110. The Kinks - The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (November 1968)

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*

A

This is an interesting album. There's nothing here of the quality of "Shangri-La" or "Waterloo Sunset" (although the title track comes close), but this is made up for by TKATVGPS being a remarkably consistent album. Ray Davies took over production for this album, and the result is a far cleaner and more polished sound than on previous Kinks records - you might even call it understated. Musically, it's a sort of muscular rock/pop/folk hybrid, with flourishes of psychedelia here and there (the largely mediocre "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains", for example, launches halfway through into an incredible guitar breakdown). This is a pretty, gentle album. Davies is still a smart-arse, but his lyrics are more nostalgic and introspective than before. The concept for this album was the idea that "Englishness" was fading, with the influence of America in particular coming to dominate the culture. As an Australian, I can certainly understand the anxiety that comes from watching your country gradually turn American - although, if I'm being honest, there are a lot of aspects of traditional Australian culture that could stand to go. And Davies isn't some racist conservative - as he sings in the title track, "Preserving the old ways from being abused/ Protecting the new ways for me and you/ What more can we do?".

As I get older, I both find myself getting seduced by nostalgia and growing more and more suspicious of it. This album is something of an antidote for that - Davies seems to feel that same mixture of reverence and distaste for his culture and his country. I think this was best explored in the brilliant "Victoria", but he does a good job here. Of course, this sort of lyrical, nostalgic approach was completely at odds with the times, and the album sank without a trace, only to be rescued years later by the Indie crowd (who would mine this album's sound mercilessly throughout the 90s). And it seems obvious to me that acts like the Beatles were still taking notice, and that David Bowie's early 70s work owes a massive debt to the Kinks. 

So, there are a few tracks here that manage to stand with the best of the Kinks' pop songs - "Picture Book" and "The Village Green Preservation Society" are gorgeous sing-along classics, for example - and the rest of the album is good in a sort of gentle, whimsical way (well, except for the freak-out that is "Wicked Annabella"). I'm probably in the minority in preferring Something Else..., but so what. This is a lovely album. And the actual sound of it is just massively influential.