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The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society

The KinksAudio CD
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)

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Audio CD, 1990 $10.00  
Vinyl, Import, 2003 --  

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Music

Image of album by The Kinks

Photos

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Biography

The Kinks were formed by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in their hometown of Muswell Hill, North London. The brothers began playing skiffle and rock and roll, recruiting Peter Quaife to play bass with them. By the summer of 1963, as The Ravens, they'd recruited drummer Mickey Willet. Eventually their demo tape reached American record producer Shel Talmy who helped the band land a contract ... Read more in Amazon's The Kinks Store

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The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society + Arthur + Lola versus Powerman and the Money-Go-Round, Part One
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Product Details

  • Audio CD (May 2, 1990)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Reprise / Wea
  • ASIN: B000002KOI
  • Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,959 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

1. The Village Green Preservation Society
2. Do You Remember Walter?
3. Picture Book
4. Johnny Thunder
5. Last Of The Steam-Powered Trains
6. Big Sky
7. Sitting By The Riverside
8. Animal Farm
9. Village Green
10. Starstruck
11. Phenomenal Cat
12. All Of My Friends Were There
13. Wicked Annabella
14. Monica
15. People Take Pictures Of Each Other

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Sensing that the Beatles, Stones, and Who were radically transforming rock music by turning it literate and conceptual, Ray Davies decided the Kinks should be his vehicle to explore his unusual longing for a simpler time when the English empire was not in decline. A reliance on English music hall tradition and sentiments indicated in titles such as "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains," "Picture Book," and "Village Green" clearly show Davies's nostalgia streak. Davies's singing has always been rough and non-Kinks fans may have trouble getting past his sloppy pitch. But for those listening closely, the tales are one of a kind. --Rob O'Connor

Product Description

This 1968 all-time fan favorite is Ray's nostalgic look back at the England of old: the irresistible Picture Book and title track plus Johnny Thunder; Monica; Wicked Annabella , and more!

Customer Reviews

Conceptually, the album is very cohesive, even if he stretches to other stories and themes. "Rocky Raccoon"  |  8 reviewers made a similar statement
Village Green is one of the great rock albums of the 1960's. Paul J. Escamilla  |  16 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
63 of 65 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Quiet and quirky. September 9, 1998
Format:Audio CD
Pop Kulcher Review: While the Kinks may be better known for their early string of singles ("All Day & All of the Night," etc.) and classic rock hits ("Lola," etc.), some of their most timeless music was the quiet, gentle, and lesser-known stuff from '68-'72, when Ray Davies did some truly original character-based songwriting, and the band traded in their simple riff-rockers for more melodic, moving music. On Village Green Preservation Society, the band nearly gave up rock completely, coming up with a primarily acoustic set of songs, each of which is a character sketch of an inhabitant in a fictional, pastoral English village (reminiscent of the poetry collection Spoon River Anthology). The album is sweet and charming, and hard to believe it came from the same guys as "You Really Got Me." Not that this isn't poppy -- the title song is pretty catchy, as are tracks like "Do You Remember Walter," "Picture Book," and "Johnny Thunder" -- but it's much more subtle, with Davies having enough faith in his lyrics to let them stand up without a fail-safe guitar crunch in the background.
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48 of 49 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the great concept albums of the late sixties October 18, 2005
Format:Audio CD
Following the release of SGT. PEPPER'S by the Beatles, it appears that almost every other band in the sixties and early seventies was inspired to do likewise. The Kinks's Ray Davies response in 1968 was seemingly to take Paul McCartney's "When I'm 64" and build an entire album around that song's nostalgia. Although the Kinks had been in one sense the first hard rock band due to the first use of distortion in any rock song in "You've Really Got Me" (whether the guitar was played by session guitarist Jimmy Page as many maintain or Dave Davies as Dave and Ray-not always Dave's most enthusiastic defender, which makes his insistence on this issue more believable-claim may never be definitively settled), but the truth is that they moved over the next few years more and more from the distortion and further and further towards a pop sound. A decidedly pop album with nostalgia as the driving concept would hardly seem to be the recipe for success. If one defines success exclusively in record sales, then THE KINKS ARE THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY was a decided failure, registering the poorest sales of any of their albums to date, but on critical grounds it is in the opinion of many the finest album they ever released.

