The Kinks - Preservation Act 1

but yeah, great record. especially that first side.

Again, I haven't heard Preservation in a long time. But considering all of the great songs he wrote in the sixties, I have to ask whether you mean one of the ten greatest, one of the fifty greatest, one of the hundred greatest?

Genevieve's gorgeous, as is Midday Sun. Survivors and Cricket require skipping to get to Money and Corruption faster.

When listened to as a piece with Act 2, musically it really works for me, even though the subject matter's a bit crap and the storyline's all over the place.

Why so many people came down hard on Davies doesn't make any sense at all to me. It was clear he'd gotten over the old Kinks style [or ran out of ideas], and was trying new things. Then the same mentalists give props to utter utter dogshite like Come Dancing, which is only useful for burning and/or inducing vomit.

Anyway.

So now VGPS has become the most famous and popular Kinks album after all, what's the new 'lost classic'? It could be this or even A Soap Opera.

i'm not an expert, but the late 70s stuff on the recent box set is pretty great! that was the best part of that set for me ...

Muswell Hillbillies, Everyone's in showbiz, in fact all their post 60's albums sold little...

But then again I don't think they made a genuinely ropey album until Sleepwalker. The bottom really fell out with Think Visual and two horrors that followed it.

Love Soap Opera; saw the tour in '75, and it was so much fun! There's a grainy, b/w chunk of it on youtube (thought there used to be more:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP_egAh45aI

And one of the comments has now created a new holy grail for me:

In the seventies I saw an english colour- TV-production (Studio) of this in danish television, with Ray Davies singing and acting with other actors, following the record very strictly.

Starmaker? I have bootleg DVD of it in very good quality.

Ah, I had forgotten about that; that's probably what he means. That's up on youtube, and I'm watching Part 1 now!!

I am not mad at Preservation Act I. Its a good thing, but not at the top of my Kinks parade.

What a fun way to spend my lunch hour! B-b-but Starmakerdoesn't include "Holiday Romance?" Or "Ducks On The Wall?" I guess they had to pare down the songs to fit everything into an hour format.

What I REALLY want is a filmed version of the stage show they did on tour.

'Holiday Romance' is obviously a shoe-in on that album, it doesn't fit the concept. 'Ducks On The Wall' does though and both are fantastic!

Never thought about that wrt "Holiday," but you may be right. A lyrics page online has this intro, which would be the way of making it fit:

On the subway train he sees adverts
for holidays in Jamaica, a weekend in
Rome, a cruise round the
Mediterranean, and dreams of a quiet
week in a little seaside resort away
from his wife, the ducks on the wall,
the soap operas, the office and his
friends - and who knows, he might
encounter a holiday romance.

A shoe-in if ever I've seen one!

I would say the same for 'No More Looking Back' on 'Schoolboys In Disgrace', it sounds far too personal to be part of that concept album.

But then again I don't think they made a genuinely ropey album until Sleepwalker.

Not even "Preservation Act II"? "Schoolboys In Disgrace" is pretty dismal too.

Nope, love them both.

Whatever floats your boat. Ray could still do wistful like no other writer, even in the midst of some (IMO) pretty dull albums, e.g. "Face in the Crowd" on "A Soap Opera". I find a lot of the rockers from this period indistinguishable (and undistinguished) tho.

Love it or hate it, do you really think Soap Opera is dull? It's one of the most over-the-top, campest albums of all time! Jonathan King would have been proud, had he been talented enough to compose it himself.

what's the new 'lost classic'?

Percy soundtrack!! naw j/k. but I do love "Dreams".

I haven't listened to it in a good long while, but I do remember really liking "Sweet Lady G" and "Midday Sun". having a hard time recalling the rest.

haven't listened to Preservation Act I in a good long while, that is

Love it or hate it, do you really think Soap Opera is dull?

Musically and songwriting-wise, yes. It has some good songs. The spoken word sections are really grating too.

Hate it? But you see Norman loves it so much and you did ask me to
act normally, didn't you? I mean I can't cope with all that
fancy stuff you like to eat, like eggs bene-whatsis...

Aw, man I love the spoken word sections! Really love the whole album a ton.

According to last.fm, Percy is my most-listened to Kinks album. It's got excellent songs like Moments, Dreams, The Way Love Used To Be, God's Children... all the shorter stuff is nicely weird as well, like 'Just Friends'. It's just that pointless 'Lola' instrumental near the start that ruins momentum.

"Demolition" off of Preservation 1 is pretty great. Possibly my favorite overlooked Kinks track...

Several months later...it's funny how I've slowly come around to loving this album. Started thinking it was just one good song, then two. And so on...

