The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

When a Solution Comes

This is another great song. I definitely hear the Harrisonesque vocals in the first section. I love how Dave’s guitar comes in so clean. The bridge or whatever it is around 1:40, just before the transition to the second half of the song is really well done. And I love the feeling and atmosphere of the second half too.

As far as the darkness of the lyrics, this is not entirely new, and you can’t really this isn’t the Kinks. Remember these lyrics from 8 years earlier:


The demon stretched its crinkled hand
And snatched a butterfly
The elves and gnomes were hunched in fear
Too terrified to cry
The reckoning was beckoning
They're living to their doom
There was no hope, no reasoning
This rainy day in June

Are today’s lyrics any more dark or gloomy or apocalyptic than this? I just think today’s are just a bit more specific in that this demon has a name, and that is Mr. Black.

This is just another side of the Kinks, but it is all the Kinks. God save them!

 

I agree about VH's version of Where Have All The Good Times Gone which was a couple years after One From The Road.

 

Dalton, not Gosling. Good shout though!

 

Really nice guitar work from Dave. The electric yahama piano anchors it squarely in the mid-70s. The first half of the song wouldn't sound out of place on Sleepwalker or Misfits from the early Arista years.

The second half sounds like Bryan Ferry bumped Ray out of the booth and took over vox. Which is fitting because Ray was obviously a vocal influence on Bryan's style of singing.

Musically the 2nd part reminds of a Black Sabbath song from either Vol. IV or Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, though I can't remember which song.

This is a long ways from Muswell Hillbillies. Yes, 1966-1970 gets its well deserved Kinks-sized praise however this first half of the 1970s shows a band and songwriter really stretching out their ambitions. Concept albums that were ambitious and just as "progressive" as any prog-rock group of the era. The Kinks serving up their own meat and potatoes theatrical progressive rock. It's too bad more didn't take notice at the time.

Another misnomer has always been Dave's guitar was neutered during this period. These fine opening tracks put that notion to rest.

 

I just want to interrupt to wish all my fellow Avids a Happy New Year & may everyone on this thread have a great & fantasic 2022, both here & in all your lives.
Here's the Kinks doing Better Things live in 1985:

 

This doesn’t bode well for the eventual Kinks exam. I gotta concentrate.

 

If you fail, you'll end up on the cover of Schoolboys In Disgrace & you won't be holding the switch either, if you get my drift

 

Better Things what a great song. In a just world would've been just as big as Come Dancing from the next album. I like loosesness of that live take.

 

Agree with that for the most part and add that you are quoting IIRC Mark's description.

 

When a Solution Comes: I figured out something today (thanks to you folks) - my expectation of what Mr. Black, in my opinion, ought to be doing at the start of Act 2 was hindering my appreciation of the two solution songs. The fact of it is: Mr. Black is broody and waiting in his attic at the start of Preservation 2. Like it or not, that's where he is! So, finally just accepting this, the song unfolds: the riders on the storm keyboards, the calm acoustic guitar strumming, the delicate, wavering vocalization from Ray - this all renders Mr. Black as moody, unstable, sensitive and dangerous - something isn't right with the man.

In the second half of the song, the complexity and intensity of the music increases as he becomes more and more animated in anticipation of what he is about to unleash (as many of you have already pointed out). Now I can imagine him on a dark stage, only his face illuminated - and this reminds me of a disturbing character in the dark and surreal German movie "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920). I hope the link below with a still from the film works - from what I recall, the mood of the film connects with what Ray was trying to evoke with the "solution" songs and Mr. Black.

 

Megalomania is a great song and I remembered it was a song off Vol. IV the second part of this song reminded me of, The Straightener, which was a sort of instrumental coda to Wheels of Confusion.

https://youtu.be/WSbbbginu2I

 

Megalomania is off 75's Sabotage, but definitely both great songs.
If someone likes Sabbath's style the first six albums are great.

 

At exactly two minutes into this, Ray effectively invents Jello Biafra.

 

Oh my response was not worded right. My apologies. What I meant to say was Megalomania is a great song. It was not the song I was thinking of but a different one. I remember now that song was The Straightener off Vol. IV. The way I wrote it made it sound like I thought Megalomania was on Vol. IV and not off my favorite Sabbath album Sabotage. Sorry for the confusion. I agree about the first 6 Sab platters. All excellent.

But returning to the Kinks it is surprising Preservation #2 is their only double all studio material album. Only during their RCA years did they release double albums and those were just 2 years apart. None before and none after. This thread really brings to light that the RCA years both need to be re-evaluated and better represented.

I am a fan of, and got into the Kinks during last half their Arista run but aside from Showbiz which I find somewhat slight the RCA albums are really good (I had Muswell on cassette for years so I knew that one).

Tramp, Flash and Mr. Black. I look forward to where this all goes from here.

 

1993’s Phobia is actually 4 minutes longer than Preservation Act 2!

 

When a Solution Comes
Happy New Year everyone.
After what I think is a clunky start, this album really comes alive with this song. It has beauty and power and the protagonist sells a strong yet disturbing message. Ray's singing is terrific and the band is tight. This song sounds nothing like what the Kinks sounded like before, but so what?
After reading the last few pages of excellent and insightful comments I'm sobered by the realisation that I might not be the biggest Black Sabbath fan on THE (edit) Kinks thread . 2022 has already bowled me a googly.
EDIT: And I love Dave's guitar embellishments - he sounds to me like he's playing a Les Paul, but I haven't been able to confirm on the internet so far.

 

Ah, the terrible era when artists thought they had to fill up all the space on a CD!

 

With about 15 minutes to go here.

Happy new year people's.
Thanks so much for making this a friendly, informative thread.

God bless
Mark

 

It takes all sorts!

 

Or konk.

 

Annoyingly, in the three live clips from 1974 I've looked at on YouTube he seems to be playing a stratocaster. It doesn't prove that's what he played in the studio. But grrr anyway.

 

konkentrate?

 

The Kinks likely added Where Have All the Good Times Gone because of Bowie’s very good cover version on Pinups. Seems like some of you are a bit younger to better know the cover by VH.. David Watts was revived thanks to the Jam, Stop Your Sobbing thanks to the Pretenders and You Really Got Me to VH.

 

And not counting Preservations Act 2's Announcement, Phobia has the same number of songs (16). Phobia easily could have been spread over 4 vinyl sides--and according to discogs--was when it was re-issued in limited edition vinyl in recent years

 

Yes or konk (out) as far as any testing goes.