I've never considered the 'plastic' to be about people who are conforming, more about the 'fake' people out there. Much as the dedicated followers of fashion did. Either way, their worst self-penned single of the decade.
I think the strength of Plastic Man is immediately lost in the fact I took it very literally for far too many years - a literal comedy song about a man and his family all made of Plastic... While I would say I was the fool, I think it speaks volumes about the fact that I mostly understood the gist of Ray's other compositions along the same time from the 60s. This has always felt like such an odd single to me - The Kinks' equivalent of 'Sorry Suzanne' by The Hollies - a track that makes no sense in the chronology of the singles, without the context of commercial flops leading up to it. A bizzare track. Worth it for Quaife's bass vocal though.
I think you're right… but also unfair. The song itself manages to be both literal and metaphorical, I think. A direct attack on plastic surgery and an attempt to satirize all fake social behaviors (and conformisms). The groove is excellent, bouncy and music-hall-ish but retaining its rock’n roll power and urgency, despite its many rhythmic changes. The real puzzling thing for me is they structured the whole thing around a guitar riff that is basically a blatant recycling of the Act Nice and Gentle bass hook. Almost note for note! From their lesser B-side of the golden 66-67 years to the A-side of their “come-back single”, yes, I'd say it's a baffling move. "Sabotage" could indeed be the right word for it… In any case, and as much as I enjoy this fantastic joyful energetic track, this has to be their lesser sixties A-side, if only because the others are so uniformly stellar, a status only challenged by the 64 tunes and (maybe) Everybody's Gonna Be Happy. That is, if we only take the songwriting quality into consideration. Because as a performance, I'll argue it destroys Everybody's gonna Be Happy and is up there with the best of them. And I mean, the very best of them. Thunderous, relentless, irrepressible and a lot, but really a lot, of fun.
Plastic Man This is such an oddly pivotal release in the Kinks history I think: in so many ways its release as a single makes absolutely no sense at this juncture, to the extent that I really think that @mark winstanley is onto something when he says that perverse 'ol Ray sabotaged it's release. Since 'Days' in mid 1968. The Kinks had essentially been on strike from releasing UK singles, to first of all concentrate on finishing and then promoting the VGPS project. I think it was a very deliberate power move on Ray's part: they thinking must have been along the lines of Pye weren't promoting the Kinks albums, they were only interested in the hit parade: therefore if we don't give them any new singles, then they have to put more effort into promoting the Kinks album work, right? Well it seems like Pye largely called Ray's bluff (probably more through incompetence than malice) and the short term result was another flop LP and a NINE MONTH (an eternity at the time) absence from releasing any UK 45s. Ray was very pre emptively defensive about 'Plastic Man' and it's failure seemingly from the off, paraphrasing but I believe he had a quote to the effect of 'They wanted a single and that's what they got' referring I guess to finally acquiescing to Pye's demand for single product after it became apparent that the VGPS project wasn't going to catch fire on home turf. But I think there's a degree of petulance here with his choice of release: Ray as we know was a very prolific songwriter, and indeed by this point in 1969 had already penned much of the Arthur material, including confirmed for sure 'Victoria' and 'Shangri-La' .. surely he would want to put The Kinks back on the map by releasing a excerpt from the new progressive concept album he was working on? But instead he decides to rework a Face To Face outtake apparently originally title 'Yes Man' in 1966 for release as the first new Kinks statement for 1969. I mean could anything say 'we're seriously uncool 3 years out of date hasbeens' than releasing a song that's leftover from your writing style of 3 albums ago? I really think there was a lot of sarky 'sod you Pye, if you want formula old style Kinks to make a quick buck HERE YOU GO: happy now?????' to this whole undertaking. Now, here comes my inevitable BUT..... I LOVE this recording! It's a complete bundle of fun that exudes pure fun and joy, a joy you can see translate to their daffy carefreeness in their performance Beat Club video. I wonder if it was cos the session was conceived in the spirit of 'let's not take this too seriously and have a laugh, send the whole thing up'.. that said, Quaife hated it (being the acme of the kind of camper Kinks material he disliked) and I really wonder if it was the last straw for him.. he's hanging on in the group on a promise to 'see through the promotion of the next single' and then Ray brings in THIS???
If you're talking about the really low vocal only audible on the stereo mix, I'm pretty sure that's Avory making his (released) vocal debut.
I agree with others that this track is a bit too much. I can't imagine buying it as a single. But for all that, there is something strangely endearing about this novelty song.
I could be wrong, it’s not 100 per cent confirmed.., but the publicity for ‘Plastic Man’ made a big deal about how it was ‘the first single that all 4 Kinks sang on’ (also the last with the original 4 :/) and that bass vocal is the only candidate for Avory’s contribution I can discern.., also it does sound quite a bit like his speaking voice imo.
The phrase that comes to mind for me when it comes to "Plastic Man", is "Ray went to the well once too many times." Avid FJFP (how's the little nipper doing, by the way?) is correct in comparing this song to "Sorry Suzanne", a pleasant enough pop ditty but a bit lacking compared to its predecessors, in this case, "Days", a truly beautiful & profound song that "Plastic Man" is a damp squib in comparison. It's just a rerun of "Well Respected Man" 2-3 yrs. later, where there were plenty of such songs at least in the UK pop scene. Anyway, my blah feelings toward the song even extends to the Beat Club performance of it since one of my Kinks compilation VHS tapes that I got in the 80s had it on 3 times, which made for tedious watching. Anyway, the B side is a lot better.
