Customer Reviews

The Kinks' The Village Green Preservation Society (Thirty Three and a Third series)

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Just in time for the re-issue of this classic record by Sanctuary, Mr. Miller's book is a fine example of rock writing without pretension or artifice. His writing is clear, well-informed, illuminating, and witty. A pleasure to read. A shame that he couldn't get Ray Davies to talk, but then not many can. Still, there is some good input from the rest of the band, including a wonderful remark from Pete Quaife, which is too rude to repeat here!

Another positive feature of the book is that Mr. Miller devotes almost as much time to the songs which never made it on to the LP as he does to those that did. I am sure the sleevenotes for the reissue will be good, but they are unlikely to be as fascinating as Mr. Miller's book.

Though the 3 cd reissue of Village Green Preservation Society is excellent, it lacks extensive liner notes that shed more light on it. This book details everything about the album, the band during that period, the recording sessions and how it translated live. The analysis is crucial. While the Kinks after their sound matured were masters at social commentary what they were expressing in their songs was not always obvious if you weren't there at the time. For example the song on Village Green "Last of the Steam Powered Trains" is referring (at least according to the book) about a blues rave up by Howlin' Wolf "Smokestack Lightning" that was a live staple of all the bands at that time until psychadelia encroached which made the music instantly nostalgic. The book expertly picks through the threads that that the album is woven from. I find all the books in this series to be enlightening but the ones that are the notable discuss albums that haven't been already picked apart by rock critics (e.g. Neutral Milk Hotel) and while the Kinks have been around for a while this book offers a fresh perspective on an album that not only has not dated but with its then unique mix of nostalgia and cynicism become ripe for discussion.

The album with that may have the longest name in rock history, The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society, is now a book. It is part of the "33 1/3" series, now comprising over 40 volumes, with more on the way. Each volume is about an album, with musical acts far ranging from The Band to The Beastie Boys.

This particular volume, about the Ray Davies-led 1968 effort The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society, is written by Andy Miller (many different authors have contributed to the series thus far). Seeing is how there wasn't one about Rush, I immediately picked up the one about The Kinks, one of the most underrated bands of the British Invasion.

TKATVGPS is a wonderful album, and being born almost 20 years after its initial release I was completely unaware is was a flop upon release. Miller's volume sheds light on the creation of the album, the recording sessions, and the relationship of the band to the album's material.

It tops out at 150 pages, and it's about six inches high, so it's a nice little volume. It doesn't, however, go into the meaning of the lyrics as much as I'd like, but I think that's a point of personal preference.

Overall, this volume of the 33 1/3 series is pretty well written, and a great gateway to understanding a great album. My only reservation is that the cover price on these is about $10. A couple dollars off of that and I'd be quick to buy several more.

If they have one about an album you're especially fond of, pick t up. This is a very cool series of books, and I hope it continues long into the future.

My first venture into the 33 1/3rd series and I will be buying more! The best thing that I can say about this (and it's what I have heard about everything in the series) is that after about ten pages in, I put on the record and haven't taken it off for several days. It avoids the pitfall of glossing over the problems and placing Ray and The Kinks on a pedestal. Instead it places them directly in context of the time that it was released, and the struggles for relevancy that they were experiencing. Fantastic.

I won't go into specifics, as John Murphy's review did an admirable job already. Miller's book is the best I have read so far in the 33 1/3 series, and is a must own for anyone who loves this album. I'm currently on my 7th time around reading through it.

One thing I want to point out, that I think John Murphy misunderstood, is that at the time this book was written and published (2003), the 3-CD reissue of Village Green had not yet been released (it would come out the following year). The reissue Miller mentions is actually the 1998 CD on Castle, as stated in the Notes at the end of the book.

the kinks are the village green preservation society was released on the same day as the beatles white album, november 22, 1968.

the album charted nowhere in the world:the combined US sales of the album and its predecessor 'something else by the kinks' were estimated at a paltry 25,000.

those two facts out of the way, I'd like to declare the broad depth, research and discussion this tiny book carries.

the author analyses 'village green' beginning with the preceeding album(s)and singles while touching on related subjects involving following albums(Arthur, the great lost kinks album, Four More Respected Gentlemen, etc.)...the cultural climate, Rays' personal life and his family, what the rock scribes of the day had to say and quotes from all members of the Kinks.

Once into the album itself, Andy Miller details each track providing all there is to say, to report and to opine about said track. no stone left unturned.

such a small book and yet filled to the brim with really, absolutely everything there is to learn about the subject..that being, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. Through the entire book we learn specifically how its singer and songwriter Ray Davies felt about the album, his band and the success and lack of fortune that that period provided.

the many......many quotes from all concerned thoroughly explains every facet to the making of this cherished classic album.

indepth. seriously indepth. that is my statement regarding this book.

Andy Miller did a fantastic job.

This is the second 33 1-3 book I've read and it'll probably be the last. It's much better than the first one I tried, Jim Fusilli's book on Pet Sounds, which was discursive and only occasionally illuminating. It begins promisingly, with a solid overview of the Kinks' place in the British music scene in the mid-60s and the band's fall from grace. There's a clear and informative summary of the band's disasterous year of 1968 and of the causes and effects of the group's internal strife during this period.

