Muswell Hillbillies

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Album Review: After “Lola” and its accompanying album (1970’s Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One,), The Kinks had a good deal of bargaining power: the single took the world by storm and became one of their best-known songs, and while the album wasn’t quite as successful, it performed well enough that the band signed a new record deal on RCA. The Kinks first album for their new label, Muswell Hillbillies, is often cited as one of their strongest LPs, and was also the beginning of their musical shift away from the “Englishness” of their classic era ( Something Else, The Village Green Preservation Society, Arthur, etc.) to a more eclectic range of influences. Universal’s new deluxe edition adds a whole second disc worth of bonus material, and while it may not be essential for the casual fan, Kinks konnoisseurs will find plenty to get excited about.

Muswell Hillbillies was the band's first album for RCA Records, [2] their prior recordings having been released on Pye Records ( Reprise Records in the United States). Their contract with Pye/Reprise expired the same year. The album was recorded between August and October 1971 Muswell Hillbillies’ and ‘Everybody’s In Show-Biz’ original albums remastered in gatefold wallets, with original artwork. a b c d e Stephen Thomas Erlewine. "The Kinks: Muswell Hillbillies> Review" at AllMusic. Retrieved 9 November 2011. The album introduces a number of working class figures and the stresses with which they must contend. It did not sell well but received critical acclaim and lasting fan appreciation.Stolder, Steven. "Muswell Hillbillies". MusicVIP.com. Archived from the original on 15 July 2011 . Retrieved 5 December 2009. Dave Davies (Ray’s younger brother) takes issue with such understandings of the band’s politics. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Davies rejects the label “conservative” (used by Pete Townshend in a reflection on Village Green). In response to the word “conservatism”, Davies says, “I think it was ‘values’ more than conservatism. My father was a socialist — very left — and I was brought up to be that way. You can still be far-left and have values.” No character, just uniformity. They're trying to build a computerised community," but vows that "they'll never make a zombie out of me."

Everybody’s In Show-Biz – Everybody’s A Star’ 2016 gatefold deluxe 3LP, remastered from original master tapes, colour vinyl.Whatever the trends and changes in direction, these are two excellent albums with excellently crafted songs, overlooked criminally at the time. One lesson the album has for us today is that it is a mistake to separate social, political, and economic ills from their origins in mechanical thinking. The technocracy Davies describes is “Controlled by civil servants / And people dressed in grey.” This maintenance of this Orwellian vision is enforced by a police state run amok: “Don’t wanna get myself shot down / By some trigger happy policeman.” This moment has direct relevance to a source of political strife today. Still, because the band’s politics are so slippery, so incoherent to contemporary definitions, the album might frustrate partisans of any stripe. Here the police brutality is faceless and not comprehensible through moral judgments of individuals. It’s the age of machinery, after all. The problem of police brutality in this album is an outcome of the dehumanizing effects of our mechanical nightmare. Previously unseen, digitally restored Ray Davies 1971 home movie, narrated by Ray (15 minutes long). This enigmatic quality has served their legacy well. By ignoring fashions and trends, the Kinks forged a body of work that is an enduring paradox: so out-of-step with its time it’s timeless. The quirky, theatrical, and oh-so British Kinks albums of the late 1960s and early 1970s remain much more contemporary and interesting than much of the popular music from their contemporaries.