Were The Lovin' Spoonful the US equivalent of The Kinks?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Lord Rocker, Nov 24, 2021.

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  1. Lord Rocker

    Lord Rocker Forum Resident Thread Starter

    You don't know any Lovin' Spoonful songs but you know they are too 'hippie' and also with this in mind why are you offering a response to my original question? It's better to know their music before offering an opinion. I would have thought. Give em a listen- you might be surprised. Both bands are great. That's not in doubt. I think you'll also find that both bands music are often used on films and commercials if that's a measure of something to you.
     
  2. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    In terms of licensing, I'd want to own Summer in the City and Do You Believe in Magic over any two Kinks songs. No comment on the relative qualities of the bands, but those two songs are licensing gold.
     
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  3. Lord Rocker

    Lord Rocker Forum Resident Thread Starter

    How could the Stones be closer to being the American equivalent of The Kinks? Is this a language issue? I'm British so have to wonder if the proposition is too nuanced...perhaps a tad pretentious. I thought I had set out my reasoning in the OP. Clearly not!

    Let's stick with NO THE KINKS ARE BETTER THAN THE LOVIN' SPOONFUL AND DON'T SOUND NUFFIN LIKE EM!

    Night night
     
  4. Well, as for an American group comparable to The Kinks, that might be Dino, Desi and Billy of the same era. As for choosing what to comment, looking at the title of this thread,
    Were The Lovin' Spoonful the US equivalent of The Kinks?
    Definitely NO!
     
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  5. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    Ray kinda looks a bit like J. Sebastian here imo:



    Nik Cohn compared Sebastian to Davies as long ago as 1969 in his book Awopbopaloobop. I agree there are some simlarities in the lazy sound they had going on and how unashamedly down at heel and gimmick free they sounded compared to most of their contemporaries circa 1966. But it’s really just for that one year (and maybe 1967 too) that they could be considered equivalents.
     
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  6. Chris Schoen

    Chris Schoen Rock 'n Roll !!!

    Location:
    Maryland, U.S.A.
    Meh, not exactly heavy stuff. I do like "Night Owl Blues". They were capable, but I think more interested in A.M. radio "hits"..
     
  7. INSW

    INSW Senior Member

    Location:
    Georgia
    American bands comparable to The Kinks would be The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Band or CCR.
     
  8. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Too nuanced for this forum I'm afraid.
     
  9. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    You think the Kinks weren't interested in hit singles?
     
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  10. dwilpower

    dwilpower Forum Resident

    Location:
    Glasgow Scotland
    The Kinks albums sold poorly in the UK with only a handful charting over their long career and not setting the heather alight either- their singles fared much better
     
  11. Leugi

    Leugi Forum Resident

    Location:
    DC
    I can concede similarities but there really has never been anyone like Ray Davies. I think he is just a wholly unique individual and one of a kind.

    some individuals are sui generis
     
  12. Chris Schoen

    Chris Schoen Rock 'n Roll !!!

    Location:
    Maryland, U.S.A.
    Sure, who wouldn't. But I think the Kinks were a bit more daring in what they wrote songs about.
    Frankly, English people probably had more personal gripes (economy, unemployment, post-WWII fatigue, etc...)
    than Americans did in the early-mid 70's. That's why Punk came along, it was a rejection of all that.
     
  13. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader

    Location:
    ontario canada
    I do. But I prefer to remember when they came roaring back with 'Sleepwalker', ' Misfits' and 'Low Budget'. Love those albums.
     
  14. ralphb

    ralphb "First they came for..."

    Location:
    Brooklyn, New York
    The first Preservation album is very good, the second not so much. However, the shows I saw in 1974 at the Felt Forum based around those albums were fantastic.
     
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  15. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Correct me if I'm wrong but I think there were a few things to gripe about in the US in the mid-to-late 60s!
     
  16. sharedon

    sharedon Forum Zonophone

    Location:
    Boomer OK
  17. The Dark Elf

    The Dark Elf Curmudgeonly Wordwraith

    Location:
    Michigan
    Meh....what's a few race riots, political assassinations, college campus unrest and the Vietnam War? Just another boring decade in these parts. Sort of like the 1950s but on acid.
     
  18. kundryishot

    kundryishot Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wales
    that's pretty much garbage. The Kinks had a whole string of critically acclaimed albums
     
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  19. Kaptain Beyond

    Kaptain Beyond Forum Resident

    Location:
    Timbuktu
    I think that the big difference is the Lovin Spoonful basically only lasted like three years. Their last album Everything Playing is good, but it plays like a band that’s done. Zally was already gone. Had they lasted, had Zally stayed for say ten years instead of two who knows what they might have got up to. They also never had a decent recording budget, everything was done on the quick. They never got to make their Smile, or Odyssey and Oracle, Notorious Byrd Brothers. The Kinks went on much longer, they changed and added members along the way. Such different stories the two bands. I don’t see any connection between the two. I think the Spoonful had more pixie dust and poof it was over. I only wish they had lasted as long as the Kinks who got to make all kinds of records and try all kinds of different things and succeed and fail and keep going.
     
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  20. Dandelion1967

    Dandelion1967 My Favourite Parks Are Car Parks

    I would add "Everything Playing" to the list. A very underrated album, IMO.
     
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  21. Man at C&A

    Man at C&A Senior Member

    Location:
    England
    I like it too, a lot of great songs, but it suffers from no Zal.
     
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  22. Dandelion1967

    Dandelion1967 My Favourite Parks Are Car Parks

    Yes, without a doubt, with Jerry Yester they became a totally different group, I'm not going to evaluate if they were better or worse, but different. Zal was a guitar plalyer and Jerry was more of an arranger and that is very noticeable on the album.

    I have to say that "Close Your Eyes" is one of my 5 favourite songs of their entire discography.
     
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  23. dwilpower

    dwilpower Forum Resident

    Location:
    Glasgow Scotland
     
  24. GarySteel

    GarySteel Bastard of old

    Location:
    Molde, Norway
    I shall and hopefully I will :) Any recommendations?

    The comment about being used in commercials and movies wasn't meant as anything other than a measure of why the Kinks has perhaps grown in stature. Also when I mentioned my age, it should perhaps be an indicatior as to why a (for me) pretty obscure band with a short career compared to the other one mentioned, could seem quaint, of its time or 'hippie-'ish judging by picture on ze interwebs. This is pretty normal human behaviour. No offense was intended.

    English is not my first language and as such it is not always easy to express subtleties in language and know which words to choose in the same way as I could in my own to make my point easier to grasp. I am however pretty sure that you would run into a similar problem if it was the other way around ;)
     
  25. dwilpower

    dwilpower Forum Resident

    Location:
    Glasgow Scotland
    Gary your English grammar and syntax is far superior than 90% of native speakers and certainly better than 95% of American's who continue to bastardise the language
     
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