Which ones do you like?
Soap Opera is my favourite.
Which ones do you like?
Soap Opera is my favourite.
Everything up until Sleepwalker. Starting with that album things started downhill pretty fast.
Muswell Hillbillies
Lola vs Powerman
Schoolboys
Preservation Act 2
Sleepwalker
Lola
Muswell Hillbillies
Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes
Lola Vs.Powerman... is the last of the Kinks' run of solid gold five-star albums that began with Face to Face. After that, their best of the '70s is Misfits...very overlooked record, that, notable for containing some of Mr. Davies's funniest songs. My other favorites from the decade would be Everybody's in Show Biz, Soap Opera, and Preservation Act 1. And yet two of my absolute favorite Kinks songs come from albums not on that list: "Shepherds of the Nation" from Preservation Act 2 and "The Hard Way" from Schoolboys in Disgrace.
I think that album-wise they were a lot better in the 70s than the 60s (except Arthur from 1969).
My faves, in rough order:
1. Soap Opera
2. Everybody's In Showbiz
3. Pres Act One
4. Muswell Hillbillies
5. Lola vs
6. Sleepwalker
7. Schoolboys
Glad you like Soap Opera. Often seen as a low-point (inc by Dave Davies).I love the Starmaker track, but much prefer the crisper version on the Celluloid Heroes compilation, highlighting guitar rather than brass, to the Soap Opera one.
The Starmaker TV show from which Soap Opera derived can be seen on YouTube.
Muswell Hillbillies only.
I think the rest range in quality from dire to bloody awful to poor to okay to mediocre to average.
Low Budget is the only one I've really heard... but it's not bad. Not like the early stuff though.
Listened to Lola and Muswell Hillbillies quite a bit in high school. MH was a cut-out and could be bought cheaply. I'm reading Dave Davies' book Kink and he likes the song Strangers from the Lola album. The Wes Anderson film Darjeeling Limited uses songs from Lola. When I saw the Kinks at the Hollywood Palladium Ray went through two six packs of Bud while singing Alcohol, took off his pants during the encore and jumped into the audience.
Probably the best 'rock theater' I ever witnessed was the Kinks' Preservation live at the Santa Monica Civic. It used projected film along with onstage performance. This eclipsed shows such as Alice's Welcome to MY Nightmare and the Who's Tommy. In LA the Kinks were given a great deal of respect that put them on a high rock pedestal.
Oh yeah, there were scenes between the songs and such like an actual musical. There was an earlier version on the BBC called Starmaker which I think is all on Youtube. The staging was different, but it was much the same idea.
Though I have every albums of Kink, however few of my favorites are Sleepwalker and Misfits. "The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society" is generally considered their finest album, but there has always been a special place in my heart for Schoolboys in Disgrace. Even the one song that never fails to cheer me up is a slightly obscure song called Good Day.
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I got Preservation Act 1 on 180 gram vinyl not too long ago.
I also think the Kinks albums of the early 70s were better than their 60s albums - from Lola to Soap Opera each one is indispensable after that, unfortunately, I can't say I would recommend anything. I always felt when Gosling and Dalton left, the band was never the same and seemed to gravitate towards America rather than the UK.
I think their 70s songs are all over the map from brilliant to "meh".......I dont think any one album is fantastic but, rather, all have one or two excellent tracks on them
For example, from "Misfits", "A Rock N Roll fantasy" is a wonderful song
Last edited by klothos; 12-13-2013 at 10:51 AM. Reason: correction
Love MH and Lola. Never did figure out what the Preservation albums were all about. Low Budget is cool also. Can't remember if Give The People What They Want is a 70's album but I like that one. Around The Dial is one of my fave Kinks tunes. I need to delve more into their albums, I have them all but haven't listened to all yet.
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