At this point, I'd rank it as being in the same ballpark as their "classic" albums. I only knew the reissue and never read the liner notes, so didn't realize that it actually starts with the 2nd track (and is much better when heard that way). Morning Song into Daylight is a pretty stunning opening.

I have to go look at timelines, but it seems like there's at least one Who reference on the album: musically and lyrically. "Where Are They Now" quotes a Tommy riff and ends up wondering about the mods and rockers. Has anyone smarter than me written about this?

Hear weird echos of other people in Ray's vocals on this too, which is interesting. "One of The Survivors" gets awfully Lou Reed, and there are bits of Bowie around the edges on a few tracks.

Great record. At first I was put off by the sound of it -- really dead, no space at all. But it adds to the charm of these scrappy underdogs (the Kinks) fighting to get this massive production out there. An added (subtracted, really) bonus of the vinyl is that "Money and Corruption" is shorter; the version on the CD has a pointless and not very good keyboard solo.

When I saw them in 1993 they opened with "Sweet Lady Genevieve." About seven people went mental. Everyone else was, "Huh?"

Tried listening to Act II at the weekend, had to take it of after half a dozen songs, horrible album.

Nice cover though.

He's Evil is great, as is Mirror Of Love. It's kind of hard work, though there are a few good tunes in there

Those are good songs, and there are others, but, yes, it's hard work.

I find both Preservation albums & Soap Opera to be a bit like their later Arista records. I can cherry pick a smattering of excellent songs, but have a hard time listening to any of the albums all the way through.

Preservation Act I and II are my favourite Kinks albums actually. I utterly love both of them. I like all songs but I think the absolute highlights are: (Act I) Sweet Lady Genevieve, Money And Corruption/I Am Your Man, Here Comes Flash, Demolition; (Act II) He's Evil, Nobody Gives, Flash' Confession, Artificial Man, Salvation Road.

Just heard Act I for the first time – I wasn’t listening super closely and haven’t delved into the lyrics much but was surprised how listenable this was. The arrangements are clever—ambitious but not cloying—and the tunes were generally a lot stronger than I’d been led to believe.

"Where Are They Now" quotes a Tommy riff and ends up wondering about the mods and rockers. Has anyone smarter than me written about this?

Yes, I'm just about to. Seriously though, this track, of course, quotes "Johnny Thunder" from "Village Green Preservation Society", not anything on "Tommy" because Pete Townshend was quoting Ray Davies on "Tommy" and not for the first time either. Johnny Thunder is supposedly one of the characters in 'Preservation - The Rock Opera' though I suspect he's only there so Ray can recycle the aforementioned riff and shoe-horn "One of the Survivors" (a song about 50s rock and roll) into the storyline. I love this song but realizing that the 2nd verse should be where the 3rd verse is, and vice versa, impinges on my listening pleasure because I can't for the life of me think what Ray was up to reversing them.

beautiful song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgvuuY7_wtk

Hunh, I looked at my notes for the Kinks artist poll, where it was my number one, and see I even wrote up a little thing but never posted it in the results thread:

Sweet Lady Genevieve is an easy number one pick for me. My favorite Kinks songs are the kitchen sink dramas, and this is the finest. The opening line, how he stretches out the "I" in "Once under a scarlet sky I told you never ending lies," you can tell how the narrator is uncomfortable owning up to his past, like still wants to gloss over that it's him who "acted so slyly because you were acting so shy". His apology comes right after slipping in some sweet talking poesy with "scarlet sky". He goes on to make his case for her to give him a second chance, but I'm never convinced he'll get it, or he even deserves it. But boy, is he sincere. The song implies so much, and the delivery is heartbreaking.

that's a great post thanks for sharing.

been checking out later period Kinks (basically Percy + the post Muswell albums)...there is such a mix of bad and good. but some really amazing gems hidden in there. Preservation Act 1 is pretty good, Preservation Act 2 tough to take so far, my first listen - seems to indulge a lot Ray's worst tendencies.

Great post, bendy. After Muswell Hillbillies there's maybe 10 (and that's stretching it) Kinks songs I would pick as nearly-equal to their mid-'60s peak. "Genevieve" is one of them.

I barely made it through my only listen to Act 2, though. And I say that as someone who listened to Phobia three times.

Act 2 has all these terrible skits and announcements shit, must have been related the play or whatever it was supposed to be

Supposedly it worked far better live than on record. Ditto A Soap Opera about which Christgau wrote, "Maybe because it works so perfectly in the theater, this doesn't seem to work too well anywhere else." It's too bad there's so little visual documentation of their theatrical era.

