I certainly don't hate warbley Ray, I just prefer shouty Ray lol I think to some degree I personally find shouty Ray less affected for some reason, it sounds like someone that "means it" to me, but I probably have a loud, obnoxious personality, probably ... so perhaps i relate to it more... I think that the change in vocals is due to the live work. The strain constant live singing puts on the vocals is hard for someone who hasn't done it to understand... and to some degree it is much harder to do sweet falsetto type vocals well live... I think it's an adrenaline issue ... but what is a sweet sounding falsetto on a studio album, can very frequently end up a weak, shaky, grandma at the karaoke bar vocal in a concert. A more full aggressive vocal is actually much easier to do, and be convincing, even when the throat is tired.... I think the other thing is, Ray has covered quite a vocal range on the bands songs, and for someone with a fairly limited range it can be terribly difficult to hit those notes in a concert scenario... and it isn't that they can't sing, it is just that singing in a rock band is a very physical thing, and the most likely to fail live...... Unless the guitarist is wasted or has a broken finger or something, it should be a breeze, if a drummer is sober and wasn't just using drum machines on the album, it should be a breeze..... voices are much less predictable, and even eating the wrong thing before a gig can throw it into a bad zone. I think all of that comes from the band setting their focus on being a top live band, and somewhat redeem the bad reports over the years about them being sloppy and drunk and all the rest of it. In the seventies a band needed to hit some great concerts out of the park to win the US audience, and that's the aim ... reward for all those years of high quality work that was virtually ignored. They put together a plan and pretty much stuck to it, and the bonus from my perspective is although they moved through a lot of various styles, they handle them all well, they all come across pretty natural, and they never, in my opinion even came close to selling out.... not making concept albums due to a request isn't selling out, for 1977, it was just a sensible decision.... as for any of the styles, they had done them all already, so spending these three albums (Sleep, Misfits, Low) with each focussing on different aspects of those styles, seems pretty logical to me
I must note, that essentially I prefer normal Ray, but I like the variety he throws in, but Shouty over Warbley lol
I would definitely agree with this. Age and the fact that they were touring larger stadiums had probably a great deal to do with the new approach.
This is crazy talk! Now you are wanting me to put together a Warbley Ray playlist. If I get sometime later I will attempt it and share.
Seems to me that Ray affects his voice in a remarkable number of ways on Low Budget, and in many of the songs it’s changing almost every verse; he’s also changing his accent frequently, and has probably a half-dozen levels of gravelly and shouty in use. I know it’s not unusual for him to do this but it seems to be at another level in Low Budget, although it’s possible I never really focused on it until now.
LOW BUDGET I like MISFITS, but I absolutely loved LOW BUDGET. This is my favorite Kinks album from 1971 onward. It rocks, the lyrics are great and funny, and the group seems very energized! I look forward to the song reviews!
The exaggerated Cockernee accent Ray started affecting at this time, combined with the shoutiness, was like some adman's idea of what punk rock sounded like. A bit cringey.
The backing track for Destroyer used on the GTPWFW album is indeed from these 1979 New York sessions. Vocals recorded 1981. Also from these 1979 New York sessions is the original version of Massive Reductions that did see release as a B-side in 1981 on the flip of Better Things in the UK. This should have been a bonus on the Velvel CD release of Low Budget or at least as a bonus on GTPWTW as that reissue had exactly zero bonus tracks. This first version is on YouTube so it’s available wherever it gets slotted in the thread.
Pumpsie Green was the first black ball player for the Red Sox, who were the last team to intergrate in MLB: Pumpsie Green – Society for American Baseball Research
Those lyrics are from a song called "Love Is Here To Stay" from the album Growing Up In Public which came out in 1980 around the same time as One From The Road. It's not a well known Lou album, but it's one of my personal favorites ever since a good friend of mine gave me a copy for my 18th birthday. By the way, for those Avids who don't know, Mean Joe Green was a football player who played for the Pittsburg Steelers, the greatest team of that era.
Let's see what @ARL will have to say about this… One thing about the cover art… Themes and concepts notwithstanding, almost all Kinks art-works and titles from Muswell Hillbillies on can apply to the band itself, or the band’s situation. The Kinks were in disgrace (and indeed schoolboys), their intern politics was known to be a constant soap opera, they were in show-biz, they used to be a preservation society, Ray felt like a sleepwalker during his jet lag years and they always saw themselves as misfits… So how could Low Budget be any different? It may have a lot of meanings, but one of them is clearly a self-depreciating joke about the attitude of the band and the music they decided to make for this particular project, like they’re showing up as an unsophisticated version of themselves hooking in the street and soliciting the passersby with whatever fake alluring attributes they might have. I don’t believe for a second that Ray Davies could do these specific styles of music at this specific moment in time and choose this title and cover art unknowingly. After the success, the next LP is called Give the People What they Want, which is self-explanatory ! And then State of Confusion… There’s no doubt in my mind that these are all piss taking / half joking commentaries about the Kinks, their ambitions, their status, their compromises, the level of support from their label etc… How could he be oblivious to his own artistic decisions ? This is not to say that the music isn't any good, or can't be appreciated at face value (and it was!), just that there’s a claimed and obvious element of sarcasm, irony and maybe even parody in the whole endeavor, just as in the outré vaudeville of Soap Opera, the 50's pastiches of Disgrace or the radio sound of Sleepwalker. He's a writer. Every choice he makes is one of writing and pushing some ideas across. Down to the way he sings. When you’re such a versatile master of voices, you don’t start growling on half the songs at 34 (lest we forget how young he still was …) without having a very clear picture in your mind. The commerciality of it was probably part of the equation, but not all of it. Everything here has a writing purpose, not only the lyrics, but the music, singing, title, artwork etc. as is always the case with Ray. And if he said the contrary, he lied. Especially if his interlocutor was a rock critic or a label head…
Ray's entrance on this album is exactly what I was thinking of when I coined "Shouty Ray", so I don't think this would be the most opportune moment to come up with a new term - however, I'm open to suggestions for a new one?
