what kind of swop he had in mind, Norman.
You put your finger or something I wasn't quite able to but meant to in my post: to me, there's very kind of 80s kind of Black Lace/Status Quo doing 'Marguerita Time' 80s 'light entertainment party time' naffness to 'Video Shop' that stops it from fully convincing me: I don't whether it's the production or arrangement or a combo of both, but it just sounds like bantamweight kids party music. It's hard to say exactly why this is, I mean go back 20 years and 'Tin Soldier Man' is a pretty dinky little tune with a silly lyric and I'm sure sounds like fluff to many, but somehow to me it just cooks as a band performance, it just convinces and has presence in a way 'Video Shop' doesn't.
The Video Shop It's very funny now looking back that in the 1980s this newfangled concept of home video with video tapes and VCRs (and later DVDs) and the money-making prospects thereof were seen as an unlimited goldmine that would produce vast sums of cash for those in the position of providing such services. And it did for a couple of decades. Who knew in the 1980s that this then new technology would become entirely extinct and replaced by more advanced technology in such short order? Exactly no one. In reading some of the comments so far today, it sounds like there may still be video shops in some countries. Well, not in the US, at least not where I'm at. Totally extinct. These were the two dominant chains here back in those days with some appropriate banners showing their eventual fates. Genesis yesterday and I had a feeling that Madness might get the call today and I see that it has, but it's appropriate. There's a lot going on here musically all over this track if you dig into it a little bit: two acoustic guitars, two electric guitars, multiple synths, multiple backing vocals in different locations in the mix, etc. Just a note that all the "horns" you hear on this album (and the previous Return To Waterloo) are synthesizers. No real horns were used. Very busy mix, but I think it works despite the now anachronistic lyrics and subject matter. But again, who knew this then? This was one of the first tracks written and recorded for this album and as has been pointed out in other posts or in Ray's interviews already posted, Ray said this song was going to form the concept of the LP. He was taking the spiv character from the Come Dancing video and putting him in the environment of a video shop to see how he functioned in that era's version of the cruel, modern world where factories are closing and everybody's redundant. This was to be the central theme of the record. Ironic in light of of what eventually happened to this industry itself. Wonder if Ray and his brother Kenny stocked a copy of Return To Waterloo in their shop? No video shops where I lived had it...
The Video Shop I try to be constructive (I really do) and I don’t want to be too critical of songs that a lot of others like. But I have to draw the line at the Video Shop. On the positive side I will concede that it’s catchy, but then again so is the Omicron variant and assorted diseases of the nether regions. The basis of my dislike rests in the time I’ve spent in previous years thinking about economic issues. So I can’t discuss this song without mentioning the elephant in the room, which is the economics of foreign direct investment and urban renewal. (that’s actually two elephants but let’s assume it is one elephant due to the room’s size constraints). I can easily envisage an economic case in favour of paving paradise to put up a parking lot, or for putting a parking lot on a piece of land where the supermarket used to stand, or before that, putting up a bowling alley on the site that used to be the local pally. But I really struggle to draw the same relationship Ray has between a corporation pulling down a factory and him opening up a video shop – even if it’s not on the same piece of land. Entertainment outlets whether they be the old video stores, cinemas or restaurants tend to thrive with economic prosperity, rather than the other way round as Ray would have it. And what is it with overseas corporations being such baddies? Even in the 1980s a trend was emerging for big manufacturers to either set up plants offshore to service export markets or to shift local production offshore in order to service the “home” market. The only overseas corportations investing big in the U.S. in the 1980s were Japanese auto makers trying to get around the Reagan Administration’s trade barriers. And they were employing people. I’ll leave the tangent there. I need to keep some powder dry for the economics of Vietnam Cowboys, which I think are far worse than this. I can’t call the lyrics lazy because Ray has form in misrepresenting industrial decline. But the music I will call lazy because it sounds to me like cod reggage as played by Murph and the Magic Tones. I think I need a Bex and a lie down after this.
Video Shop So contemporary at the time; so long gone now! Or is it? We've got Ray going back to the corporate/outsourcing theme, but in this one, modern (at the time) consumer trends have found the panacea for the corporate doldrums.... the Video Shop! We can just view our troubles away thanks to this modern convenience. But that ubiquitous forward march of technology is exactly what makes this very dated song still have a timeless overarching theme. If you see the theme of the song as escapism rather than the specific method of escapism, you realize we've always done this and are even doing the same thing today, especially because we don’t even have to go to the video shop any more. With Amazon and Netflix (in our house, it's Acorn and BritBox since my wife and I love UK TV), we can just stream whatever we want on demand. Musically, unlike the previous cut, this one really does little for me.... in fact I even find it a little annoying sometimes. Probably a 75% skip. It's so easy for us lazy humans to demand/abuse these conveniences. This discussion has motivated me to get out from behind the keyboard and head out for a big mountain bike ride today..... y'all enjoy your video!
That's likely because the only people that would have hired it in the mid 80's-early 90's (before it was retired from hire) are all on this thread!
"Video Shop": A bouncy, Madness type of tune of a small time enterprising type of guy who opens up a storefront video shop where unemployed people from the shuttered down factory can take their minds off their troubles by renting and watching videos. This song doesn't remind me so much of the Blockbusters than of the mom and pop stores that sprung up back in the 80s. I remember at least 2 that were in Salem. You had to leave a deposit of $50 in order to start renting movies. Now the library where I work has plenty of DVDs that you can take out for free or get from other libraries. This, as well as streaming, has killed off the video shops. It's not a Kinks Klassic by any means, but it's an OK song to me about something that's now in the past. Another rather dated song will crop up in the next album. Finally, for Avid markelis, here's a song by English folk singer Jack Thackray called "La De Da", which is one of my favorite songs about marriage:
