"Everybody's In Showbiz - Everybody's A Star" * It will be a similar story for the next four albums. I first heard this album back in the mid 80s when I borrowed it from the University record library. Did not like it at all. Don't know what it was about it that put me off so much, but I do know that I came out of university with the opinion that with very few exceptions, early 70s music was rubbish. I've changed my opinion these days. Strangely, while with each of the next three albums there is one track that stuck in my mind as being particularly awful, there isn't one that stuck in my mind from Showbiz. The effect of me ignoring Showbiz for about 35 years is that I've been largely ignorant of one The Kinks' most famous songs all this time. I'd not even considered re-investigating these four albums until this thread started. I listened to a couple of tracks from Preservation Act 1 and ended up wondering what my problem with it was supposed to be. So I decided then I was going to get those albums, on original vinyl, and I picked up a copy of Showbiz from the Southend Record Fair three months ago. Sadly the original lyric sheet is missing, but the records are fine - the US version on Dynaflex. Listening to it now - of course it's a fine album, and I'm left wondering why I didn't like it, or at least some of it, all those years ago. The first thing that struck me listening to the first couple of tracks is that this album is the missing link between Lola and Low Budget. It could be considered Lola vs Powerman Part 2 - the further adventures of the fictional band in question, or High Budget - a portrait of the USA before the recession and fuel crisis. Most of all, this is a fun album - The Kinks at their "party band" peak. These aren't comedy songs as such, but the lyrics are amusing in places. The tracks which close the two sides go deeper, but for the most part these are light-hearted, inconsequential vignettes from the life of a touring rock band. Having more of Dave up front on this album is a bonus, and as a whole it sounds more open, more accessible to me than Muswell Hillbillies - it's a decent hifi experience to listen to in headphones. I don't really hear any country music in here. I've only mentioned the studio album so far, and in truth that's all I need. The live album seems a little pointless to me - only seven full songs and five of them are from the previous album. I've listened a couple of times but won't be pulling Disc 2 out too often. (It looks as though the extra tracks on the CD may be of more interest to me) So, it appears that as early as 1972, The Kinks had the sound, the lyrics and the touring schedule geared for breaking America. If they had continued down this road, we might have got Sleepwalker a couple of years earlier. Instead, Ray being Ray, he took a sharp left turn and diverted back through the village green, suburbia and the schoolyard before rejoining the freeway in 1977. N.B. This one is definitely in the running for worst-ever Kinks album cover. If the front didn't put you off, the back looks like some cheap K-Tel compilation. * It would appear that this is the title of the album, except in the US and Canada where it is just "Everybody's In Showbiz". The "Everybody's A Star" part is on the back cover, but not on the label.
"For six years, until the enlistment of a rather too hirsute piano player and fair-haired John Dalton's replacement of Pete Quaife, they looked both unique and more like a group than any of the competition; four gaunt, unhandsome but character-filled king-class mugs framed by almost identical dark hair, seldom smiling, but on such occasions betraying spaces between perfectly fit teeth." I agree. Mendelsohn is talking a lot about hair in this sentence. To me there's no sugestion here that 'fair-haired' has any other meaning, especially as he contrasts it with the identical dark hair of the group before. In any case, surely he would have to say something like "John Dalton the fair-haired boy replacement ..." to give any figurative weight to his words. And why in the first place would Mendelsohn want to suggest Dalton was a teacher's pet?
I was familiar with the Kinks albums up to "Lola", but I'd kind of avoided the Kinks in the 70s because I didn't think I'd like them much. What happened was, in a very short space of time, I ended up buying a lot of their 70s album on CD, in chronological order too I think, expanded editions, which I assume were all in sales or reduced, because I don't think I'd have bought them otherwise. Anyway, "Everybody's in Showbiz" is the first time I'd been seriously disappointed in a Kinks album - this despite the fact that there are not one, not two but three great songs on it. The problem is I struggle to recall any of the other songs on the album, a lot of them sounded like "Muswell Hillbillies" rejects to me. As for actually writing a song about motorway food? Give us a break, Ray. The live side of the album I've never really gotten into, too much of slightly sloshed Ray messing about.
