This would be in my list of 10 favourite albums, and the SDE is IMO the best box devoted to a single album (Prince SOTT gets close!). Individually the songs are great, and they work even better together as an album. My first exposure to it was the 3 CD version, so for me the other tracks of the period have always been part of the experience.
Well, here we are... My journey with this album started at the Rainham Record Fair back in... 2011? Maybe late 2010? I picked up the PRT Stereo LP for £15, and the Sancturary CD (with the 12 track as a bonus) for £5. I went home and played it on my player, which at the time was an automatic 70s suitcase turntable, and loved it immediately. I remember the gentleman that sold me the CD highlighting the great melodic side of the album, notably the title cut and Picture Book, and I certainly had to agree with him. From that day forward, I've always loved the album. That PRT copy is now long gone, but I do have the 2LP splatter pressing, the mono box LP, the 50th anniversary set, and that original Sancturary CD to keep in the car for fun. While I would never argue this album is wholly perfect, the concept certainly is, and I would only truly fault the album in it not being the budget-priced 20-track double LP Ray had planned. Why this has never had an RSD release with an altered and expanded mono track listing, I'll never know. Misty Water, Rosemary Rose, Berkeley Mews, Lavender Hill, Mr. Songbird, Days... they all deserve to be here (and at least we have a version where those last two are). At least an LP/10 with all the non-LP tracks would be a glorious release. As for the SDE, while it has its flaws (slightly out of sync remixes, edited demos, strangely small booklet for all the most important info), the good is just unending, and it's an absolutely joy to listen to. The remaster is wonderful and crisp, and that remix of Last of The Steam Powered Trains? To die for. Disc 5 has the biggest gems of the all, especially the 'Vocals and Guitar' mix of Picture Book. Making the Mixology episode on this album was a huge amount of fun, with some really fun differences (that damn tambourine!) that I had never really noticed before taking the deepest of dives. Give it a listen if you fancy: The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks I know what LP I'm going to be spinning this afternoon...
This image is a recent bit of fan art unfortunately.. not something that was ever on an official release. Shame because (and this is maybe me showing how basic I am in wanting a more literal album cover) imo it's a lot more appropriate than the real sleeve. I remember reading about the album as their big late 60s opus before I'd heard it or seen it in the wild, and imagining it having this kind of 'Sgt Peppers but more pastoral' bandstand album cover.. whatever it would be, clearly this was a Big Deal album so you'd think it would have some kind of Pepper-esque bells and whistles album sleeve to convey that.. and then I saw the actual album cover, and I was like 'THAT'S IT???!!!!' While I've learnt to appreciate it (the way Kinks lovers do haha) over the years because like it or not it just is the original cover image of this classic album and always will be, I'm still really puzzled by the 'big black void surrounded by concentric circles' motif and what the heck it has to do with the album theme. Kinda hazy, and vaguely suggestive of the 'fading memories of the Village Green being eaten up by entropy' perhaps? Hmm, maybe, but it's a stretch I'd say. Tbh on first glance it looks like they're under a protective bubble on Mars or something. And that microscopic album title writing. The back cover is a LOT better, and even the gatefold gets the hazy vibe across better. But that cover image will always make me scratch my head.
There Is No Life Without Love I find this quite pleasant, the vocal, melody, musical backing & lyric. In fact it is far from my least favorite Dave Davies composition from this era!
Judging from the first posts, it’s gonna be a fascinating journey with this record on this thread, because its lack of success and rather obscure original status means we’ll all have a very different personal history with it… Myself, I’d spent most of my teenage years rebelling against the tyranny of the rebel stance in rock. It’s not that I couldn’t enjoy edgy visceral stuff (I did) but I couldn’t go along with the critic’s obsession that artists needed to be dark, aggressive, dangerous and/or (self)destructive in order to be any good, and that the rest was lightweight pop. And then, I bought Lola and The Village Green Preservation Society (1989 I think), my first Kinks records. I had heard about Lola (because of, well… Lola). But I’d never read anything about Village Green, nor heard any of its songs (I bought at least two rock magazines every month but this record had all but vanished from their pages and from popular culture at least in France at that point). I bought it because it was among the first batch of Kinks CD reissues and because whenever possible, I’d always picked the 1968 stuff as an introduction to any artist (a good trick if there ever was one). Anyway, it was like I’d waited for this record my entire life. This was so triumphantly “uncool” in such a wonderful deliberate way, that it sounded like the coolest record ever, at least for me, a kind of acknowledgement of my own frustration towards what was validated or not in rock. A manifesto for my taste, if you will. The very same LP that had not been validated by the rock press, or by rock History, now validated me. I was so proud to love it and understand it and feel it in such a deep way, and I still am to this day. If only because of that, this has proven to be one of the most significant records in my life, a bit in the same way as Ram, Sunflower, Odessey and Oracle, The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark, Bee Gees 1st, and a few other buoyant melodic masterpieces that were criminally overlooked up until the mid to late 90’s.
