Really cool find @ajsmith and it showed the tracks potential propensity for visual adaption was not only confined to the vision of Ray Davies. N.b. Note the very 70's animations with slanted backdrops and objects, I kept looking out for Fat Albert & Rudy or Fritz The Cat!
@Fortuleo somewhere in your again brilliant track description you may just have summed up why I enjoy listening to the Kinks (& Ray's relatable & oddly humane way of storytelling) much more than the Beatles.
I’m probably one of the most clean-slate-participants on this thread (though, of all things, Muswell Hillbillies is one of the two albums I do know like the back of my hand) and what is pretty clear is that The Kinks come in many guises. And it can be hard to accept or wrap ones head around a new sound or unexpected direction that the band (or Ray) takes. I found this to be true with Wilco (and, of all things, had a helluva time accepting two albums, Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, that are now firmly entrenched in the lofty pinnacle of my top 100 albums list). I’m not as invested in The Kinks as I was with Wilco so maybe that is why, so far anyway (!), I’m not finding anything that is too jarring. I attached this to your post but it’s meant more generally to all. Very big side note: this is how I ended up classifying Wilco. Wilco—A.M., Being There, Mermaid Avenue I and II, Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Wilco in Limbo: More Like the Moon Wilco in Angst: A Ghost is Born Team Wilco: Sky Blue Sky New Wilco: Wilco (The Album), The Whole Love Jeff Tweedy with Wilco: Star Wars, Schmilco, Ode To Joy
Alcohol I agree with Mark on the New Orleans style. I like it. One prior song that runs through my mind when I listen to it is "Harry Rag". They are in no way similar, except that both call back to an earlier type of musical style.
But has any other band/artist ever accomplished this? I have mentioned a similar experience in this thread about Something Else By The Kinks, specifically 2 songs every bit as good as the rest. A 7 album run. It might be the conditioning that there is always filler, but the Kinks never did any after Kinda Kinks, well at least up until after this album maybe.
Forgot to insert the obligatory reminds me of: Cab Calloway ‘Minnie the Moocher.’ With a very similar tempo, too.
Alcohol: Another one where Ray takes a serious subject and makes it funny while making a point. I am traveling today, so I gotta keep this short, but its yet another great one. Nothing like the typical Kinks I grew up on, but I was won over asap once I read the words. 5 for 5 so far on this album for me. …but with a caveat. As a few others have noted above, this rather samey-style comedic/vaudevillian approach might become tiring for me if I was listening to it as an album. I do like each of these songs thus far, but I am envisioning that I will enjoy them more when I alternate them throughout a playlist where this album’a (let’s call it) americana style is alternated with songs from other albums from the same time period. Since my last playlist ran from TKATVGPS through Lola vs…, this will probably cover Percy through Soap Opera.
Is tomorrow’s song, Complicated Life, the last track on side 1 or the first track of side 2? (I’m focusing on the ‘dreary’ scenario issue.)
I'm a totally in the moment fella lol Tea when it seems right, shooters when it seems right .... I never even know myself, until we're there
Alcohol One of the early standouts on this album to me. Just a perfectly appropriate loose/boozy instrumentation that matches the storytelling and feeling of what this song presents. In a way, just as perfect as Harry Rag's production fit that style and lyrical content and theme. So I can see that although the songs are nothing a like, they are each perfectly appropriate for the subject matters at hand. I am glad that fellow Avid @Zeki mentions the mariachi horns after the 'tequila'! I absolutely adore that touch: That whole line... and you wouldn't think rhyming "tequila" with "disappear" would work, but it flows so wonderfully. And again with the "damn it all", "blow it all", and "I would fall" rhyming with "alcohol". One thing I noticed is that in the live version from Everybody's in Show Biz (that I am just starting to explore now...) he switches it to "He beat up his life and messed up his wife". I assume that was just a mistake as he sort of stumbles a bit there. I think. Perhaps he had a few too many scotches on the rocks... Musically, this is just meant for the stage, and I guess Ray must have had this all in mind because it seems we are starting to see that more and more. The instrumentation is great, with that resonator riff, the accordions, the piano, the drunken horns again. And that "it's such a shaaame" hook bringing up the tension, and then leaves you just waiting for that release of "oooh, DEmon alcohol!"
