# Deep Tracks - The Kinks - "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society"



## Guest (Sep 24, 2018)

*Deep Tracks - The Kinks - "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society"*

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Please *choose up to nine selections* for this particular poll.

On all polls created if you click on the number of votes following the song title the username of all voters and their chosen selections will appear.

The tunes themselves will be found below the poll itself as links rather than as embedded videos due to bandwidth issues for those who wish to reacquaint themselves with a tune that may have receded a bit too far into the past to be remembered with the clarity that came when they were first released...

Next up is - The Kinks - "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society"

"The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society" is the sixth studio album by the English rock group the Kinks, released in November 1968. It was the last album by the original quartet (Ray Davies, Dave Davies, Pete Quaife, Mick Avory, as bassist Quaife left the group in early 1969. A collection of vignettes of English life, "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society" was assembled from songs written and recorded over the previous two years.

Davies did not compose the songs to fit a predetermined theme of the album but a certain commonality develops in his lyric interests of the time. Stephen Thomas Erlewine described Village Green as a "concept album lamenting the passing of old-fashioned English traditions." The intentional Englishness of the lyrics' imagery may have partly been due to The Kinks' exclusion from the USA.

Upon its release "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society" was greeted with almost unanimously positive reviews from both UK and US rock critics but failed to sell strongly, an estimated 100,000 copies worldwide. Despite this the album has become the Kinks' best-selling original record.

The album did not have a popular single ("Starstruck" was released in North America and continental Europe, but failed to chart anywhere but the Netherlands).

Although it was commercially unsuccessful Village Green, upon its US release in January 1969, was embraced by the new underground rock press, particularly in the United States where the Kinks' status as a cult band began to grow. In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau called it "the best album of the year so far", and Circus magazine ran an article under the heading "Kinks - Unhip But Original", which stated: "The Kinks are backdated, cut off from the mainstream of pop progression. Just the same they're originals and now have a fine new album out".

In Boston's underground paper Fusion, a review stated, "The Kinks continue, despite the odds, the bad press and their demonstrated lot, to come across... Their persistence is dignified, their virtues are stoic. The Kinks are forever, only for now in modern dress".

Paul Williams in Rolling Stone wrote a review that heaped praise on Village Green, saying "I've played [Village Green] twice since it arrived here this afternoon, and already the songs are slipping into my mind, each new hearing is a combined joy of renewal and discovery. Such a joy, to make new friends! And each and every song Ray Davies has written is a different friend to me."

The LP went virtually unnoticed in the UK, receiving only a single review in Disc. The nameless reviewer commented that "[Davies has managed to bypass] everything psychedelic and electronic ... The Kinks may not be on the crest of the pop wave at these days, but Ray Davies will remain one of our finest composers for many years."

The record soon achieved a cult following, and remains popular today. Kinks fan and British musician Pete Townshend of The Who later said that "For me, Village Green Preservation Society was Ray's masterwork. It's his Sgt. Pepper, it's what makes him the definitive pop poet laureate."

Davies' timing with the album's nostalgic concept proved to be just out of step in the cultural turmoil of 1968, but it soon gained a much greater mainstream appeal. In 2003, the album was ranked number 255 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Abums of All Time".

From its inception, Davies considered the album for stage presentation and its general theme served to inspire the Kinks' more ambitious, but less popular, two-part theatrical work "Preservation" in 1972-1974. In his autobiography X-Ray, Davies would refer to the three albums as his "Preservation trilogy," confirming that Preservation is directly related to Village Green Preservation Society.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kinks_Are_the_Village_Green_Preservation_Society

Your commentary on any and every aspect of the album and especially any memories reawakened as a result of the poll is welcomed.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2018)

"*The Village Green Preservation Society*" -






"*Do You Remember Walter?*" -






"*Picture Book*" -






"*Johnny Thunder*" -






"*Last Of The Steam-Powered Trains*" -






"*Big Sky*" -






"*Sitting By The Riverside*" -






"*Animal Farm*" -






"*Village Green*" -






"*Starstruck*" -






"*Phenomenal Cat*" -






"*All Of My Friends Were There*" -






"*Wicked Annabella*" -






"*Monica*" -






"*People Take Pictures Of Each Other*" -


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Phew - what an achievement this was. And thanks to Pye's non-existent promotion it was also almost career suicide. But what did Ray Davies give us? Nothing less than a fantastic song-cycle from a North Londoner wistfully hankering for a disappeared parochial rural England. I once read an account by an American reviewer who said that he loved the album but he'd probably love it even more if he was English because it's so locked within its own sense of time and place.

_Do You Remember Walter?_ and _Animal Farm_ are two of the very few songs that almost get my tear ducts into overdrive, _The Last of the Steam-Powered Trains_ is a fond nod to _Smokestack Lightning_ and also, perhaps, bidding farewell to the group's R & B roots. I also love the Lear-esque _Phenomenal Cat_ - one of the few Kinks songs which bordered on the genuinely psychedelic, and _Big Sky_ is a widescreen beauty to rival the likes of _Penny Lane_ and _Ride My See-Saw_. And then there is that great opening title track, imploring God to save anything from strawberry jam to billiards.

However, it would have been even better if the single _Days_ would have been on it rather than _Monica_, which I think is the only weak-ish track on the album.

God Save the Kinks.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2018)

elgars ghost said:


> Phew - what an achievement this was. And thanks to Pye's non-existent promotion it was also almost career suicide. But what did Ray Davies give us? Nothing less than a fantastic song-cycle from a North Londoner wistfully hankering for a disappeared parochial rural England. I once read an account by an American reviewer who said that he loved the album but he'd probably love it even more if he was English because it's so locked within its own sense of time and place.
> 
> _Do You Remember Walter?_ and _Animal Farm_ are two of the very few songs that almost get my tear ducts into overdrive, _The Last of the Steam-Powered Trains_ is a fond nod to _Smokestack Lightning_ and also, perhaps, bidding farewell to the group's R & B roots. I also love the Lear-esque _Phenomenal Cat_ - one of the few Kinks songs which bordered on the genuinely psychedelic, and _Big Sky_ is a widescreen beauty to rival the likes of _Penny Lane_ and _Ride My See-Saw_. And then there is that great opening title track, imploring God to save anything from strawberry jam to billiards.
> 
> ...


First-rate review - my compliments!...

I think that what is great about the album - what made it transcendent - is that it opened up that locked sense of time and place that was "England" to everyone everywhere regardless of who they were or where they were at or from... We were probably dreaming of an "England" that may not have ever actually existed - an idealized time and place and people that was completely imaginary - without any foundation in reality because we had never been there - an "England" that would not have been recognized by anyone who was actually English and/or living in England at the time.

The Kinks were, are, and always will be my personal favourites because I always felt that I was having an actual conversation with Ray Davies - that he had something to say that I needed to hear. I never felt that way with Lennon and McCartney or Jagger and Richards. I would imagine that Dave Davies felt differently in regards to brother Ray having something to say worth hearing though...

Oh, and for the better part of the next ten days I'll be rather scarce except for brief pop ins due to my having to be in Ottawa... Merl's in charge...


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I've been listening to this one on YouTube. It's the only other Kinks CD I need to pick up. There's a new 2 disc edition coming out next month. Not sure why? There's already a 3 disc deluxe edition. Anyway, I agree Ray Davies has something to say. And to people beyond their teens. The Kinks are rock n roll for grown ups.


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