I totally understand this perspective. I've never been one to be too bothered about album covers, but certainly some catch your eye over the years. It kind of seems like here they were going with simplicity, to match the more simple times reflected in the songs.... and that haze, is like the misty haze of memory or something. I had never seen that other picture before, and I really liked it.
I know I am guilty of this on this thread, but referring to this simply as “VGPS” is an insult to this album. and it’s not just “Village Green Preservation Society” — it’s “The Kinks *are* the Village Green Preservation Society”. They went there, they formed the society, they are the society, and now they are telling all about it. Ray is fully committed. The culmination of over 2 years of thoughts in his head, starting with “Village Green” in late 1966. we’ll get to the songs, but to me, none of these songs could possibly live anywhere else. They are such a specific thing about this album. I think there’s a common tonality to the recording, the tone of Pete’s bass, the recording quality of it all. I wish it was maybe a bit cleaner? But it just all works together as a whole. Could a song be swapped in and out? Sure, but that would just be a different perfection. Any way you put these themed songs together is it’s own perfection. some of these songs aren’t even in my mind as normal songs. They are feelings, places, poetry, a grassy hill with a bench near an old oak tree, overlooking a stream that runs behind a church with a white steeple. this album is so in my being, much like Pet Sounds, that the individual songs can only belong in this particular collection of songs and, to me, are so unlike any songs from the albums that came before or the albums to come after. I first heard this album probably about 20 years ago. I don’t even remember how I stumbled upon it. I think I listened to it repeatedly. It boggles my mind that it only hit 100,000 sales in 2018. My goodness. Practically the entire world is missing out on this life changing album. It’s at that pinnacle for me (along with a few others) that I couldn’t imagine it not being there in my life. looking forward to reading everyone’s thoughts on this today!
Spot on. It is almost like an aural picture of what nostalgia is, and why it's important. Nicely put mate
The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society Almost perfect. When I decided to get into The Kinks after only owning The Essential Kinks for awhile the first two I bought were this one and Something Else By...and they are still my top Kinks' albums and both are probably in my top 30 favorite albums of all time if I bothered with lists like that. Problem with me is that I'd have 300 albums in my top 50. I like/love too many albums almost identically. Ok, back to VGPS. It was as if Ray and the band were created just to make this album. If they'd have laid down their instruments and never recorded another note (which I'm exceedingly glad they didn't do) we would still be talking about this album today. Although it's not my personal favorite I do believe that this is their "immaculate" album. Everything fits like it was put their by one of the old gods who are omniscient. Something Else By...might have revved up my interest in the band but this album made me realize just how special they were, especially between 1966-1971. Don't get me wrong, I am a stalwart defender of the Arista "stadium rock" albums too. But as much as I dig them these years were special. Anyone who's ever asked me about The Kinks, which has only been 2 buy it's weird that it happened twice, I tell them to listen to this album. As an album. Not on shuffle on your damn Spotify. Though the sales had to be a huge disappointment I'm sure the band knew they made something unique and beautiful. I hope they understood that anyway. Ok, I could sing this album's praises all day but I'll stop now. I personally think this is one of several peaks of the band but it's definitely the highest peak.
I didn't even know about 8track until I came to the US, but from what I can gather they were always odd in sequencing. Something to do with timing, I think
Well that didn't take long... I know my discussion fell into a little bit patch work, but I'm looking forward to digging right in for this album.
