The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

Glad you liked it, if you want the full page to read I could perhaps PM it unless anyone else is interested?
N.b. Francoise Hardy co-stars in Grand Prix for any fans of hers, unfortunately my photo cut off the top of her name on the DVD case.

 

(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman - I am thinking this is the first song I heard from the album. It's rock, disco and new wave all at the same time. The beginning reminds me of Heart of Glass and then I hear Do Ya' Think I'm Sexy throughout the song. Great catch on the Stayin' Alive bit. And lyrically, Ray keeps with the theme of the record and we get a more British look at the worldwide recession and malaise (nine stone, lorry etc. - I remember asking my dad what a lorry was and he told me to look it up after telling we what nine stone meant). And, it's terrific - he's funny and romantic all at the same time. I always pictured the protagonist as that scrawny guy at the beach in the back of the comic books who gets the sand kicked in his face by the body builder lug.

Low Budget - A great blues rock follow for Superman. This whole album has hooks galore and The Kinks have distilled all that was on the radio around this time and put their stamp on it. In this case, the guitar and groove take me to Joe Walsh. More clever writing from Ray. Interesting to hear about the double meaning with the label cutting costs. That's a great sly move! And I'm with @Fortuleo - the "Polo Mints" line always stays with me.

 

"Low Budget" is a pretty big song in the Katalogue if you ask me. I love the riff this song is based on but, more than anything, this is a song where Ray's lyrics really shine and put the song into a different category in terms of quality. Also, I always found the song to be closely associated with Ray's persona which he plays off of brilliantly in the lyric. On a larger scale, the song also fits in with the image of the Kinks. Roxy Music wrote about the fine life but the Kinks are on on a low budget. Plus that lyric is pretty universal and most can identify with it. There is a real wit to these lyrics. Add to that the punch of the music - and "Low Budget" really sticks out for me. Of course they played it when I saw them.

 

Absolutely. I also noticed Jessica Walter in the cast. I had never made that connection. One of my favorites all the way up to Arrested Development.

 

This isn't a reference to substance abuse. See here:

on your uppers

 

Cheers, I always wondered what that meant

 

The things I learn on this thread...

 

Low Budget

@Rockford & Roll beat me to the Dave Davies channeling Joe Walsh with his dirty funking bluesy axe (to) grind!
Some witty lyrics from Ray from his low budget land but sometimes I wish he would slip in the line as "Low budget band!"
I think this works better live where Ray can use the crowd energy interchange for angst and come across as more genuinely peeved off.
The chorus vocal melody (or lack of) and the call and response don't engage me though I do quite like some of the lyrical bent in the verses.
An ok song for me so I might be in the minority there but I have warmed to it since I first heard it 20 years ago on a VHS Kinks music documentary and was "then" genuinely non-plussed to be polite.

 

Low Budget: Now we're talking. Four songs have really stuck with me over the years from this album, and this is the second. At the time, I can't tell you how exciting it felt to hear that opening guitar riff come over the radio. This was the sound of the Kinks changing gears - Dave had to be in heaven with his more prominent role in the band. In terms of topical songs, this and "Superman" were brilliant, capturing the zeitgeist of 1979, at least in America, but I would guess in the U.K., too. That sound ... I would hear it again a lot around that time, particularly when The J. Geils Band put out "Love Stinks" - another wonderful, rocking single from the turn of the 80s.

For me, this is the sound of learning how to drive, car full of friends, windows down, radio blasting, heading to the local bowling alley, which had a pool hall on the other sides of the lanes, hanging out, shooting pool, listening to rock and roll over their echoing P.A. system. This is where I first heard "I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones and nearly had a heart attack, it was that good. Songs about the economy falling apart, telling us love had problems, suggesting that getting sedated was a viable option ... all wrapped in gloriously loud, rocking music that memorialized where we were in life. I'm sure at the time we indulged in the usual teenage carping about being bored, nothing going on, man, wish we lived somewhere else where things were happening. But we had no idea it was all happening there, in the moment ... in moments we'd flash back on years later and realize how much fun we were having. But I guess there's that fine balance between nostalgia and reality that I'm glossing over here. The lyrics say one thing, the music another: life itself.

 

Low Budget (the song): I am in full alignment with our fearless leader’s review above, this song was an immediate crank-the-volume-knob-all-the-way-to-the-right smash hit for me the first time I heard it and remains that way to this day. Dave’s gritty guitar assault and Ray’s ridiculously expressive delivery and humorous lyrics sell this song each and every time I hear it. I grew up with the shorter version, but I am equally pleased when I hear the slightly longer version with the extra set of lyrics.

“…they are a size 28 but I take 34”! As Sir Winstanly noted, every line is a kwirky kwip so no point in highlighting each one, I only mention the above because it reminds me of one of my favorite jokes.

