THE KINKS - "Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround" + "Percy" OST + Bonus

Original released on LP RS 6423 (US 1970, November 25)

and on LP PYE NSPL 18359 (UK 1970, November 27)

"Lola" gave the Kinks unexpected hit and its crisp, muscular sound, pitched halfway between acoustic folk and hard rock, provided a new style for the band. However, the song only hinted at what its accompanying album "Lola Versus the Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One" was all about. It didn't matter that Ray Davies just had his first hit in years - he had suffered greatly at the hands of the music industry and he wanted to tell the story in song. Hence, "Lola" - a loose concept album about Ray Davies' own psychosis and bitter feelings toward the music industry. Davies never really delivers a cohesive story, but the record holds together because it's one of his strongest set of songs. Dave Davies contributes the lovely "Strangers" and the appropriately paranoid "Rats," but this is truly Ray' show, as he lashes out at ex-managers (the boisterous vaudevillian "The Moneygoround"), publishers ("Denmark Street"), TV and music journalists (the hard-hitting "Top of the Pops"), label executives ("Powerman"), and, hell, just society in general ("Apeman," "Got to Be Free"). If his wit wasn't sharp, the entire project would be insufferable, but the album is as funny as it is angry. Furthermore, he balances his bile with three of his best melancholy ballads: "This Time Tomorrow," "A Long Way From Home," and the anti-welfare and union "Get Back in Line," which captures working-class angst better than any other rock song. These songs provide the spine for a wildly unfocused but nonetheless dazzling tour de force that reveals Ray's artistic strengths and endearing character flaws in equal measure. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

Original released on LP PYE NSPL 18365

(UK 1971, March 26)

Ray Davies and company had already participated in one failed television musical when the movie "Percy" came along - it wasn't as original as "Arthur", nor did Davies have nearly as much to do with its creation, but he still outdid himself given the material at hand. Directed and co-produced by Ralph Thomas, who had been responsible for some brilliant thrillers ("The Clouded Yellow", "Above Us the Waves") and very popular comedies ("Doctor in the House") in past decades, "Percy" was the story of the world's first penis transplant (it was probably inspired, or at least justified, by big-budget efforts of the period like Myra Breckinridge). Although virtually unseen in the United States, it was still popular enough to yield a sequel ("Percy's Progress"), but its real impact came from its soundtrack. Davies wrote some hauntingly beautiful ballads and some solid blues and country as well - "God's Children" and "Animals in the Zoo" have turned up on some career anthologies, but there's a lot more to "Percy" than those two tracks. "Completely" is as fine a slow blues as the band ever recorded, with a sizzling performance by Dave Davies, and "Dreams" is a pretty solid rocker, even up alongside "Animals in the Zoo." To this day the album has never appeared in the U.S. catalog - recorded at the tail end of their contract with Pye Records in England and Warner/Reprise in America, and connected with a movie that was never going to see much exposure in the U.S.A., Reprise passed on it at the time. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

The KINKS Are The Village Green Preservation Society (2018 Stereo Remaster)

Original released on LP Pye NSPL 18233

(UK 1968, November 22)

Ray Davies' sentimental, nostalgic streak emerged on "Something Else", but it developed into a manifesto on "The Village Green Preservation Society", a concept album lamenting the passing of old-fashioned English traditions. As the opening title song says, the Kinks - meaning Ray himself, in this case - were for preserving "draught beer and virginity," and throughout the rest of the album, he creates a series of stories, sketches, and characters about a picturesque England that never really was. It's a lovely, gentle album, evoking a small British country town, and drawing the listener into its lazy rhythms and sensibilities. Although there is an undercurrent of regret running throughout the album, Davies' fondness for the past is warm, making the album feel like a sweet, hazy dream. And considering the subdued performances and the detailed instrumentations, it's not surprising that the record feels more like a Ray Davies solo project than a Kinks album. The bluesy shuffle of "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" is the closest the album comes to rock & roll, and Dave Davies' cameo on the menacing "Wicked Annabella" comes as surprise, since the album is so calm. But calm doesn't mean tame or bland - there are endless layers of musical and lyrical innovation on "The Village Green Preservation Society", and its defiantly British sensibilities became the foundation of generations of British guitar pop. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

Something Else By The Kinks

Original released on LP Pye NSPL 18193

(UK 1967, September 15)

"Face to Face" was a remarkable record, but its follow-up, "Something Else", expands its accomplishments, offering 13 classic British pop songs. As Ray Davies' songwriting becomes more refined, he becomes more nostalgic and sentimental, retreating from the psychedelic and mod posturings that had dominated the rock world. Indeed, "Something Else" sounds like nothing else from 1967. The Kinks never rock very hard on the album, preferring acoustic ballads, music hall numbers, and tempered R&B to full-out guitar attacks. Part of the album's power lies in its calm music, since it provides an elegant support for Davies' character portraits and vignettes. From the martial stomp of "David Watts" to the lovely, shimmering "Waterloo Sunset," there's not a weak song on the record, and several - such as the allegorical "Two Sisters," the Noël Coward-esque "End of the Season," the rolling "Lazy Old Sun," and the wry "Situation Vacant" - are stunners. And just as impressive is the emergence of Dave Davies as a songwriter. His Dylanesque "Death of a Clown" and bluesy rocker "Love Me Till the Sun Shines" hold their own against Ray's masterpieces, and help make "Something Else" the endlessly fascinating album that it is. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

KINKS: The EPs of 1964

Original released on EP PYE NEP 24200

(UK, November 1964)

Original released on EP PYE NEP 24203

(UK, December 1964)

THE KINKS - "Everybody's In Show-Biz"

 Original released on Double LP RCA Victor VPS-6065

(US 1972, August 25)

"Everybody's in Show-Biz" is a double album with one record devoted to stories from the road and another devoted to songs from the road. It could be labeled "the drunkest album ever made," without a trace of hyperbole, since this is a charmingly loose, rowdy, silly record. It comes through strongest on the live record, of course, as it's filled with Ray Davies' notoriously campy vaudevellian routine (dig the impromptu "Banana Boat Song" that leads into "Skin & Bone," or the rollicking "Baby Face"). Still, the live record is just a bonus, no matter how fun it is, since the travelogue of the first record is where the heart of "Everybody's in Show-Biz" lies. Davies views the road as monotony - an endless stream of identical hotels, drunken sleep, anonymous towns, and really, really bad meals (at least three songs are about food, or have food metaphors). There's no sex on the album, at all, not even on Dave Davies' contribution, "You Don't Know My Name." Some of this is quite funny - not just Ray's trademark wit, but musical jokes like the woozy beginning of "Unreal Reality" or the unbearably tongue-in-cheek "Look a Little on the Sunnyside" - but there's a real sense of melancholy running throughout the record, most notably on the album's one unqualified masterpiece, "Celluloid Heroes." By the time it gets there, anyone that's not a hardcore fan may have turned it off. Why? Because this album is where Ray begins indulging his eccentricities, a move that only solidified the Kinks' status as a cult act. There are enough quirks to alienate even fans of their late-'60s masterpieces, but those very things make "Everybody's in Show-Biz" an easy album for those cultists to hold dear to their hearts. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

THE KINKS - Lola (1970)

THE KINKS - Lola (1970)