I used to see Preservation, Schoolboys, and Soap Opera all the time in thrift stores, but I haven't come across a copy in a long time. their late 70s/80s records are fairly plentiful though. I think those are okay at least, though it's kind of depressing how becoming more pointed and professional papered over a lot of the stuff I like about their classic albums.

Davies's first marriage ended between the recording of the two acts of Preservation, one reason why the two acts are so different and the second is in such disarray. He's also coming up with the songs for Starmaker at the same time. In 1974, more and more he's relying on a thesis statement to create a song rather than interesting musical devices (e.g. "Money Talks").

I'd still be curious to hear what the original 2 LP Preservation comprised, before it was split into two acts and re-recorded.

the latest kinks retrospective is really nice. It’s the first one where ray picked the songs, I guess. each disc is based on a lyrical theme/“stage in a str8 dude’s life”… the track list is not chronological, eras are all jumbled up but it’s been remixed really well or something because it all flows really smoothly to me.

Act 1 doesn't stick to the concept closely enough, while Act 2 sticks too closely to the concept. And the concept is all over the place - somewhat like I imagine Ray's brain was at the time.

Davies's first marriage ended between the recording of the two acts of Preservation, one reason why the two acts are so different and the second is in such disarray.

Andrew Hickey’s theory is that Rasa was, for all intents and purposes, Ray’s co-writer. It wasn’t a 50/50 collaboration — more like she contributed “the ten percent that pulled those songs up to greatness” — but, as Hickey put it, after she left him, “his songwriting fell off a cliff.”

He goes more into it here:

https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-155-waterloo-sunset-by-the-kinks/

That sounds fairly plausible. There’s obviously something special to those early recordings that ain’t on the later stuff but it’s hard to articulate what *it* is

Exactly. It could just be Rasa’s presence (in the studio, or while Ray was writing), it could be her arrangement suggestions, her melodic ideas…there’s so many ways she contributed. And like I posted earlier, there are maybe ten Kinks songs post-Muswell Hillbilles that could be compiled into an album that would maybe stand proudly next to their ‘60s records…and even one of those (“Scattered” from the otherwise forgettable Phobia) was written in 1971.

Act 2 is surprisingly proto-The Wall (albeit with actual humour)

I remember coming across the Rasa theory and totally buying it. I used to think the high harmony was all Dave then I started to notice and hear Rasa on the top.

The latest Kinks retrospective referred to is called…The Journey?

Rasa particularly stands out on “Waterloo Sunset.”

Rasa's contribution to Waterloo Sunset is great but let's not get carried away. It's not in the top 5 elements that make the song great as far as I can tell - the lyric, the theme, the prechorus melody ("but I don't..."), the central guitar lick, the intro guitar and bass riff, the mention of Terry and Julie, and Ray's vocal performance are for me what I think of as essential to its magnificence...

Ray's writing "fell off a cliff" along with almost every 60s rocker's around the time of the early 70s for 2 reasons - most writers don't stay at their peak for very long, and just like every 5 years or so (until maybe the 2000s) there was a rapid shift in what styles were cool (glam, prog, singer-songwriter, country-rock replacing psych, blues, sunshine and folk-rock).

It definitely reminds me of the Yoko ruined John theory.

If Ray had made several more Muswell Hillbillies sounding albums that didn't sell well instead of the theatrical direction he took the band from 72-75, I bet those albums would be highly regarded today, even with the same songs. I love Muswell but it's lacking in rhythmic punch, I would love to put some Kinks on my 60s/70s country-funk playlist but they didn't get swampy enough. Or if demos surfaced of Preservation, it would probably be more listenable in stripped down form with less strenuous vocals.

I'd think a songwriter who gets married before the band gets big, then hits a peak writing about domestic life and British peculiarities while married to an expat might lose a lot of their special insights when that fruitful situation turns sour.

Most of "Everybody's In Showbiz" sounds like "Muswell Hillbillies", just not as good.

(xp)

wow this is crazy - look at the comments of this post, Rasa jumps in the comments and seems to suggest that his hypothesis (that she was collaborating with Ray on songs) is correct. Obviously, it *could* be an imposter but the way her comments are written make me think it's really her:

https://andrewhickey.info/2018/01/28/did-a-teenage-girl-make-the-kinks-great/

On to Soap Opera, another big problem he developed is WAY too many songs about being a rockstar, life in a band etc

The single most boring subject for a rock song... apart from singing about your children.

What's the backstory on Scattered dating back to 1971? I'm told that lyrically it was inspired by his mother dying (in 1986)

I remember reading an RS (or Musician?) interview with Davies from ‘93 where he said he’d written (or at least started writing) “Scattered” in 1971. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find the interview, but the memory is vivid because I was reading it in a supermarket and said, “I knew it!” out loud.

it's really weird to hear one of the most distinctive songwriters in rock history turn in pro forma 70s MOR like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LZ4HQB2mcU

And that album is still kind of okay, but yeah. Maybe I only really like the title track and “Jukebox Music.”