 

Low Budget:
As noted by others, this is yet another Ray tune that reminds me of Joe Walsh and it’s a good one. The album, to this point, has been thoroughly enjoyable and I still can’t figure out why my initial impression was so negative. I’m starting to think that I might have listened to a different album by mistake because, like Mark, I have it at 6 for 6.

The lyrics are the high point of this track, my favorite verse being the shoes/trousers one. I had to look again as I was mixed up, thinking that the narrator had giant feet…but I now see that he’s referring to his waist size when he rattles off 28 and 34. (I wear a 28 shoe when in Japan so, no, I’m not mixing it up with inches. Anyway, he’s talking about his trousers.)

 

Just on a slight side note.

Probably from years of live work, but remember at the start of the thread when we all agreed that the Kinks struggled to be convincing with Blues and R&B....
We've seen some good stuff over the last decade, and I reckon by 1979 they were pretty damn convincing

 

Low Budget
The beginning of this song sounded a little too much like MOR hard rock for me when I first heard it, but then it quickly gets into sounding like a Kinks song. I love the clever lyrics ("used to suck cigars/now I suck polar mints"), background vocals, and Ray's cockney ("I thought you said that"). The song may be about 30 seconds too long, but that's minor quibbling. It is a solid album track (indeed a solid title track) and a good way to begin side two.

 

Low Budget

A nice groove and the lyics are great fun.

Since it's Sunday tomorrow maybe we can have a debate about polo mints and cod roe.

Do people on here still suck polo mints? How do you consume cod roe?

Polo mints are not distributed where I live so it's a genuine question.

I think cod roe is the poor man's caviar. So it's quite appropriate here in these lyrics.

Caviar is, after all, sturgeon roe with a fancy name.

Cod roe are used to make Greek tamara which my wife buys and spreads on small toast bread to eat as an appetizer.

 

Looking a lot life Life Savers


I've never had Polo mints, but many other varieties ....
I'm a cruncher... I always start off trying not to crunch, but I always end up crunching

 

Low Budget

Musically simple and straightforward. I often find that boring, but this ends up being a good showcase for those dirty blues rock riffs and licks (first Joe Walsh comparison).

Lyrically, not really deep, but really clever, a little sarcastic, some tongue in cheek, and quite amusing (second Joe Walsh comparison).

It all adds up to a sog that was never omitted from any Kinks playlist I made, be it on my current Android phone or going all the way back to homemade cassette mixtapes in the early '80s.

 

Polo mints are very much still alive and kicking.

 

I have that DVD. I last time I watched it was on Election Night 2020. That "Pete Aaron" article was pretty interesting too. But you forgot another important aspect of that film:

 

Well, going back to "Low Budget", it's an excellent way to kick off Side 2 or continue onward from "Superman" on CD, whatever your preference. It's probably the Bizarro version of Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" which came out a year before. Instead of bragging about the rock star lifestyle like Mr. Walsh, Ray complains about living a cut-price life. You know, these two songs together seem to sum up the 70s, don't you think? It seemed that a decade before the US put a man on the Moon and now we were worried that Skylab was coming down from space to hit us. "Low Budget" certainly hit that vibe that prevailed in the West in 1979. It was interesting to hear that Clive Davis cut back on the tour money. That's probably why the Kinks didn't play Boston in support of the album (I was talking about that very thing w/my friend Jimmy yesterday at lunch; the closest they came was Cape Cod & Providence, RI). To be fair, 1979 was a very down year for the music industry compared to the previous disco-fueled couple of years. The Kinks were the few bright spots in that sorry year.

 

I guess having a Hardy amongst the F1 driver's improved the film but more to the point I should mention that a few real F1 stars also appeared in the film such as Jochen Rindt & Graham Hill who even had a speaking part!

N.b. Retired 1961 Ferrari F1 champion Phil Hill (USA) worked as a driver, coach and consultant and was a big wrap for James Garner's driving skill.

 

Hmm, I’ve got ‘79 as a better year than ‘78. Personal preference, I’m sure. 1979: Rickie Lee Jones’ debut (that alone catapults it to lofty heights); Floyd’s ‘The Wall’; Dire Straits ‘Communique.’

 

I was talking about the Kinks' commercial success in an otherwise dismal year sales wise instead of artistic merit.

 

Ah! You mentioned music industry so I was confused. Got it.

 

“Low Budget”

I guess this is The Kinks in a sort of AC/DC mode. Good lyrics, but I'm not a huge fan of Dave’s guitar or Ray’s vocal. Mick is also at his most simplistic and The Kinks now sound like a band playing at the corner pub. I’m not very familiar with the live version, but I recall Ray tones down the growl on some of the verses, and it becomes more enjoyable for me. Overall, this isn't a style that I'm thrilled about. With a few tweaks I think it could be an interesting tune, but as it is, I find it boring. Just like gas, I will pass on this one.

A few parts I enjoy are the piano and Dave's backing vocals.

 

Start at 25:30 for a dynamic Low Budget. Watch Ray striptease and bark at Dave, who responds with a nasty solo. Or stay and watch the whole show, it’s great.