Reviews

The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society by Andy Miller

misterjay's review against another edition

3.0

My favorite books in the 33 1/3 series introduce me to an album I had previously overlooked from a band or artist I enjoy listening to. The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society does exactly that. Andy Miller chose this record precisely because it has been so often overlooked by fans, both at the time of its release and in the subsequent decades. (Indeed, finding a copy of the record to listen to while reading the book was something of a challenge in and of itself; it is available on CD but not as a download through any of the major Mp3 stores.) Miller uses a tried and true approach and takes us through the initial concept, the recording process, how the band members felt about said process, and finally through each song, showing us how it relates to the album as a whole and how it came to be included on the album.

For myself, this was the first time I had ever heard the album (I've long been a Kinks fan, but mainly through their greatest hits packages) as a whole and having the book to guide me through it was fun and informative and helped me refine my appreciation of Ray Davies songwriting abilities as well as the musical abilities of everyone in the band. And really, you can't ask for more than that.

gengelcox's review

informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

Although I knew a few Kinks’ songs growing up, they weren’t a band I followed or even explored. Although they started in Britain at roughly the same time as The Who, The Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, the Kinks failed to capitalize on their early successes, which this book by Andy Miller attributes to a combination of poor decisions on both the part of their main songwriter, Ray Davies, and his record label, Pye. The latter wanted Davies and the band to continue focusing on single releases, ignoring the trend in the late 60s to more album-oriented material, including conceptual albums. Davies, with his finger on the pulse, tried to follow Pete Townshend and Paul McCartney in creating albums, but dithered between trying to do it as a solo album or a band album or even a concept album at all. In the end, The Kings Are the Village Green Preservation Society (TKATVGPS heretofore) got issued late and sank without a trace.

And yet, today, it’s considered a classic. And that’s because people two decades later rediscovered it when CDs opened up music publisher vaults and enabled them to sell the same music they had already sold by repackaging and remastering and releasing on the new format. Now, TKATVGPS is the best-selling non-compilation Kinks album. Funny how time works.

For my part, I find Davies’ singing and the Kinks style in general not to my taste, kind of like Bob Dylan, but enjoy Davies’ songwriting when others cover his songs. And there are a lot of covers, from the top 20 hit for Kirsty MacColl of “Days” to the bombastic Van Halen version of “You Really Got Me” to the plaintive Chrissie Hind wailing on “Stop Your Sobbing” on the first Pretenders record to the impulsive Jam cover of “David Watts” (which I can never listen to without thinking of my high school friend of the same name, although he’s nothing like the boy described in the song). I had never heard TKATVGPS until I went looking for it after hearing Kate Rusby’s cover of the title track. As Miller explores in his book, even had Pye made a bigger deal of releasing the album, Davies’ concept was likely out-of-step with anything going on in rock music at the time, focused on small town life, nostalgia, memories, and regrets. Compare that with Pete Townshend’s ambitious quasi-SF rock opera about a deaf, dumb, and blind boy who creates a cult.

Perhaps it’s because I’m older now that I find Davies’ subject material more appealing than pinball wizards and acid queens. Miller’s track-by-track review of the songs on the album explore Davies’ likely state of mind, whether or not the song was originally intended to be included in the new album, and how it was recorded. He also covers all the songs written and recorded at the time and discarded, only to be found today in bootlegs or on Komplete compilations.

I’m not sure I can recommend this book to people who aren’t as obsessive about music as I am, but if you are interested in the Kinks and this period of British rock, it’s a wonderful trip. 

matthewcpeck's review against another edition

4.0

Although 'TKATVGPS' is one of my desert island/and or stranded-in-space records, I've tended to pass over the Kinks in my mp3 shuffling, as of late. Andy Miller's breezy assessment (read it in a day) is an unexpected delight that renewed my appreciation for the singular concept album that birthed my love for the brothers Davies upon first listen, 10 years ago. The book consists of an account of the albums's conception and recording, a track-by-track analysis of the album and of the b-sides and rarities resulting from the recording sessions (thank God for SoulSeek). Miller writes the way I wish every music critic would write – he is erudite without hip name-dropping; he writes an equal amount of material about the purely musical elements as he does the thematic and lyrical stuff; and he evinces a genuine and contagious passion for the band. His mini-essay of ‘Big Sky’ will compel you to put the track on repeat. I don’t agree with all of his opinions – I think he undersells the more aggressive, rockin’ permutation of the Kinks that preceded and followed and this era – but, again, that’s what a critic is meant to do.
I don’t need a companion book to grasp the profundity of the Kinks’ opus, but now I have more verbal ammunition for convincing everybody to listen.

tlockney's review against another edition

2.0

Sometimes interesting and occasionally insightful, but honestly just a bit too boring.

kylegarvey's review against another edition

3.0

I kind of thought "Fu Manchu, Moriarty and Dracula" were interesting things to preserve, but apparently Andy Miller doesn't agree as much because he hardly mentions them at all.

thebobsphere's review

4.0

The first volume of the 33 1/3 series that I read and although not great, it is a solid and interesting take on the album.

blackheath's review

2.0

The first section on the writing and recording of the album is interesting. The rest of the book is a lot of typical rock critic bullshit: fawning praise for the record and Ray Davies tempered with snide remarks and know-it-all comments about Davies and his alleged true thoughts and intentions. As Sybil Fawlty said to Basil re: the latter's treatment of the hotel's guests: "You’re either crawling all over them, licking their boots, or spitting poison at them like some benzedrine puff adder." Obnoxious.