I feel like I had to hide it for a long time but I really hated, hated, hated the arena rock Kinks and the fan base they engendered. I mean I guess I shouldn’t begrudge them their need to eat and maybe it was actually a slight improvement over some earlier stuff but it really wasn’t what I was looking for from the Brothers Davies.

Sleepwalker has its moments, and I’ve always felt that “Full Moon” is one of their greatest songs, regardless of era.

I think Ray saw the Who and the Stones selling out stadiums, while he was playing Starmaker in small theaters, and thought, “Hey, we had bigger and earlier hits than them!” and wanted (and maybe felt like the Kinks deserved) a piece of that. Obviously, it was a colossally unsatisfying move, but it’s kind of impressive that it actually worked.

What was frustrating was how, at least in the US, the arena Kinks rendered their mid-‘60s heyday essentially invisible. It didn’t help that much of that material was out of print for years (apart from the songs on The Kink Kronikles), but the Kinks weren’t going to slow down a rockin’ arena show with “Days” (though they did start playing that again in the early ‘90s).

I'd never heard any of those arena rock albums till the lockdown when I tried listening to them but gave up eventually. "Life on the Road" is a good song.

There's almost nothing I like about Sleepwalker the actual album, but the bonus tracks on the 90s CD issue are quite lovely

I like the cover art

Misfits is a very mixed bag but much stronger IMO. A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy is like a genuinely amazing Spinal Tap song

“Mixed bag” is putting it mildly for an album with the explicitly racist “Black Messiah.”

yeah when I saw that song title when I pulled the album up on Spotify I thought "oh this is not going to be good"

Well, it's not like it's representative of the album overall. Much of it is weak but elsewhere I'd say it offers superior soft-rock Kinks to the tedious Sleepwalker

“Mixed bag” is putting it mildly for an album with the explicitly racist “Black Messiah.”

Everybody got the right to speak their mind
So don't shoot me for saying mine
Everybody talking about racial equality
'Cause everybody's equal in the good Lord's eyes
But if I told you that God was black
What would you think of that?
I bet you wouldn't believe it

[Verse 2]
There's a self-made prophet living right next to me
He said the Black Messiah's gonna come and set the whole world free
He looked at me with his evil eye and he prophesied
And he really believed it


[Verse 3]
He said the Black Messiah is gonna set the world on fire
And he's no liar, 'cause he has truly heard the word
Everybody talking about racial equality
But I'm the only honky living on an all black street
They knock me down 'cause they brown and I white
Like you wouldn't believe it

[Verse 4]
They say a Black Messiah is gonna set the world on fire
A Black Messiah is gonna come and rule the world
Everybody talking about racial equality
Everybody talking about equal rights
But white's white, black's black, and that's that
Everybody got the right to speak their mind
So don't shoot me for saying mine

[Verse 5]
Everybody talking about racial equality
Yeah, everybody talking about equal rights
But white's white, black's black, that's that
And that's the way you should leave it

[Verse 6]
Don't want no Black Messiah to come and set the world on fire
A Black Messiah is gonna come and rule the world
Everybody got to show a little give and take
Everybody got to live with a little less hate
Everybody got to work it out, we gotta sort it out
Everybody got the right to speak their mind
So don't shoot me for saying mine

Well, it's not like it's representative of the album overall. Much of it is weak but elsewhere I'd say it offers superior soft-rock Kinks to the tedious Sleepwalker

(xp) Reads like he wrote it after spending a night in the Flask in Highgate Village having his ear bent by a pub bore.

But are you suggesting Davies didn’t intend for this to be an unreliable narrator?

Yes. There’s nothing in the lyrics or in his vocal delivery to suggest he’s inhabiting a character (a defense some use for the line “Who cares if you’re Jewish” in “When I Turn Off My Living Room Light”), and the 5th verse is the main reason why. Add to that the fact that they released it as a single in the UK at a time when the fascist National Front were ramping up their racist attacks. “Black Messiah” is indefensible.

I think I said it on another thread but, unreliable narrator or not, it's an extremely stupid song

It’s pretty bad however you slice it.

Yeah, not sure I disagree with that. I do tend to think he’s putting on a character here, between the conceit and the accent. But Davies certainly skirted the line many times. It’s been 25 years since I read it but I still remember the fantastical passage in X-Ray where he describes his music publisher turning into some ghoulish vampiric beast feasting on his clients and chalking it up to his experience during the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis. It’s … uncomfortable.