I guess not. Member, John Thomas .... There must be more names for the flesh flute than any other thing in the world lol
Percy the album... Well, it's a bit sad. Back in the mid-80s, before I started buying all the individual albums, I had (and still have) that Golden Hour album with the very long title, which contained the five best tracks from Percy. So while that double album was my staple Kinks diet, those five songs were very much up with all the rest of the great stuff on it from VGPS, Something Else etc. Once I'd bought the individual albums, though, that Golden Hour album fell into disuse. I didn't buy the Percy album - at least not until 1990 when I picked up a cheap copy of the CD, and to be honest that's been picked off the shelf about as often as the Kelvin Hall CD has over the last 30 years. So those five great songs from Percy have somewhat fallen off my radar over this time. Listened to the CD again a couple of weeks ago, and was reminded how great those five songs are. The trouble is that the rest of the album doesn't really encourage repeated listening. Wish someone would just release an EP with those five songs (i.e. the original EP plus "Animals in the Zoo"). Or maybe I could just make up a disc or tape with those songs on for frequent listening.
Here’s the thread I started last year to discuss the movie when it was briefly up on YouTube last year: Kinks fans! Ever wanted to see the Percy movie?
I'll post a few thoughts about the film tomorrow, but first on the album : as a complete work, I think we’ll all agree it's not particularly convincing. But it's a charming listen and it has four stellar songs that are close to Ray’s best of that time period (plus Animals in the Zoo, which is good fun). I mean, I always play this little game with my favorite artists: you rank the albums first (Percy would be pretty low). Then you rank the albums based only on the four or five best songs, and the result is often completely different (Percy would be very high). This little game is particularly interesting with hits&misses artists like solo Beatles after 1972 (one of my great passions in life). This little quartet of songs, God’s Children/The Way Love Used to Be/Moments/Dreams is up there with the absolute best of them, in my opinion, delicate, melodic, romantic and deeply emotional. And paradoxically (for movie tunes, that is), those are Ray's only compositions from the 1968-1977 period that are pure pop songs, not related to any story arch or concept, which make them stand out in his seventies work.
I’m gonna try to watch the film later tonight or sometime before tomorrow afternoon. Do we start the song discussion tomorrow or Monday? As for the soundtrack, I think it’s excellent. There are maybe a couple songs of a lower quality than what we are use to, but that’s a matter of opinion. I came to these songs on the double album mixed with the previous 4 albums. I had no idea at the time what songs were on what album. It was all great to me. It turned out that a couple of my all time favorite Kinks songs are on Percy! I bought the CD many years ago and thought it was an obscure and unknown Kinks classic. I recently bought the vinyl picture disc that was released on record store day. Swap out a couple instrumentals with a couple other songs, maybe even the last two we discussed, and we have an album that ranks high in the Kinks cannon. Even as it is, I don’t hear why it’s not more highly regarded.
Preview Thoughts on the Percy album: I listened to this for the first time at the most two weeks ago. My initial thoughts? I’m not going to count it as a regular studio album…because I want to give The Kinks the chance of hitting it out of the park eight times in a row. And this doesn’t do that as it is a movie soundtrack. So, just as I suspect Elton John’s ‘Friends’ album is categorized as a soundtrack and not as album number four (or whatever it is), I am consider this as a separate entity. In the interest of preserving the streak. Initially, I marked two tracks as playlist candidates. On further listen, I added one but then found myself having second thoughts about one of the earlier tracks that I had singled out. So I’ll see what happens. One thing I know is I won’t be feeling guilty for including practically the entire album!
I like Percy a lot. It contains some top-notch Kinks' songs, as has been pointed out already, but of the others, there are no real clunkers. I can appreciate that the instrumental reworking of Lola isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoy it. And John's surprising lead vocal works very well, too. I'm hoping for a mini reappraisal of this LP by at least some of the folks who may be pulling this one off the shelf for the first time in a while.
I thought all the money tracks had been featured on Kronikles and Great Lost Kinks; imagine my delight to encounter the beautiful, plaintive "Moments." Sing along with crisp enunciation, and you can't help feeling like Noel Coward "...from the first brief hello / to the last goodbye."
All God's Children will kick us off on Monday. I just had to get this up, because I won't get a chance in the morning Apologies folks
Going back to that Golden Hour album earlier - across the three Golden Hour volumes (the original, Vol 2, and Lola, Percy etc) there are 89 tracks, 88 different songs. The only song featured more than once across the three volumes is....bizarrely...."Wonderboy".
I guess the movie was successful enough because there’s a sequel, ‘Percy’s Progress.’ 1974. Edit: per wiki: Box office Percy was the 8th most popular film at the British box office in 1971.[8] By June 1972, it had earned EMI a profit of £43,000.[9] Eventually, according to Nat Cohen, it made a profit of £500,000.[1]
From reading the liner notes of the 1998 Castle CD, it did so well they made a sequel - Percy's Progress (1974). And from the same liner notes by Peter Doggett: "In an era when most soundtrack albums, even by pop stars, consisted of one theme song and eleven forgettable instrumentals, Percy was - in the words of an earlier Kinks album - something else." I've just had an enjoyable listen to that Castle version, so I look forward to the discussion.
I've never paid much attention to Percy, so I'm expecting y'all to help me appreciate the hidden gems!
Internet: “£100 in 1971 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £1,449.94 today, an increase of £1,349.94 over 50 years.” For those who want to do the math.
I'll be curious to hear the other Kinks tunes from the soundtrack as I only know the ones that were on The Kink Kronikles. "God's Children" was a highlight for me. As for the film, well, I don't really like movies or television very much so I'll pass on that.
