Reviews (page 3 of 13)
Please no more Kinks albums. These are brutally bad.
Speels, afwisselend
Super leuk
About halfway through my brain just like shut off
Обычное, но неплохое
I expected more.
Standard, late 60s English pop. Sounds like a Sgt. Peppers imitation, honestly. "Private Salts' Empty Kidney Association Troupe", I guess? A poor man's Sgt Pepper... Through the listen I couldn't take my mind off of this comparison and how this record arranged itself in a similar way, with each song feeding from the tracks before and informing the later tracks. An obvious concept album, so I see where the critics and write-ups make that comparison. The music is just standard stuff for the era though, with only a few really catching my ear but not for long. I hate to do this to The Kinks, because I like a bunch of their earlier work, but this one didn't take off for me (3/5). Reading the other reviews here, there's an angle I didn't consider -- how very English this **IS**. Numerous other reviewers talked about how it takes them to small, country villages, and (this is hyperbolic) tea times with aunties and crumpets and shit... ALL of that is lost on me. I've got no personal context for that. The music is middle of the road, unlike Sgt. Peppers, so nothing elevated it out of mediocrity and pulled me into that world The Kinks seemed to be trying to create. Here's my attempt to bend future lists out of the event horizon of all the British invasions and frankly insular English music world, with some keywords I keep using.. THE SUPREMES should have been included.. Anglo-centrism is bad.. Hope that helps.
I thought I was familiar with the Kinks, but this album was definitely not what I expected to hear. This one seemed to blend the sounds of a host of British Invasion bands (The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Small Faces, etc.) into a truly interesting social commentary of Great Britain in the late 60s. In fact, the more I thought about these musical nods and homages (sprinklings of Sgt, Pepper throughout, Annabelle's similarity to Boris the Spider, etc.), the more I wondered if the title and theme of the album might be meant to speak to and include those artists (and every other listener, of course) as members of the "Village Green Preservation Society," encouraging recognition and continuation of the old small town culture that had thrived on the isle for a century and more. Or maybe that's overthinking things a bit. Either way, the sound of the album was engaging and fun, whimsical and heartfelt, and I was charmed enough by its overall effect and thoughtfulness that I gave it a bit over three full listens (which more than a couple track repeats) over the course of the day, each visit received better than the one before it, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. It's a side of The Kinks I did not expect, and one that made me want to dig deeper into their discography for more like it. It's a 4.5/5 that I'll round up for being so refreshingly unexpected.
Variety: 5 Adequacy: 5 Listenability: 5 Uniqueness: 4 Emotionality: 5 = 4.8 rounded up to a 5. "Girl, it's a hard, hard world,/ If it gets you down./ Dreams often fade and die/In a bad bad world." THE TRACKS The Kinks are hands down my favorite of the four big British invasion bands ( and possibly my favorite band of al time - more on this later). Love the Beatles. Love the Stones. The Who maybe slightly less so. I will freely admit some of this is due to overexposure of those three. I could and did hear them EVERYWHERE as a kid. The radio, popular movies, tv shows. The Kinks I had heard a dew things from. But when I discovered their less well known material later I was delighted. Also a bit confused that they were not just as huge as those other bands. How could these albums packed full of so many ear worms not be universally beloved. Many reasons apparently, most of which we won't go into here, but just know that we're in for easy sailing here. I'll go ahead and call it now - as easy a 5-stars as any I've had on here. But will they get the coveted perfect score? Side one "The Village Green Preservation Society" - I could listen to this on repeat all day I think. This gentle offering is one giant melodic hook extended to full song length. Also it's a little bit funny. This is one I could whistle my way trough completely without missing a note I think. (I think I listened to this maybe 5 or 6 times today). "Do You Remember Walter" - A piano driven, music hall inspired story song about a sad sack. Can't imagine why this didn't have lal the teenyboppers screaming their heads off in 1968. But this is like panning for gold to me. I'm one of those guys who LOVES Paul McCartney's "granny music" and this rides right along side that stuff. But darker, and with more narrative cohesion. Davies is one of those songwriters who falls in to that sweet spot of his lyrics making sense, but not complicated