As I was filling in the Kinks catalogue, Showbiz was pretty hard to find. I finally found a used vinyl copy which was labelled "scarce". I was drawn to the most well known of the new songs - "Celluloid Heroes" - probably because it is one of the best songs Ray wrote. I was always into live records so the fact that this was a double with one disc live was a bonus. Having said that, this is not my "go to" Kinks live document. Always liked "Motorway" - a song anyone who has ever been on tour (or followed a tour) can probably appreciate. Makes me think of truck stops where the coffee doesn't change colour when you put cream in it.
Yep, that's me! After the excursion into Americana, I see the studio disc of Showbiz as a return to form! It's also often very funny, a bit like the Who pre-Tommy often were.
I actually disagree. I consider this the Kinks' last great album cover. That mystical Hollywood stuff was very much in the air at the time, and this is a well-executed example of it. And the green was a striking design choice.
To be fair, motorway food would have been pretty bad in 1972. This was five years before Roy Harper did "Watford Gap". Anyway, we'll be all over this song this time next week
‘Showbiz’ general thoughts: my very first listen was maybe two/three weeks ago. After reading thread comments I was expecting to be dismayed with this follow up to the magnificent Muswell Hillbillies. Instead I was, as the saying goes, pleased as punch. A ten song album and I have five tracks short-listed for the ‘ol playlist! Album cover: hate it, hate it, hate it. I would never have found myself reaching for this in real-time. RCA continues to unimpress. 2nd Disc Live Album: not interested. I played it a couple of times but thought it was quite sloppy. It’s possible there’s a gem in there but I won’t discover it until it becomes The Song Of the Day.
Said it before, and I'll say it again: I have never, ever understood this 1972 cut off point so many have! It was received wisdom for so many years, and I have to say I think for all his brilliance as discussed yesterday, Mendelsohn was a big part of this received wisdom being put in place: even Ray himself contributed to an extent in his first autobiography as he ends it in 1973 with the end of his first marriage and begins one chapter with the portentous phrase 'everything changed after 1973'. You would then see this repeated by many of the early Web 1.0 critics who had more sway over record buying habits in a pre streaming world, most memorably Mark Prindle who hilariously (if entirely wrongheadedly) wondered on his Kinks page 'Was Ray Davies replaced by a 6 foot tall pile of **** after 1972??!!! But to me, if you listen to the music only, if anything, it's a majority of 'Everybodys' that could be seen as more of striking drop off in quality and stakes, as suddenly after 4 highly focused concept works, we get a barrage of loose n greasy low stakes songs about food, as well as Ray dialing up the campness to previously uncharted levels of preciousness. And I honestly like this album y'know, but immediately I see a lot more indulgence and sloppiness abounding in contrast to Muswell that I can imagine coming off as repugnant to many casual fans. And yet according to many it's the next album where they really fall off a cliff, whereas overall I'd call 'Preservation Act 1' restrained and tasteful in comparison! I can only think that it's the fact that 'EISB' sports the enduring 'Celluloid Heroes' (as well as the last of their run of UK chart hits, 'Supersonic Rocket Ship') that have led it to be filed lazily by some as 'the last of the classics'
Oh…then perhaps I got the wrong impression. I was thinking it was at Showbiz that the cliff fall was supposed to have occurred. Okay, so my positive impression of it (Showbiz) is still part of the majority consensus. (Or I guess we shall see over the next few weeks!)
All the surrounding cartoon artwork is lifted directly from the cover of some old 1930s era kids comic, Film Fun or something, I recognized it straight away when I first saw the Kinks album cover. I'm 90 per cent sure that the same art is reproduced in the 1971 coffee table book The Penguin Book Of Comics which I have at home, I'll try and double check when I get back tonight. Anyway, the art was much less impressive to me than it otherwise might have been as I saw it was a straight lift from another source.
Everybody's in Showbiz I'm a bit schizophrenic about this album because I find it a schizophrenic album. First there's the mixed studio and live records - I'm not a fan of this mixed format. There's a big difference between the feel of the two records. The live album sounds exciting and boozy, with both the band and audience having a good time. The studio set is sterile in comparison. I also think the studio set is very uneven: it has two songs that are among the very best that Ray Davies ever wrote, but it also has what I think are a few clunkers in Maximum Consumption, Unreal Reality and Sunnyside. That said, I won't be surprised if others have a different view. I really like Hot Potatoes and Motorway, which I know some don't like.
When I was young and even stupider, I thought the live disc of this album was a complete concert and that by this point the Kinks were doing brutally uncompromising sets of only album tracks and almost entirely new material, with the only hit performed being a grudging singalong of just the refrain of 'Lola' at the end!
