Soap Opera [Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

The Kinks | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 24, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Velvel Records
• ASIN: B00000FDJR
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #259,324 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Everybody's a Star (Starmaker)

2. Ordinary People

3. Rush Hour Blues

4. Nine to Five

5. When Work Is Over

6. Have Another Drink

7. Underneath the Neon Sign

8. Holiday Romance

9. You Make It All Worthwhile

10. Ducks on the Wall

11. (A) Face in the Crowd

12. You Can't Stop the Music

13. Everybody's a Star (Starmaker) [Mono Mix][*]

14. Ordinary People [Live][#][*]

15. You Make It All Worthwhile [Live][#][*]

16. Underneath the Neon Sign [Live][#][*]

Editorial Reviews

This CD is an out of print collectible! It is the 1998 remastered Velvel release. Catalog 63467-79723-2. There is a hole punch through the UPC.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars? Really? Uh...Yup., November 15, 1999

By 

Dale Chapman (San Ramon, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Soap Opera (Audio CD)

This album is simply fantastic. I am a fan of late 60's Kinks (Something Else, Village Green, Arthur, etc.), and I have always regarded the early 70's Kinks as a "lesser product". However, with the remastered reiussue of this record, I have come to appreciate this record as a minor masterpiece. The themes are all cliches (about the "boredom" of marriage, the "monotony" of corporate life, etc.), but the lyrics are so charming and clever that the cliches seem excusable. It's campy, sometimes cloying, and often borders on Spinal Tap inanity. And that is okay. "Everybody's a Star" sounds a bit like ELO's "Do Ya?" with silly horns. "Ordinary People" is so condescending it is delicious. Did I catch myself tapping my toes and humming to "Rush Hour"? Yes, I did! This album is just great! "Nine to Five", "Have Another Drink", and "Underneath the Neon Sign" are all solid songs which have, perhaps, already been done before, but are all worthy of the Ray Davies cannon. "Holiday Romance" is an absolutely ridiculous tune about "getting lucky" (or ALMOST getting lucky) on a pathetic holiday at a beachside resort.

Finally, the album's cornerstone is "You Make It All Worthwhile". This song is truly among Ray Davies top 20. It is a slightly Monty Python-esque ditty (a la "Princess Marina"), about a wife being hurt by her husband's comments about her cooking. The poignant element of this song is that I truly sense that Ray Davies admires the folks who have the courage to be "ordinary people". Ray Davies walked the line between being a lurid rock 'n' roll egomanic and a sensitive "everyman". This is only one of the albums contradictions. I scratch my head every time I listen to the album wondering if the album is truly a subtle masterpiece or an obnoxious "my lifestyle is better than yours" manifesto. Jeepers...this album is just great.

Just don't tell anyone how much you love it, or you won't be cool anymore...

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eccentric But Thoroughly Enjoyable Rock Theater, February 28, 2004

By 

Michael Leake (Albuquerque, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Soap Opera (Audio CD)

Soap Opera was widely criticized upon its 1975 release, and certainly it bore little in common with the trademark Kinks sound that established them initially. Actually, the Kinks as a band are somewhat in the background on this one. There are female backing singers at times and horn arrangements here and there. It sounds much more like a Ray Davies solo project, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It's just different.

If you're expecting something like "You've Really Got Me Now" or "Destroyer" and have little openness toward music beyond those boundaries, you will probably dislike Soap Opera. On the other hand, if you appreciate a catchy song regardless of style, you may well love this concept album as it has a lot going for it.

The premise of Soap Opera is that a rock star trades places with an ordinary man (Norman), stepping into his life, living at his house, going to his job at the office-all the while gathering material for his songs: "I'm immortalizing his life / And I'll even sleep with his wife / For the sake of art." As the joke goes, someone's got to do it. It's hard not to smile when the Ray Davies character puts forth his "noble sacrifice."

In parts, this is an unbelievably campy CD, but it suits the material well. "Ordinary People" and "You Make It All Worthwhile" are just such numbers, but they're so infectious it's hard not to have them running through your head for days. Both are standout tracks. In the latter, Norman's wife and the Star character (Davies) have a brief squabble over her offering to serve shepherd's pie for dinner, which is far from a favorite of the singer's. But he graciously relents to eat it--for the sake of art, of course.

"Nine To Five" is a beautiful ballad about the boredom of working at the office. There are songs about heading to work in rush hour and heading to the pub afterward to unwind. Even Norman gets a turn to sing as he realizes at the end that he must give up his rock star dreams and become once again just "A Face in the Crowd."

There are a lot of musical styles represented here. "Holiday Romance" sounds like it belongs in an old Fred Astaire movie while "Everybody's A Star," "Can't Stop the Music" and "Ducks on the Wall" are more typical rockers.

Soap Opera is a celebration of the mundane. But it's far from mundane itself. This is a truly enjoyable album if you're open for something that differed from both the good early Kinks stuff and the outstanding late seventies Kinks offerings like Sleepwalker and Misfits that followed the concept album period. As for me, I think this is a great album.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Okay so I logged on to Amazon.com, June 10, 2002

By 

Alexander Raymond (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Soap Opera (Audio CD)

and do you know what they recommended to me? They thought I should buy Alanis Morrissette! Man, I don't know who they think they're talking to, but I'll tell you this, the KINKS have nothing in common with Ms Morrissette. The Kinks are good. So anyway, let me start this review off by assuring you that anyone who says this album isn't any good doesn't know what they're talking about about. Ray was at an artistic peak---which seems to happen every 24 hours---with Soap Opera. He has the hubris and talent to tell the story of Norman(you and me???) who dreams of being famous. But what's truly amazing about Soap Opera is that Ray pulls it off! The songs not only fit into the concept but they can be listened to on their own. "A Face In The Crowd" and "A Holiday Romance" could easily fall onto a best of the Kinks compilation. All the songs on this album are personal and poignant. If you want the best of the 70s Kinks, then this is the cd for you.