At least some of us are on the same page! I completely agree with this. Any list of the best Ray Davies songs should include this song. So far this album is a very solid 5/5. I'm quite surprised by the lack of enthusiasm for some of these songs. I would also say that this is the centerpiece of the album. The music and Ray's delivery of these lyrics is nothing short of brilliant. He is really preparing himself to start bringing more theatrical performance into the live act. I think songs like this gave him the confidence to take the theatrical route on upcoming albums and live shows. I never really paid attention to a theme going through this album, but I find every song so far to be perfectly placed. We started with a "20th Century Man" who didn't want to be here and is already feeling like a "paraniod schizoid product of the 2oth century". It then turns into someone with full blown "Acute Schizophrenia" who may or may not be the one being sent away on a "Holiday". We move into an eating disorder and a health fad where there are no more buttered scones, and now alcohol is a demon. What has the world come to? The side then ends with a song summing it all up in a "Complicated Life". I worked in a psychiatric hospital and one thing in common with all of the characters in the songs is they all could have been patients. All of these songs are as relevant as ever. I'm not sure if a theme stays consistent throughout the second side, but as soon as you flip the record over "Here Come the People In Grey" to take him away.
Alcohol Woozy and Boozy. Lyrically and musically. Not amongst my favourite Kinks tracks, but it works well for what it conveys, although the live versions are vastly preferable to me, ideally with Raymond balancing a bottle of beer on his head, and being at the concert at the time too. It seems to have remained in the concert set lists on and off right up until the end. Those memories I can't recall though as to whether he continued with it in his solo outings... It's enough to turn you to drink! Skin And Bone I can live without this one. Sorry.
Yes, that part is hilarious! At the beginning of this year when I was (re)discovering Alcohol (the song, not the drink), there was a video on youtube where Ray goes into the audience and maybe even sits on the edge of the stage for Alcohol. It was up for awhile and got taken down (by the Kinks, no less...maybe?!). It's such a shaaaaame!...as it was a really fun version.
Alcohol Here we go! A song I unabashedly love. I do remember this one from my childhood, and discovered it again this year. Sad and funny all at the same time. I don't know how the man does this. The music is so boozy. Is that an accordion in there? if so, well done! And the slippery clarinet. it sounds like the music is just holding itself together, but in a good way. things could go off the rails. Of course Ray's vocals are the cherry on top. @mark winstanley beat me to the New Orleans thing. Yes, this reminds me of the song one might play on the way to the cemetery to bury someone (followed by the Saints Go Marching In on the way home after the person has been buried.). I always thought those New Orleans funerals were awesome! I remember reading somewhere along the way that trad jazz folks look upon this song as very authentic (well, maybe not for the funeral part, but as a general N'Awlins jazz song). Also someone mentioned the lyric "sad memories I can't recall"...when I read that lyric I laughed my head off. As I said earlier in this thread, I would gladly pay for a time machine trip back to see this performed live. But at least this song doesn't suffer from "this is much better live". As Mark said, it is different, but both live and studio are equally good in their own ways.
I realise this is off-topic, but you've explained why I've found Wilco hard to categorise: I have albums in three of your classifications (Summerteeth, Ghost and the Whole Love) plus the collaborations with Billy Bragg. For the Kinks, that could be like having only heard Face to Face, Muswell Hillbillies, Schoolboys in Disgrace and Word of Mouth
I haven’t dabbled in the latter two Kinks albums yet so I gather we’re headed into different territory. But I’m glad you understood the gist of what I was trying to convey; that sometimes “it doesn’t sound like (insert band name)” might not cover all permutations. It might even be possible/(preferable?) to categorize by songs instead of albums/eras as I did for Wilco. “I’m a fan of The Shambolic Kinks” etc.
I kind of understand the sad memories I can't recall. As a young guy I was blackout drunk on quite a few occasions... I think essentially it comes down to shame. As the great Robin Williams once said, people are always very happy to tell you the things you don't remember.... no I never took a dump in anyone's Tuba lol
I love Alcohol...and the song is great too! This is another tune where the live versions make it pop just a little bit more. Definitely top tier Kinks.