to the detriment of the song. He's not usually writing nonsense stuff ( lot of the Beatles stuff) and he's not so laser focused on the lyrics and story that they become the whole point ( the worst Dylan stuff). Ray Davies sits on teh bench next to Robert Smith in this regard. this is a perfect exampe of that sweet spot for me. "Picture Book" - As a testament to how far the band's catalog has risen in recent decades, this one in particular had a renaissance after being used in a Kodak commercial ( I think it was). Maybe the purest example of the band's ability to drop god tier ear candy. And it holds up 1000%. It sounds like it's from 1968, sure but nothing about it ( aside from the slightly muddy production - which I actually think gives it character), even the ersatz scatting, screams trend-chasing or sounds like it's frozen in one particular moment. Some of the worst "best" music of the 70s, 80s, and 90s ( especially the 90s) feels cringeworthy to me now at how much it feels like everything else around it. This makes my all time top 100 song list. Like if I had to save one Kinks song from the burning building where for some reason in this scenario all their master tapes are stored - it might be this one. Some later albums give it a run for its money though. "Johnny Thunder" - How could a song this hummable not be a giant hit. Well, it's pretty meek to begin with. Hrd rock, psychedlia, and arter stuff was blowing up when this came out and I bet if might have felt a bit quaint and subdued compared to this more mindbending stuff that was available. "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" - While I still love this, this one feels the most like band doing their British blues cover band cosplay. But also little bit of shaking it off at the same time as feeling like a holdover from their earlier days. "Big Sky" - This the one that feels most like what the band's sound would grow into on later albums. Just full of great vocal melodies, and some of the best transitionary moments between sections in their whole category. This one give the same feeling as some of the best stuff by ELO, and plays with similar tone as a lot of Jeff Lynne's stuff. Witty, catchy, with a big epic sound. "Sitting by the Riverside" - More catch as hell music hall-ish entertainment stylings to be found here. Love me some hard rock, but give me this granny music any day of the week over that. These dudes were most certainly ( Ray anyways) unconcerned with how cool they appeared. How could you, putting something like this out into the world when Jimi Hendrix was out there humping his guitar on stage. Side two "Animal Farm" - Breezy, and maybe as good a case as any song on here for the argument that Davies was serious about all the nostalgia, and not taking the piss. I think Davies himself has since identified as a democratic socialist, and there is a very identifiable strain of anti-capitalism, anti-authority content throughout their catalog. And with how the political poles seem to have switched in the last decade, I can see how this stuff comes across a LOT more palatable to people who may have previously seen it as conservative nostalgia. Abandon the horrors of modern technology for a bucolic life out in the country? Sounds good to me. "Ape Man" off of Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One is an even better take on similar subject matter. "Village Green" - Bit more downtempo and somber take on the same material, but just as meolodic and pretty. Where the first track was a much more optimistic brand of nostalgia, this is more regretful and mournful. If nostalgia was originally meant to describe a disease of the mind, this is a good case for the downside. The tone makes me think the narrator and Daisy's renewed relationship is not meant to last. "Starstruck" - Another banger. Seemingly off topic for something often touted as a "concept album". I think too much is made of that and it's a retroactive bit of scaffolding that has nothing to do with any real intention. Aren't MOST albums concept albums when you think about it? This is far from the Who specifically writing a long form rock oper narrative about the same cast of characters. Anyway, this is some damn good stuff. "Phenomenal Cat" - Fairy tale, nursery rhymish stuff generally gets on my nerves, but this is so damn listenable that even the "Laughing Gnome"-ish pitch shifted nonsense plays fine for me. I can forgive a LOT if your song is memorable and full of hooks. "All of My Friends Were There" - More music hall stuff. This one just barely keeps itself out of the middle of the road due to the chorus. Bit still worth mentioning that as highly as I regard this thing, it's not perfect. "Wicked Annabella" - Another one that I could see bouncing hard off some people. Not to steal his thunder, but a buddy of mine mentioned Boris the Spider in reference to this, and I can totally see it. I think it's