I'll say up front that a) it's a great album, b) it's not my favourite Kinks album. A situation I'm coming up against more often now is "albums that I've owned a long time and considered fine albums but not the artists' best, but which are latterly being hailed as the artists' masterpiece". I first heard most of this album scattered about the Golden Hour Vol 3 double set, and I bought a copy of the album proper at the same time as most of the others in 1987. It's a terrific collection of songs that pulls off a variety of styles and moods, which most bands could only dream of making. But as an overall experience I prefer Something Else and Arthur (and Think Visual, but that's an argument for a long way down the line!) I've never really bought into the overall concept of the album - there's obviously a theme of nostalgia running through several of the tracks, but that's the case for most of Ray's other work over this period. One thing I will say - I've always been a little disappointed with the sound quality of my copy (a PRT reissue on the green/red label) but having now played that same copy with my current cartridge it sounds great - all the sibilance has gone and I've heard things in the mix that I've not heard before. So perhaps my best years with this album are still to come. Why have I not bought any of the super deluxe editions? I just don't think I'd have the time these days to spend absorbing all the extra material. So there will be quite a few tracks I'll be hearing for the first time as we go through the extras. Going back to the start of the last paragraph - see also Imperial Bedroom, Skylarking, Kid A... Reading some of the other comments, and thinking about it now - maybe if I had bought the album having never heard any of it before, I would feel completely different about it. Perhaps being exposed to all of it (except "Monica") on Golden Hour Vol 3 first of all was too much of a spoiler? Mine cost me £2.50 in 1987.
Forgive my random thought arrangements, but that's probably going to happen today and @ARL triggered this one.... This album, in spite of its commercial failure continues to resonate in the bands catalog for years.... Arthur, the Preservation albums, even up to Come Dancing..... I think it shows Ray's singular musical vision, that in spite of this album being a commercial flop, Ray didn't run away from who he was, and what he wanted to say, as it seems most artists tend to.
The songs will have been re-arranged so the ‘bands’ of the 8 track have similar playing lengths and dead air is minimised. More common than not with 8 tracks!
Mark - you occasionally downplay your writing talents but this brilliantly encapsulates how I feel about this album too. I got into the Kinks via the Golden Hour cassette in the late 1970s but I just sat on that for a while while I discovered heavy music like Sabbath and Zeppelin. I'm pretty sure it was a live video of them playing Superman that put them back on my radar and not long after that I saw TKATVGPS while browsing in Rocking Horse Records in Brisbane - which also stocked a lot of edgy/indie stuff. The cover looked intriguing so I bought it and I was pretty quickly caught up in the music because Ray did such a great job in this album of painting pictures with his lyrics. I couldn't agree more. The theme is the glue that holds this album together. It is one of those albums (Sgt Peppers is another example) where the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.
For me, the best is the back and white cover used on the Swedish 12-track LP. Very visually pleasing.
Pete Townshend wrote a beautiful essay for book included in the 50th anniversary box set called Village Green - England: The Kinks' Arcadian Vision. I couldn't find a transcription online so I'll just copy a few excerpts for those who don't have the box but might be interested in what Pete has to say: '... TVGPS is wonderful not only as a concept album - a collection of short stories, or vignettes about the ordinary people Ray was looking at - but also as a poetic musical journey that can really only be defined by what it inspired, by musical concept albums and rock-operas that came later. TVGPS showed me that in a conceptual collection, every song with a common theme and setting could stand alone, as well as be a cohesive part of a poetic vision.' 'There were no big hits from TVGPS. But for me every song is a gem, a jewel, a perfect pop music picture. There is no pretension. If the recording studio was indeed a fertile creative place for The Kinks, this album - produced by Ray himself - did not waste time on technical trickery or embellishment. Indeed, Ray rarely even used any reverberation or echo effects on he or Dave's vocals. He did not spend three days getting a huge drum sound, or dreamy keyboard effects - the band just played the music. But the recording method, and its simplicity and directness, is part of what makes listening to this album such a pleasure. The music, the style of it, the intention and reference, is as soothing and settling as a day in the English countryside can be, even today. It unifies what is actually an incredibly ambitious attempt to describe ordinary English life.' '...No one else in any of the big bands that emerged in the early sixties could have so eloquently and accurately created the mood of nostalgia that taunted those of us post-war 'Boomers' who had to face the challenge of building a new way of life, with no rule book, wondering how we might do so and survive. We wanted it all. Freedom, adventure, and a quiet and serene home to return to safely. Ray captures all this.'