The sales failure of VILLAGE GREEN partly lies in the fact that the Kinks could not for some undiscovered reason obtain visas to tour the United States during several years in the sixties. As a result, they could release albums in the U.S., but they couldn't tour to support them. VILLAGE GREEN was one of the last albums they released before the ban was lifted and the album's failure in the states definitely hurt. But it is also the most English of all of their albums (with the possible exception of ARTHUR).
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40 of 44 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Cohesive and unfourtunatly overlooked classic July 8, 2000
Format:Audio CD
This is not the punky, power-chording Kinks with simple repetative riffs and unimaginitive compostitions. True, they often resort to using the same key signature throughout (but only a musician would even notice), but the songwriting is superb and creative. The arrangements are lush and melodic, and completely lack the self-consious weirdness that plauged many contemporary British albums (Rolling Stones "Their Satanic Majesties Request" ,Traffic's "Mr. Fantasy", Small Faces "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" etc.). Many of Ray Davies' lyrics are are introspective ("Big Sky"), nostalgic ("Village Green"), and dispite the happy fascade, deal with the sadness inherent in change ("Do You Remeber Walter?"). Some of the songs are slight ("Starstruck", "Phenomenal Cat"), but do not detract from the album's concept or cohesion. Also, it is stylisticly diverse, with music hall ("All of My Friends Were There"), latin ("Monica") and blues ("Last of the Steam-Powered Trains"). Overall, a varied, yet cohesive album with a strong lyrical theme that can stand up to "Pet Sounds", "Seargent Pepper..." and any of the other great 60's classics. Unfourtunatly, it was just a little two British for widespread American appeal.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the greatest rock albums of all time. January 28, 2002
By T. Gadd
Format:Audio CD
But why does everyone miss the point of this LP? To me - and ok, I could be wrong - Village Green is about childhood, loss of innocence, about being in that transitional phase between childhood and adulthood. I think the 'old England' setting is largely just a metaphor for that. "How I love things as they used to be" comes immediately afterthe line "Picture of me when I was just three"

Secondly, this is NOT an altogether folky, subdued album. 'Big Sky', 'Johnny Thunder' and 'Steam Powered Trains' rock as hard as anything on 'Something Else'. And it's not altogether a sweet, whimsical album. It's wistful, and often very sad. 'Do You Remember, Walter' and 'People Take Pictures of Each Other' are almost painfully so.

For my money this the Kinks best album. I would give it a dead heat with 'Astral Weeks' as the album of 1968. Any other year, either of those would have won it alone. It also comes close to the beginning of The Kinks purple patch - a 4 to 5 year period from circa 1967 to 1971, when everything Ray Davies wrote was magic. That this corresponded to the period of their least commercial success (up until that time) is criminal. In the late 60's, Davies arguably put more runs on the board than any other songwriter in rock.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing album
This is such a fantastic album! Everything about it, from the music to the lyrics to the cover photo, is just brilliant. I'll never get tired of listening to it.
Published 18 days ago by Emily
5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic, of Course
Certainly an album of its era. What an imaginative time when so many British Isles bands looked back in time - Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band, The Pentangle -... Read more
Published 23 days ago by Frank R. Rider
4.0 out of 5 stars The Kinks
This album has a nice tune or two . I will be listening to more of their albums because of the music on this one.
Published 1 month ago by Sparky
5.0 out of 5 stars Great record!
This record is fantastic. Amazon says I needed 16 more words after that, but that just kind of sums it up perfectly. It's fantastic and I frequently listen to it start to finish. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Paul Keen
5.0 out of 5 stars The Music we Miss
THese guys were so great. The few songs that get aired these days are the roots of rock but the Kinks had so much more going on. These are great tunes from a vintage era. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Allen Rosenberg
4.0 out of 5 stars Check it out, you won't be disappointed!
It was 1968, and the Rock-and-Roll world was breaking free. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band had come out only a year before, and a fresh wind was blowing. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Kurt A. Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars songs about the village green, pictures and one phenomenal cat
There's only a handful of records that have made a significant impact on me. Depending on my mood or day of the week, The Kinks `Village Green Preservation Society' is at the very... Read more
Published 16 months ago by J. Hubner
5.0 out of 5 stars grossly underated masterpiece
This came out in 1968 while the Kinks were still banned from playing in the states, meaning they were not able to promote this record. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Bruce D. Tucker
5.0 out of 5 stars Big Sky
An enduring pop masterpiece~The Holy Grail~ way ahead of its time and still sounding better with the passage of time.A thing of great beauty....a joy forever. Read more
Published on March 30, 2011 by David Mc Cormack
2.0 out of 5 stars one of their weaker albums
For some reason this album of the Kinks has been hyped to a younger generation of listeners who now hold it in the highest esteem. Read more
Published on January 17, 2011 by james bernath
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