This Precious Time I really like the bass and guitar intro styling and it is an interesting composition that also again features some nice lead guitar. Simon Davies electronic effects leave me cold and Dave should have left him at home with a cut lunch. Lyrics as ever are emotional, wrought, cryptic and perhaps confused. Perhaps with Dave's unresolved traumas I am recounting some of the poetry and lyrics I wrote back in my own wilderness years with an eye on both spilling they feelings and at the same time protecting ones self! Anyhow Mark I am sure it all read well to him on the page but lkely not his non existent co-writer.
Thanks for sharing your well thought out and written post! Low Budget I have never heard the Low Budget album per se though am familiar with about 4 studio cuts and have occasionally heard the odd live versions. I think you have made some pretty perceptive comments about the title track and A Gallon Of Gas though I am hoping despite some trepidation that this album can grab me in some positive ways. Until this thread I was not even aware this LP was such a big hit and major comeback and had just always assumed that Sleepwalker was. Anyhow threadwise I'm still 20 hours behind and a slow bludger so really better pack up and read this thread in bed!
One thing I failed to mention earlier...Low Budget the LP has a lot of Cockney Ray in it. Anyway, when listening to Low Budget a few days back I kept my ears open for Shouty Ray and as Mark said, I don't think it's nearly as much as people think. It's sprinkled here and there, but not a main attraction.
Not that it is a field I am particularly familiar with, I would imagine the street corner implies the she is not what would be labelled "high class". The three smoke butts on the floor implies she had been standing there a while too.
Yep, and also Cockney Ray implies working class, or lower... and the context of Low Budget and international recession effects those folks more than it does the "higher" classes.... I think it's all relative, and considered. I don't buy into the idea that Ray was trying to get mileage off the punk movement .... the punk movement was a) never really very big b)already on its ways out c) not particularly full of exaggerated Cockney accents
Low Budget The sound of a rejuvenated band from the get go. Vibrant, exciting and full of surprises. The mix also reflects this. On Misfits everything was miced and EQed to perfection until it sounded like an Abba record, but Loe Budget returns with an almost dangerous sound. In fact it may be the last great sounding Kinks album before those tinny thrashy snare drums took over. This album has quite a few dragging and not so interesting tracks, but the highlights more than make up for them. The fun is back and most importantly Ray‘s melodic instincts are coming back. I‘m not too familiar with the 1979 music scene, but to me this album sounds like the Kinks being its own self contained style as opposed to the rock a la Kinks of the last two albums.
a) Not a case of it being big but of it being hip and happening and credible. b) Ray was just slow off the mark. c) I don't know what punk you were listening too but it was 100% full of exaggerated Cockney accents! Including from people who weren't even from London (unlike Ray).
Decade I put the songs in chronological order and listened to the last 5 yesterday. I think they're really good. I love this freedom in the song structures. I don't understand the words, so I can imagine they're clever and profound if I like. They probably would have sounded weird on Kinks albums, unless they were in sufficient number to make for a two-styled band. I will try a few album playlists with more of Dave when I have the time. But maybe they are kind of mutually exclusive, I don't know. I'm a fan of Dave's lost 1960s album, and I think the songs work better together than in Kinks album context. Low Budget I believe One For the Road was one of my very first Kinks album listening experiences. I borrowed it at the library. Then I discovered the songs in studio format over the following months and years. I guess the order must have been Sleepwalker, Misfits, Low Budget, probably at very short intervals. To me those three were always the "modern" albums that I had to force myself to like. And for a long time Low Budget has been the Frontier album, the last before the desert. The last listenable Kinks album. The 1980 mark has always been a bit difficult for me to step over. On first listens I identified Catch Me Now I'm Falling (well, part of it), Gallon of Gas and Little Bit of Emotion as the main keepers. I enjoyed Pressure too, as a counterpart to the One For The Road version. Two years agos I listened to it again as I was running and I gained a lot of appreciation for it, especially the rockier tunes. I like the cover art and global concept, too. It could be construed both as a self-deprecating commentary on their output and as a new version of the "The Who Sell Out" concept. One thing I miss on this album is creative drumming. In one interview that someone shared on this thread, Mick Avory said that after the concept album era he was asked to play simpler and less gratifying stuff. I think it shows on this album, there is a mechanical side to his drumming. It's kind of... low budget drumming. Some songs would have gained a lot if Mick had played them a little more freely.
I was going to wait until tomorrow to comment, but I think Ray may have invented a genre I don’t listen to, don’t care for, and don’t really know anything about with the opening of the first track - Screamo - so Screamo Ray to distinguish from normal Shouty Ray
