Customer Reviews

Village Green Preservation Society

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At its best - the title track, `Walter', `Animal Farm', `Days' - this is a stupendously unique creation. The theme is nostalgia, and the mood is of a vanished and innocent bygone age. An indeterminate one however. `Village Green' is not anchored in any particular time or place. It could be a rural, Victorian England - `Phenomenal Cat', for example, has definite Alice in Wonderland echoes. However the title track sings of the need to preserve, for example, Donald Duck - who isn't exactly rural, Victorian, or English. The album's achievement though lies in the fact that it does, at its best moments, capture a wistful, elegiac feel, but mostly using the standard rock instrumental line-up of guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. No Beatle-esque orchestrations or Who-like massed synthesisers here! The general evocation of things past - steam powered trains, old school friends, the recurring references to photographs from days gone by, and the enigmatic `Big Sky' - make it clear the theme of the album is nostalgia itself, and not nostalgia for any particular time or place. "I live in a museum" sings leader/songwriter Ray Davies on `Last of the Steam Powered Trains', "so I'm OK!" And Davies' vocals fit perfectly. Never a great singer, Davies' strength is lies in his ability to convey a character with simple, subtle vocal inflexions. (The best example of this is in the previous year's single, `Autumn Almanac' - a song which also distils into three minutes Davies' lyrical themes for the next few years). By the 1970s, that acting deftness had degenerated into over-the-top ham - foreshadowed here on `All of my Friends'. Generally though, Davies restrains himself on this album, and that restraint pays dividends. The reason `VGPS' is so effective in evoking mood and atmosphere rests largely on Davies' voice. On many tracks, he sounds like a wise old man singing of the past. Not exactly a classic rock star pose - and that's why I personally keep coming back to this work. Davies wasn't bothered by what the mainstream of rock music was doing, he just burrowed into his own interests and came up with this. The re-mixed version rightfully adds the `Days' single, released at the same time but not on most versions of the original album. It makes a perfect coda to the album's theme, as well as being one of the most sublime singles of the rock era. I'll add my voice to those who have grizzled that the golden opportunity to include a number of songs recorded around the same time but only released on the incredibly rare `Great Lost Kinks' vinyl LP was missed here. A near-criminal oversight. That's not the only criticism though. The much-loved `quirkiness' of the Kinks can get a little overdone, and the supposed charm of tracks such as `All of my friends were there' and `Sitting by the Riverside', can wear a little thin - for this listener, anyway. The other fault is the production - mostly, from what I have read, due to the poor budget available to the band at the time. It has a very unfinished overall sound, with the backing vocals often sounding like they're off a demo. The drums on some tracks, such as `Picture Book', sound like cardboard boxes being hit with wooden spoons. And poor production mars what should have been - and for many fans still is - the album's stand-out track, `Big Sky'. A magnificent, subtle, spiritual number, the song serves as a heartfelt plea from the human soul to an unknown and unknowable god. A pity the production is so half-done. This is not an album you would ever put on at a party. You certainly can't dance to it, no matter how much you're into irony. And in some ways, it doesn't sound like a rock album at all. "A hundred years out of its time - forward or back," was how someone described this work somewhere. Amen to that.

It's funny. I'm a big fan of the rock 'n roll. During my teenage years, armed with a copy of Rolling Stone's 1987 "100 Greatest Albums" as my map, bumming records from a couple older friends of mine, I started getting into music hardcore.

Nearly two decades later, I'm well versed on the lore and history of the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, the Band, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, the Dead, garage rock, one-hit wonders, Bay area groups, Gram Parsons, etc, etc, et al.

But I have to admit, I don't know a damn thing about the Kinks except they cranked out a slew of hit singles, fought a lot and never really cracked the stratosphere like a lot of their contemporaries. Yeah, they're a legendary band; in terms of success, they aren't Moby Grape, exactly, but they also aren't exactly Led Zeppelin. Meaning, I owned Kinks Kronicles and Greatest Hits but that was about it.

Somehow I wound up with "Village Green" a few years ago. I found it used, cheap, bought it on an impulse and I don't think I even took it out of the case for a year or so. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, it blew me away. What a great album this is.

"Big Sky," "Johnny Thunder," "Picture Book," "Do You Remember Walter," "Starstruck," the steam train song. One good song after another. This is one of those albums that makes driving a little less tiresome. Get this thing but don't be like me. Put it in your stereo as soon as you can and enjoy it.

The entire album, in great sounding mono, then an early stereo mix of an abridged and altered rejected version. Tres cool! - except that the stereo versions are NOT sonically up to snuff; my American Reprise version sounds MUCH better. It's small criticism, though. I'm just happy to have a great stereo remaster of "Days" on this album; I've always felt it belonged with this material, and feels at home with VGPS.

