The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

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

  1. Steve62

    Steve62 Vinyl hunter

    Location:
    Murrumbateman
    I have a copy of 80 Days and plenty of blank CDRs for a big backup project I've been doing. I'm happy to send free copies to Australian addresses - send me a PM if interested. I'd offer international too but I've found international postage from Australia is slow these days. Small packages can take a few weeks.
     
  2. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    "Long Lonely Road"

    The epic album closer that never was...except on outtake compilations - twice! It sounds a lot more like a product of the 70s than the 80s, and it's a bit of a chore to get through. After hearing Dave's excellent vocal on "When You Were A Child", hearing some of these strangled vocals again is unfortunate. Musically it wouldn't be a bad soundtrack to a car journey, but not for headphone listening.
     
  3. markelis

    markelis Forum Resident

    Location:
    Miami Beach FL
    Hope:

    I liked this on the first few background listens, but once I paid attention, it just seemed long and tedious and repetitive. The chorus was worthy, but it just dragged on overall. As has happened with Ray and the band as a whole, Dave has song creep. What used to be expressed as a complete thought in 2-3 minutes max now takes 4 to 5 minutes. With Ray in the (lyrical) driver seat, it works generally, but with Dave writing oblique lyrics that don't usually resonate as much (with me, in these songs anyway, which is not the case with me for his Kinks songs [Ray must exercise quality control there]), and with no backing band to add ideas and flesh the longer running time out, the length is an impediment to me. Most of these songs would have held my attention more at half the length.

    Once again, maybe Smiler can help?
     
  4. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    It had taken me 24 hours to catch up and now with workload and the following scenario everything is at least momentarily on the backburner.

    Today we had builders come in to remove the internal basement walls, guaranteeing to keep the house secured as we finally begin to address the flooding from months ago.

    The trouble is that one wall they took out had no external wall which they apparently failed to notice or inform me of and as I worked unusually late I discovered this at 9pm so spent 90 minutes in a ramshackle attempt to secure the property from weather, snakes or intruders.
    Of course speaking with the insurance company at this time of night was less than useless and from what they told me tonight tomorrow may not be too much better.

    [​IMG]
     
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  5. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I hope this can get resolved sooner than later mate. I know how frustrating stuff like this can be.
     
  6. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    That stinks, especially the part where you come home from a hard day’s night, erm, work and you have to exert yourself. So in the piccy, there’s a hole behind the plastic?
     
  7. Martyj

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

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    That's an unfortunately spot-on way to phrase it. Somewhere there is a bootleg tape of an 'unreleaseable' one-man performance Groucho filmed around 1973-ish, when he was in his early 80's and clearly off his game. It was an intended TV special but was shelved out of respect for The Great Man when it was obvious it would only embarrass his legacy. I really, really, really don't want Ray to suffer the indignity of a possible similar fate.

    BTW, sorry I missed the LeMan talk. Love that Gulf-sponsored Porsche 917. Had the poster on my bedroom wall as a boy.

    Anyway, didn't mean to derail today's focus on Dave...
     
  8. Martyj

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

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    Ugh. Sorry to hear about the basement problems. I had a similar flood about 5 years ago which destroyed a significant amount of my book and magazine collection...including almost all the carefully clipped Kinks reviews/interviews from Rolling Stone, Trouser Press, Creem, etc. (which--fortunatley--have been reposted in this thread)
     
    Wondergirl, Steve62, Smiler and 5 others like this.
  9. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Yes the entire area I guess about 8m x 1.2m.
     
    DISKOJOE and mark winstanley like this.
  10. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Thanks for that.
    Yes I have lost or at least had some music memorabilia depreciate due to the flood also.
     
  11. All Down The Line

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

    Location:
    Australia
    Cheers Mark.
    It will all be fixed one day however the Insurance wash up is looking like this:

    1. Building: Covered
    2. Contents: Covered
    3. Engineering Report with required trenches, drainage points, channels & various labour intensive recommendations

    We are hoping that 2 covers 3 and a bit more but not holding our breaths that we may need to raid the piggy bank!
     