I love this album...Supersonic Rocket Ship, Sitting In My Hotel and Celluloid Heroes are great songs. The Double disc Legacy edition makes it even better.
Agreed. I sort of wish they had put the live stuff together as one fully sequenced live show... but my reservations about the original, with its seemingly odd song choices, is altered by the more complete disc two on the later edition.
I don't understand it, but I get the impression that, in time, a lot of sixties fans embraced the pure Englishness of the band in that time, and when Ray spread his wings and incorporated broader themes, and more personalities, that weren't necessarily English/British, they felt abandoned or something.... I'm not really that parochial. I really like this album, and listening more closely to Preservation, I like it a lot too. It just seems like Ray went somewhere the fans didn't want to at the time, and perhaps to some degree, a revisit here may possibly moderate, or even change some of those opinions..... Of course for me personally, after Schoolboys we enter a period I already love, and have never really understood the kick back there..... but that's for another day.
Everybody's In Showbiz I would have picked this one up in or around 1990 with the original LP, most possibly from 'Sifters' record store, Fog Lane, Didsbury (referenced by Oasis in song). Since then I have it on CD (Velvel) and the later one with the expanded second disc. Also have the three LP version too. To my mind it has four very good songs, one of which is by Dave. Of these, there's one outstanding classic. Despite that, I rate this LP as the lowest point in all their studio albums. The original live disc seems like Ray is taking the p$$$ out of the fans, by putting those tracks out there, when there could have been a decent live record released. The cover ranks close to the bottom of the pile too, along with 'Soap Opera' and 'Schoolboys In Disgrace'.
I was very curious to see how this one’s gonna turn out on this beloved thread of ours and still am, after reading this morning’s posts. Muswell Hillbillies has been a great ride for a lot of us, but clearly failed to conquer and convince the most dubious amongst us. I think four main reasons for lukewarm reactions were mentioned : 1/ the “dreariness” of the LP (exemplified by its cover) 2/ its “country/Americana” inspiration 3/ the “sameness” of the general sound 4/ the brass band 5/ the comedy tone of too many tunes. Yes, it’s gonna be VERY interesting to see on which side the coin lands this time, since : 1/ Everybody's in Show-biz is many things, but certainly not dreary (and neither is its cover!). 2/ The country rock inspiration is still there on some tracks (see Motorway) but much less obvious and intrusive. 3/ The album is more varied sound-wise, with big piano ballads, big upbeat rockers, full of colors, enthusiasm and expressivity… 4/ … but the brass band is still a big part of that and is preeminently featured on half the tracks. 5/ Well, I guess any song called “Hot Potatoes” has got to be funny, don’t you think ? So some of the Muswell “problems” are still there, but some’ve been cleared. Will the album conquer more hearts ?? Not so sure after just reading @cheshireCat’s post! Myself, talking about the studio record, I love it. But not with the same passion as the previous one, because Muswell Hillbillies, like Village Green, is what I call a visionary record, it creates a world all its own, it’s a feeling, a sensation, something you can fall in love with (or find yourself under the spell of). Whereas Show-biz is more of an exuberant rock record, stock full of good songs and exciting performances. Less ambitious, less meticulous, less demanding, but probably the last Kinks album on which I enjoy all tracks from start to finish, no questions asked.
Having said that I hated these 70s albums when I first heard them, the upshot of that was that the next album I tried - Give The People What They Want - sounded like a breath of fresh air by comparison. So that encouraged me to continue with the post-RCA albums. So for most of the last 35 years I've had a cut-off of 1971, but a cut-back-in of 1977.
Nice.... that is probably how I feel, but hadn't thought about it that way. Interesting. I will be interested to see if that holds up over the course of the thread.
Well the interesting, and I know, completely sacrilegious, thing for me is the fact that before I started the thread (with a good deal of trepidation mind you) I pretty much only vaguely liked most stuff, except for Village Green and Muswell Hillbillies, up until Sleepwalker lol. Loved the band, and some of my favourite songs are in the 63-72 period, but I had never understood the attraction to the albums...... Yea I know, I'm off to sit on the naughty chair
The fact that Ray Davies himself, and Dave probably even more so, don't seem very enthusiastic about this era tells you something. Plus I think the band were as English as ever in this period!