much more successful at being a real song than the Who track though. This one feels fully developed where that one feels like a lark. A fun, catchy lark sure. This less a novelty song, and carries some genuine dread to it. "Monica" - Is that a calypso beat? This is no "Michelle", but seems like a lighter, fluffier take on the dedicated love song genre. Davies revists this sound more than a few times over the years, but this is maybe the first? "Apeman" and "Supersonic Rocket Ship" are two great ones that come to mind. "People Take Pictures of Each Other" - The flipside of "Picture Book", much like "Village Green" was to "The Village Green Preservation Society". This one is manic and desperate where the other is full of reminiscence and pining for good times. The nervous energy coming off this is great. HIGHLIGHTS - All of it MIDLIGHTS - "All of My Friends Were There" on bad day ... maybe LOWLIGHTS - FINAL THOUGHTS As I've whittled down my vinyl record collection I've made some difficult choices on what exactly to keep, if anything. The Kinks albums will be the very last to go. I expect my poor kids will have to sell them or toss them when I go. This is just one small indicator of their importance in my personal musical canon. This album blew my mind when I first heard it. I might not have uttered it out loud at the time ( though I have been known to talk to myself) but I was most definitely thinking "Another one!??" as each track played and I struggled to wonder why this wasn't the giant pop culture phenomenon that something like Revolver was. Well, I mean I know why. These guys were most definitely NOT the Beatles. They Beatles were like the sun that all the other bands revolved around back then. I think even the Stones vs Beatles thing is largely a retroactively imagined sort of thing pushed by Stones die-hards who like to imagine it was even close. By the time I heard this it was just emerging from its cult classic status and being reappraised. The Kinks started popping up in movie soundtracks, and being gushed over by celebrity fans, and I think by this point they have almost, kind of sort of reached a lot more of the love they should have gotten way back when. But it's my no means a universal love. As much as I love this album, I can't quote justify the perfect 5.0. Eno managed it due to the uniqueness which is by far the hardest metric to score high in as popular music by its very nature comes out of tradition and aims at mass appeal. Ray Davis and company are near the tip top of my list and at various times have solidly been the top of my list, but I can't say there was no one else playing around in the same sandbox as them. It's not like they were out there single-handedly inventing jazz-fusion on a ingle album for example. Top 10 album of all time for me. Easy. As far as tone, theme, and subject matter this album is much more melancholic than it lets on given the beautoful, sometimes jaunty even, melodies and arrangements. There's a lot more wistfulness than real joy on here, and if this is an album about nostalgia, as it's been said, then it's not a celebration of that feeling. All this remembering fond times doesn't seem to cheer anyone on here up to much, at least not in any sustained manner. The bright spots are there though, and I'm glad it isn't entirely some sort of pretty little pit party. PLAYLIST ALTERATIONS - I would throw "Days" and "Mr. Songbird" in here as they are very worthy of inclusion ( especially the former as it's one of their best)/ "Days" would be the ideal closer for me on this and seems like a great summation of a lot of the themes. FURTHER LISTENING - Odessey and Oracle by The Zombies - Ooh La La by Faces - Parachute by The Pretty Things - Skylarking by XTC - Modern Life Is Rubbish by Blur - Brian Wilson Presents Smile by Brian Wilson
Nostalgia is a helluva drug. A lot of great creatives have used nostalgia as their drug of choice. Like any drug it might be good in moderate doses or one can overdose on it. I have my own nostalgia of course, but it does not include the mythic village green of the English countryside. Listening to The Kinks though one could be tempted to join them in their memories of that place. Or one could not and just enjoy the straight forward rock and roll sound. This was a new listen for me, the only song I’d heard previously was “Picture Book.” I enjoyed the album. The Kinks here sound like those early Beatles album but with slightly more bite to the lyrics. Of course the 1968 date for this album puts it in the same year as The White Album, so those guys had developed some bite by then as well. All in all this is an album worth a listen and maybe a revisit, though, not from any nostalgia from me. 4/5 Track highlights “Picture Book” “Big Sky” “Village Green” “All of My Friends Were There”
In general I find this a little too twee. Big Sky sounds a bit ahead of its time, though. A fairly middling three.