Once it gets to the album itself, however, the book falls short. For some reason (licensing? space constrictions?) the author chooses not to cite lyrics from the album; this weakens what analysis goes on here, as the reader is required to have committed the entire album to memory in order to follow some points made. Worse, most of the discussion of individual songs here is descriptive only, without much in the way of analysis of the song's musical or lyrical significance. That's a shame, especially for American readers who would really benefit from a discussion of the many specific and (to us, anyway) obscure British subtexts and references scattered throughout this great album.

Mr. Miller is an extremely capable writer, so reading this book was a breeze (Fusilli's book, in contrast, is full of annoying colloquialisms). There is some useful information here, but this is not the 'last word on TKATVGPS' that I'd hoped it would be. I'm beginning to suspect the entire 33 1-3 series has been too hastily written and edited--both books I've read fell well short of expectations.

A very good book, I liked it.

It came out before the 3 disc deluxe edition of the album, so that isn't discussed.

The book needs to be updated to discuss this release, if it hasn't already been done so.

Overall, I enjoyed reading it.

The Kinks are one of my all-time desert-island favorite bands, and Village Green is one of my all-time favorite desert-island records. I want to love this book, but it really isn't what I'd hoped. Not that there isn't interesting information and amusing anecdotes, but it's more a look at the group and their environs--what was going on in and around the Kinks, what was going on in any given Davies head-- during the recording, not the actual recording of the album. Which makes sense, naturally, as the potential market for the nuts-and-bolts of the Kinks in the studio is probably damned small. I wasn't expecting a Recording the Beatles or even a The Beatles Complete Recording Sessions (my top two all-time favorite desert island books)--but as a music fan, recordist, and musician, I'm generally a lot less interested in the artists personally and a lot more interested in the music, its creation, and its capture.

The book isn't at fault, and I love having it on my shelf with all my other gazillion music books, but after the first read, I've never opened it again.

Erudition without pretension, Andy Miller's book eschews the fawning quality of many tributes to classic rock in his thoughtful and well-written study. Not only does he examine the actual tracks that appeared on the original 1968 LP, but he sifts through the many tracks also made around this time by the Kinks, or more specifically it seems nearly all of the time, Ray Davies. Ray definitely is the prime mover here over brother Dave and Mick Avory and Pete Quaife, and the shift by this time from a band to more of a backing band for Ray's ambitious vision and undeniable talent does make for honest if rather sad reading. For, it foreshadows the 70s permutation and the subsequent relegation of musicians to back Ray D. under the Kinks name-- rather than as the earlier band of four musicians working together.

The pressures that Ray was under, the frustration of the band with their own stagnation, the neglect by this time of 1968 to the Kinks' already dated impact, and the semi-obscurity within which the band labored: all make for illuminating background. It's an album that seems an anomaly at first, but Miller carefully shows in convincing fashion the satirical and ironic elements that Davies and mates used to embed trenchant commentary on the foibles both of hidebound eccentric villagers in Little Britain and the hip cognoscenti and acid casualties of the Summer of Love and its aftermath.

Miller does not skim over the album's lesser tracks, nor does he inflate the passable songs into undeniable triumphs. He notes each song and how it strengthens, supports, or merely adds to the layers of observation on a musical and social level of modernity and nostalgia. It, like the LP, makes its points in much more appealing manner than it sounds like on the page! Rather than unmitigated bombast common to so many authors on pop music, Miller takes himself out of the scene. He steps aside. He gives a straightforward account of what works best and so-so and not so well on the album and its complicated history, when practically a whole "lost" Kinks album haunts the tracks officially released.

Of course, you must have heard the album many times to appreciate the comments Miller makes. One difficulty I had was that the newest 3-CD British reissue was mentioned, but not scrutinized in sufficient depth. Since this version of the mono and studio recordings as well as ancillary tracks and discarded and alternate songs is for now the most (if not THE) definitive version fans will have the chance to hear, the lack of in-depth analysis given it remains surprising. The lack of coverage given the choices made for better and worse by the compilers of the 3-CD reissue does make this book less useful than it should have been. Since the long-awaited remastering and reissue of this album filled--if still incompletely--a crucial gap in definitive versions of 60s classic albums in rock and pop, I argue that this (imperfect but the best we will have for awhile if ever) reissue should have been made the standard source upon which Miller based his critique. While the new 3-CD set has many shortcomings, it is the most complete picture to date of how the Kinks sounded at the time around this, their landmark recording.

Although this little volume also suffers since key song lyrics seem to have been quoted only sparingly, perhaps for copyright reasons, if one is familiar with the album already, the encounter with print that enriches the recordings will be more rewarding than not. I do wish much more of the verses Ray D. penned could have been appended; the book suffers severely from its limited quotes of the actual song lyrics. Apposite allusions to Orwell, Goldsmith, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the English poetic pastoral tradition of renewable pessimism in the guise of nostalgia make this book an intelligent and welcome entry in the Crossroads series.

My wife was reading the Crossroads volume on the Replacements' "Let it Be" by the Decemberists' Colin Meloy at the same time I read Miller on TKATVGPS, and my choice certainly shone all the brighter by comparison with the rather puerile gush and self-conscious autobiographical take Meloy did for his album choice. Miller keeps away from such potential pitfalls. He gives us a reading of the album that brings primary research, archival investigation, and carefully nuanced criticism together for an efficient, worthwhile, and satisfying read.