Seven songs ranked number 1 that missed the Top 40 I meant to post the names of these songs before now. I think most have been mentioned by the people who ranked them in first place. For completeness, here are the seven songs: No More Looking Back Stop Your Sobbing Moments Education How Are You Live Life Wicked Annabella
That is our top 20 from the first 'big list'. It will be interesting to see how/if it changes in the second 40.
I thought I asked nicely… I concur. And will add: Moments: @palisantrancho How Are You: @ARL No More Looking Back: @donstemple ? It's interesting, seeing this 7 tracks listed has made me rethink my new Top 40. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so I might add some of those songs to my list to help them being represented. In fact, I just did. Yes, I'm soft and sentimental that way… On a related (?) note, I've just realized No More Looking Back's enormous riff is extremely close (almost identical) to the little piano gimmick that opens… Apeman ! Out of all the musical cues Ray and Dave borrowed from one song to make good use in another, this is perhaps the most surprising of all. I would've never noticed it if the Kinks' music wasn't running through my brain… constantly, especially at night, where it has become a Tetris-level cerebral obsession. The difference: back in the day, it made me stop playing Tetris. No way is it going to make me stop playing the Kinks music anytime soon!
I find myself referring (tapping into?) these albums all the time as the characters are larger than life. ‘Shepherds of the Nation’ with Mr. Black and The Do-Gooders. Flash, the developer, becoming a political force…. Yes, brilliant.
Ding ding ding! I have been obsessed with No More Looking Back ever since I first heard it when I went through Schoolboys in Disgrace about a week or so before we covered it on the thread (gotta do the homework!). I remember I was in the car, on an errand to pick up some worms for our pet axolotl. I remember the first notes of Schooldays and loved the throwback 50s/blues, and when almost reaching the store, I remember thinking “Hey that’s the He’s Evil chords!” during Education. Then on my way home, I was about a 2 minutes from my house when No More Looking Back began. That smooth intro… that epic twin guitar riff… Ray’s incredible cinematic verse lyrics… the heartbreaking lyrics of the other section of the song (it’s more than a bridge…)… The structure of the song fascinates me to no end. And then how the horns go crazy near the end, but I think they are also basically playing the similar background rhythm guitar that Dave plays underneath the first verse. I had to stay in the driveway for a few minutes to let the song finish. Hooked by the hooks ever since. Although I must admit that for my next top 40, I may flip this one with my #2 (I’m sure you can figure out what that is), because ever since I hit “submit” on my top 40, I sorta regretted the order of my top 2. It was a point in time, and unfortunately I am indeed looking back.
Guilty as charged. As I've previously stated, I think Think Visual is the perfect merger of 60s and 80s Kinks, and "How Are You" is the pinnacle of the album. It has everything I want from a Kinks song.
That is a really good song. Had to go back and give it another listen. Sounds to me like something Chrissie Hynde would cover nicely.
20 songs from the Loveless list that would still make for a great playlist for me (and there are many others I like). Only 3 of those are on my alternate top 40 though. Definite Maybe Don't Going Solo Gotta Get the First Plane Home Groovy Movies Guilty Hay Fever He's Evil Just Friends Killing Time Missing Persons Nothing to Say Permanent Waves Pressure Sleepless Night So Mystifying Sold Me Out Welcome to Sleazy Town What's in Store for Me You Don't Know My Name (Dave Davies)
It's been more fun to compile the second list, I have to say. I can't wait to see what the konsensus is.
I looked again at The Loveless after reading your post. ‘Hatred’? Unloved?! A travesty. And I’m truly shocked. It was a last day drop for me that I regretted almost immediately. And, actually, would have been my only selection post-1975.
It's just so difficult... I have songs I love all the way down to 176. When I went through my album scores, I noticed songs I love that missed the list. I think this is a fun and worthwhile exercise on the large scale, collating all the thread opinions, but on an individual level it is somewhat an exercise of futility...
I swear I'm not being kontrarian here, on the kontrary rolleyes I'm willing to strengthen your point! Here's 10 more big personal favorites that you didn't rescue from the loveless list: Have Another Drink (yet another another fantastic "drunken" singalong) Here Come the People in Grey (boogie blues Kinks at their best) Introduction to Solution (super exciting guitar/electric piano/drums intro) Jack the Idiot Dunce (dumb "hop" rocker with many Ray voices, just a bundle of fun) Maximum Consumption (a wonderful piece of Nilsson meets Elton meets Harrison nonsense) Monica (a song that sounds like drinking a great fruit cocktail while Monica Vitti's dancing on a cabaret stage) Ordinary People (probably their most irresistible doo-wop pastiche) Out of the Wardrobe ("She looks liiike a princeeeeess"… the song that could've single-handedly invented theTraveling Wilburys) Uncle Son (somewhere between the You Gotta Move Stones and the Basement Tapes Bob & Band) You Shouldn't Be Sad (one of their best "girls group" attempts, great chords, infectious syncopated stop'n start stuff, somewhere between Tell Me Why B*****s and early Zombies)
I'm assuming that the five "Announcements" would have been on the Loveless list as well? Who wants to be the ultimate kontrarian and put one of them on their second list?
No. I didn't even take the announcements into consideration when I counted the tracks for Pres II lol