Have I listened to this album before? No How familiar am I with this album? I don’t know any of these songs, even though I know a lot of Kinks songs How do I feel about this artist? I really like The Kinks Pre-Listen Thoughts: A concept album about a small Welsh town? Sounds interesting Favorite track(s): Phenomenal Cat, Big Sky Post-Listen Thoughts: This was OK, not what I’m used to hearing from the kinks. Not bad but not as exciting as some of their other work.
Yep. First few songs were great. Definitely feel like it was an album of the 60s. Worthy of a listen at least once. For a minute I thought, these guys should have been The Beatles, but I just feel like it didn't push enough. There was definitely recording shenanigans, like playing with stereo. I dunno. Maybe I'm just past my old bands are better than new bands phase.
Big Sky and All My Friends Were There are my favorites😊🏙️🏙️ Feel-good album. I felt happy and relaxed 💖Thank you
Released the same week as the White Album in November 1968, this record never had a chance. The Beatles cast a shadow so large that almost anything would disappear beneath it, and Village Green Preservation Society — quiet, nostalgic, and deliberately unfashionable — was exactly the kind of record that gets buried rather than celebrated in that kind of cultural moment. What Ray Davies was doing here is actually quietly radical. While everyone else in 1968 was going cosmic, psychedelic, or political, he wrote a record about village greens, steam engines, old friends, and a vanishing English way of life — and committed to it completely without apology or irony. The contrarianism is part of the charm, but so is the genuine warmth underneath it. This is the British Isles equivalent of what the Band was doing with Americana across the Atlantic — finding something worth preserving in the ordinary and making it feel universal. The songs are consistently strong without any single track towering above the rest, which is both the record's limitation and its defining quality. It sustains a mood and an identity front to back in a way that rewards return listens rather than demanding them. The melodic generosity is real throughout. The record player test passed clearly — something you'd actually reach for again. That's not generosity. That's a four.
Musically I enjoyed this and lyrically it really hit home for me. I read once that they found a stone tool that was 100,000 years old and near it they found another stone tool that was 50,000 years old and, other than their ages, they were identical. Same materials, same exact design, the same tool unchanged for 50,000 years. That is how slowly life changed for 99% of human history. We as a species are not wired for life to change as rapidly as it has been changing since the Renaissance. We are all in constant states of mourning for a world that no longer exists, and in the case of this album (and maybe in all cases), never really existed. We are not psychologically equipped to deal with the world as we know it vanishing during our lifetimes. So, I like this whimsical album mourning a simpler world that the author knew was gone and was never coming back. Even if that world was mostly make believe.
poppy, was fine.
More interesting than many of the other British bands at the time but the genre still feels over saturated and I’m not a huge fan.
I dont really like this one Reading the comments, clearly I'm in a minority here I dont find the twee English Village Green vibe at all appealing Or, for that matter, failed albums from the 60's PASS
The best I can say is that this album was not actively offensive to my ears. Some of the songs were fun. I liked the last one. That's about it. If your dad is the kind of guy that says "this used to be all forest when I was a kid" or "I remember when no one lived out here" or complaining about tearing down a house and building six apartments on the same property, he'd love this album.
What's not to like?
This album is rather precious with all this British country nostalgia, isn't it. I recognize that it's a little tongue in cheek, but still. I guess "Big Sky" is a bit more interesting with its spoken word bit, and I've always liked "Animal Farm." And of course these songs all have the advantage of being very short. But on the whole I like the garage-y sound of the earlier Kinks record that I had yesterday better. I'll admit that I began counting how many songs were left after "Animal Farm." 3 stars
With the exception of a few sounds I wanted to pave over the village green. No kinks, methinks!
Light and airy, but with interesting themes. I enjoyed this, but probably wouldn't return to it as none of the individual songs really grabbed me.
A more British Beatles but not as charming
While it's not their best, it's still super solid, and picture book is an all-time great. Feels a bit like a stepping stone album toward what they would accomplish.