  12. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    "Hope" means nothing without a song. I gave it a chance, and hoped I would love it, but it means nothing to me. I plan on never listening to it again.

    "Long Lonely Road"- I didn't have anything positive to say about this song the first time around. Four months later and my feelings have not changed. Sorry Dave. I don't mind the disco style groove, but the vocal is like nails on a chalkboard.
     
  13. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    Look what just came out today:

     
  14. Fischman

    Fischman RockMonster, ClassicalMaster, and JazzMeister

    Location:
    New Mexico
    Hope
    The harsh artificial percussion intro (and throughout the song) is an immediate turn off.

    I get, and appreciate, the sentiment, even if the lyrics are a bit weak. But hey, the line "Dream, means nothing without a plan" alone makes this song more insightful and relevant than Imagine.
     
  15. Brian x

    Brian x the beautiful ones are not yet born

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Woah, is this a remix? An official release? Does it.... portend something?

    PS. Nothing new or nice to say about the DD offerings today -- a "soft pass," as they say in the biz..
     
  16. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I assume it's part of the promo for the new box?
     
  17. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    How Are You?

    I've heard this song a bit over the last few years because of it being a single off the album with a video so it pops up on youtube.

    I've tried, oh how I've tried, to love this song, but it just doesn't hit me in the right way. I think the lyrics are poignant, but that doesn't save it.

    I don't like the, would you call it, the 80s production? I don't like the synth/keyboard work at all. The echoes of the Ray's vocals are irritating.

    I'd call it bland. Sorry Ray! xo
     
  18. DISKOJOE

    DISKOJOE Boredom That You Can Afford!

    Location:
    Salem, MA
    You assumed correctly, sir
     
  19. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    So I gave my take on How Are You? and am now reading your thoughts on this song and I'm a little surprised that it is so well liked.
    huh.
     
  20. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Think Visual
    I like the opening a lot. but then the lyrics begin and I'm hearing "productivity" and "profitability" and my eyes (or is it my ears?) glaze over. I feel like Ray has tackled this topic a little better in the past, lyrically.

    But I do like the music so that can go a long way with me. There's some good drums and guitar work and the way "Think visual" is sung in a lower register is appealing to me. It's got a lot of good energy - which I prefer to the slower previous song.
     
  21. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Natural Gift
    From the opening notes, I'm pretty much a pass on this one. I'm hearing all sorts of steals from like Duran Duran (bass) and INXS, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the Cars perhaps...but just not rising to where the Kinks are doing a song that's any better than these groups could put out.

    It sounds like this should have been on a soundtrack for some bad 80s TV movie or a commercial.

    I don't think I'd need to re-visit this song any time soon.
     
  22. donstemple

    donstemple Member of the Club

    Location:
    Maplewood, NJ
    Hope
    Don't like the overtly artificial drum machine. The chorus is ok, but also can't really get passed the demo quality of the whole sound. Won't go back to this one.

    Long Lonely Road
    Wasn't a huge fan of this one originally. The groove isn't terrible, but Dave's vocal irritates me on this one. Some of the bass grooves reminds me of the Rolling Stones Anybody Seen My Baby off Bridges to Babylon (1997). Musically, there are some good parts, especially as it comes out of that slow half-time feel back into the funky bass groove of the last minute.
     
  23. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    Lloyd Cole! yes, good catch!
     
  24. Wondergirl

    Wondergirl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts, USA
    :agree::laugh:

    I feel this!
     
  25. Steve62

    Steve62 Vinyl hunter

    Location:
    Murrumbateman
    Wow! Is that video entirely new? I'm particularly struck by the way footage of Ray and the band - including Ray swigging from a bottle of what looks like spirits - is interspersed with footage of Hollywood and some of the people referenced in the lyrics. It's as if Ray is telling us that this song was as much about the Kinks as it was about movie stars - something I totally missed when we were discussing Celluloid Heroes.
     

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