OK, a word on the actual music. I love the Kinks early singles, but starting with Face to Face (1966) through Lola (1970), Ray Davies' albums became wonderful complete works - his songwriting became his palate for painting characters & situations rife with poignancy and sharp detail. Perhaps this was never more fully realized than on VGPS. Running the stylistic gaumet, Village Green unfolds like a great book, each new song a brilliant work in it's own right, but also adding to the thematic texture of this wonderful album as a whole. Whatever. Buy it. Listen to it. Fall in love with it. I dare you not to.

Of this record, a reviewer wrote sometime in the late 70s, "It is 100 years out of its time -- one way or the other." This album is heroic, in the way that Dylan's "John Wesley Harding" was heroic, but perhaps even more so. Like "Harding," or even "Music From Big Pink," The Kinks' "Village Green" is a penultimate rejection of the then-new social mores that had come to feast on the culture of the time. This is an album that rejects, either directly or intuitively, the Dionysian, psychedelic trance of the age, instead wistfully recalling a gentle time during which it was worthwhile to ask God's intervention in saving "the little shops, China cups and virginity." However, unlike Dylan or the Band circa 1968, the Kinks recorded this quiet, sturdy anachronism at a time when their commerical stock had already plunged out of sight in the U.S., and was on greatly on the wane at home in England. Perhaps because of that, this is Ray Davies' personal social manifesto, nothing less. And if my description makes it sound like some sort of pre-emptive strike in the past-worshipping movement that eventually created the Contract with America, be reassured that Davies' innate socialism is far too pronounced to actually hope for the blessed past to ever return. It's one thing to dream of yesterday, another to hope for its return. Clearly, Ray Davies, as he expresses himself in "Village Green," is bidding those fond days good-bye forever. To put it in his, and the album's parting words, "Don't show me no more, please."

I've read so many reviews claiming that this is the undisputable best Kinks album, that I was expecting it to blow me away-- but it didn't, and doesn't. It is subtle and clever and wonderful, but start to finish, both Arthur and Muswell Hillbillies are more powerful and satisfying listens. Village Green is a great pop album, but the other two are great Ray Davies albums. His lyrical and compositional genius are just a little more evident on those other two recordings. Make this the third Kinks album you buy. Or maybe fourth, after Face to Face.

The album is really wonderful. Most impressive is the effortless manner in which R. Davies paints his small-town portrait: it is, by all means, impressionistic; the blurry distinction of memory that is plugged into nostalgic overdrive. Such a dependence on hazy remembrances allows for quick-time transitions from reality to fantasy. The Kinks had, by this time, burrowed themselves down into a new journey of self-discovery: everything became more refined; thus, isolated to increasing self-awareness. The Ray of yore is little to be seen here. R. Davies filters a (thinly wrapped) traditionalist stance in these songs, and the sum is take-it-or-leave-it.

Only The Kinks can deliver lyrics about tea-time and family photo albums, only to lace them with melodic cynicism and a youthful sneer, and fuel them with propulsive, (yet rarely distorted) guitar parts framed by broadway-informed song structures. On this 1968 album, Ray Davies has come along way from the savagely-rocking riff songs like "you really got me", and now examines the psychology of nostalgia, with themes that would be almost confrontational to the average hippy: he asks the listener to "picture yourself, when you're getting old", and sings about the fallibilty of youthful idealism. The songwriting is consistantly strong, resulting in a tightly nit, engaging album.

Una de las mas grandes muestras del enorme talento, inteligencia e ironia de Mr. Ray Davies. Cada canción es superior a la anterior en pequeñas piezas pop de 5 kilates. Lejos de las modas mas psicotropicas del momento, Kinks superaron su "Something Else" del 67 y eso ya era una tarea compleja.
Escuchalo y aprecialo por ti mismo.
Recompensa sonora asegurada.
P.d.: Me gustaria contactar con Noelia Almenara que es tambien de Madrid y he visto que tiene interesantes discos revisados. Para intercambiar informacion. My mail es montyland@hotmail.com

This is probably the most atypical Kinks album -- but it is a favorite of mine. Don't buy this if you are expecting anything like "You Really Got Me" or even "Lola." This is a quieter album, a sometimes whimsical, sometimes sad portrait of small-town life and/or remembrances thereof. It could take a few listens before it catches on (it did for me), but once it does, you will come back to this again and again. The title song, "Picture Book," and "Big Sky" are just a few of my faves from the album.

(Also, just a note: I can't comment on the bonus tracks since I am basing my review on a years-old vinyl record.)

Just one of the greatest albums ever, but it takes some time (took me some time) to get into. But once you're there every track is memorable and lovely.