Plastic Man It seems with this song that Ray forgot the subtlety, ambiguity and wit that he'd increasingly built into his songwriting. Plastic Man is jaunty and upbeat but I can't say anything much more positive than that. More puzzling is that Ray chose this to be the single over it's B-side, King Kong. Plastic Man sounds like it could have been a throwback to 1966 but King Kong's heavy riffage sounds like 1970. With all his focus on the Arthur project Ray could have been using the quickly recorded Plastic Man to send a message to Pye?
“Bum” triggers a ban? Seems absolutely absurd but, as you point out, Ray, of all people, should have known that it would have an effect on its chart position chances.
I think it is easy to forget that so far as tv and radio broadcasts, even in the seventies it was extremely rare for even minor swear/cuss words to be allowed. Hearing "bloody", as in "get out of the bloody way" or whatever, was still pretty rare. Bum being used in an anatomical sense would have been seen as rude, even in a comedic sense.... perhaps if it had been used in reference to a vagrant it may have slid by.... Ray knew exactly what he was doing here, I reckon.
Plastic Man This is another song I've known for nearly 15 years due to it being included as a bonus track on the Arthur CD. I always thought it was a throwback sound, and thank you to @ajsmith for mentioning that this was a re-work of a 1966 song 'Yes Man'. I searched YouTube, too bad there is not a demo of 'Yes Man' available for comparison. I want to hear that, and I want to hear what the 'My Street' song was actually going to be (unless it was literally made into the bridge to 'Autumn Almanac', then I guess we know...) Plastic Man is a fun song, for sure, and although it's a throwback in style and topic as "A Well Respected Man", some of the musicianship and biting satire fits in with the theme of Arthur. Particular some of the guitar tones, and the "Plastic man got no brain, Plastic man don't feel no pain, Plastic people look the same" comes from the same satirical (or perhaps not satirical?) place as the section of "Shangri-La" about all the cookie cutter houses. Regarding the arrangement, the one thing I find interesting is around 1:35, you'd expect the "baaayup bap ba da da, nah nah nah..." part to continue for another 4 bars or whatever, but it just goes directly into the next verse. All the while, Mick's beat keeps the track driving along. Another fun hook is that double-accent at the end of the verses. But I also think that really forces this into the "novelty song" category (as in "oh get this, ready for it? -- plastic bum!").
Unfortunately, recordings of the Face To Face outtake songs have not surfaced so far (we live in hope!) I’m pretty sure that the ‘My Street’ section of AA is the same as the original ‘My Street’ song.
I like hearing Plastic Man in the context of The Great Lost Kinks Album which is where I first heard it, but nowhere else really. It fits as an odd and end. A funny choice for a song that aspires to be a hit single, as others have posted.
I really like this song. Fun, fun, fun! I've just properly listened to the stereo version for the first time, as the Ugly Pink tends to be my go-to for this song. I prefer the mono, but with the hard panning it's interesting to be able to pick out elements, so I focused on the bass given it was Pete's last outing. At the start, I can see why he wasn't happy with this song--the bass line is really rudimentary and hardly exacting of Pete's skills. But it does get more involving from the first "plastic man got no brain, plastic man don't feel no pain..." I think Pete's expressing his displeasure with this song when he plays the high note at 2:04, it sounds a bit off, like an angry rebuke! The equivalent note at 2:15 sounds more harmonious, like he's had his say and now he's back doing his job for the band. It's quite melancholy to hear his last note fade in the background as the final "plastic maaaaaaannnnn" is sung, knowing it's his last recording with the Kinks.
Since we seem to be at the end of Pete’s tenure with the band, I wanted to ask… is this Pete in this picture? I remember finding this picture years ago online, and I can’t find a higher resolution copy of it anywhere. I saw it last week in a fan-made YouTube slide show video over the audio of “This Man He Weeps Tonight”, and I snapped a screenshot of it from there. Anyway, I have long loved this picture and his posture. Is this Pete? I think so. Doesn’t look like a Davies. Anybody have a higher quality version?
It could be John Dalton from his 1st go-round w/the Kinks in 1966. I recognize the bass guitar that he was using in another photo.
I doubt he would have used that word in the knowledge that the BBC would ban the record. He seemed to be genuinely upset when he heard about it and referred to the BBC as a monopoly. And, the Kinks were desperate for some success after the failure of VGPS. Just four years later he also used the word bum in a single but this time there was no ban.
Thank you both! So according to Wikipedia, he was in the group from June-November 1966, and played on "Top of the Pops" in June, and then a show in Birmingham and a quick tour of Norway and Spain. The picture doesn't look like the TOTP set from the "Sunny Afternoon" video available. So I assume it was from one of the live performances at that time. I just love that picture.
Plastic Man People seem to be divided over this one and Andy Miller in his book on TVGPS really goes to town. For example: "Plastic Man is an awful record. An admission of defeat". And, "it is a record without warmth or charisma". He also called it "a cheap and gutless rehash of Dedicated Follower Of Fashion". No holding back there. Plastic Man was one of the first two Kinks records I owned so I took to it a long time ago and played it and the B side so much the grooves wore out. Mind you, that could have been because the record player's needle was worn down! This was in the day when the stylus had to be switched around depending on whether you were playing a 45 or 33. That record player could only be played providing you removed the light bulb as the electrical cord was fitted with a "bayonet" type plug so was unsuitable for the wall socket. Great excuse to for a bit of darkness when you had a girl around to listen to your latest record acquisitions. A long time ago.