On an initial listen, I wasn't all that impressed with the album as a whole. I found it to be one of those albums which just didn't match my musical tastes. However, after realising a few of the songs had gotten stuck in my head, I had another listen. That, plus the context I learned about the Kinks and this album specifically allowed me to appreciate it as an interesting commentary on the fragility of nostalgia and a parody of those who have a strong desire to protect the "old ways". Being British, these themes really did resonate with me and were highlighted best by my two favourite songs off the album "The village Green Preservation Society" and "Where's Walter". Overall though, it's only 3 stars as I won't be listening to the whole album through and my favourite songs aren't enough to bring it up to that 4 star rating
even though i'm not a 60's lover, this album was very fun to listen to. it is cute and energetic, in a 60's way of course. i enjoyed most of the songs and would definitely add them to my playlists.
Nice, very Sgt. Peppers vibe.
Hot start, like it
Cool songwriting, none of the songs are super memorable except the first one but maybe that's because my dad used to sing it a lot more than anything.
coole hippie vibes, simple melodien. glaube ein mal hören reicht. 6/10
Enjoyed that. Like a mashup of the Beatles, The Who, and maybe beach boy vibes?
Troisième album généré, les 2 premiers (Arthur et Something Else) ne m'avaient pas convaincu (noté 2/5). Dans cet album le pop/rock côtoie parfois du blues/rock standard, et des morceaux plus inclassables, mais pas vraiment à mon gout (Sitting by the Riverside, All of My Friends Were There). Il contient quand même quelques morceaux intéressants ("Picture Book" et son riff par exemple), mais pas assez pour me donner envie d'y revenir. =>2/5
algumas cópias dos beatles são legais
Just a classic. The kinks can’t make a bad song
Pretty solid.
I had no idea The Kinks had such a long, eclectic, prolific career. Or that they were banned from the US in the 60's. I see similarities between the songwriting on this and some Beatles records, and early Pink Floyd, purposely reflecting Ray Davies' intent to preserve British the songwriting style. This proto-concept album is a slice of music history and artistic growth unknown or forgotten by so many.
This is a weirdly wholesome and fun experience, sure, they may not be The Beach Boys in terms of Baroque Pop, but this album certainly has a nice relaxing, lush, and fun sound to it. This is definitely my favorite Kinks album even if they have songs better than this album’s best. It holds together really well and is AGGRESSIVELY British, like blatantly obviously. And in all the best ways possible too. This feels like a trip to the English countryside in the form of an album and honestly, much like those trips can be, it’s bliss.
like a beatles album but better
why is this basically a beatles album
Every song sounds almost the same, and the album as a whole is pretty boring. Definitely of its time.
This was so based, that I listend to the Kinks the whole morning. Before today I only knew Lola, and I even have them on vinyl.
Strong 6-light 7. Intrigued to listen to The Kinks more now. Bass run on Wicked Annabella is MENTAL
such a great album
- I like most of the songs on here, though it loses steam as it goes on and gets a little hokey. - The mix could be better, but I like the instrumentation throughout - it's just hard to hear everything. I like the bass and guitar riffs and grooves, in general. - I like the themes that they're singing about, but I am having trouble following all the lyrics because they're a little buried in the mix.
I mean the Kinks are cool and I feel like they were putting out some great music for their time. I'm not sure they really hit for me. I think they just sound a bit too Beatlesque for me. I love the Beatles so it's good music but just isn't as catchy as their music and just feels like a Temu version.
I remember hearing an interview where Jeff Lynn said that without this album, ELO as we know it might not ever have existed. Hearing it with that perspective ties a lot of things together for me. You can hear the family relation in the music. This album was released in the U.S. at about the same time I was and we're both showing our age. The album is more fun to dance around to. Youtube has lots of extra reissue material, which I am going to ignore for the sake of this review.
Simply boring to me, dont have mutch else to say. Sounds almost lenony to me.
It's fun and playful. The sound engineering is a little whack though. Not a record I think you HAVE to have heard. Somewhat better than a lot of the other brit pop/rock on this list. However that is a very low bar. 5/10
This sounds like an album that'd be great if you'd have some kind of nostalgia for the 60s, I however don't. It's fun, and it isn't bad but it is also very much the pop-rock stuff from the 60s that I don't like in the Beatles, so I have no reason to like this more.
Just a fine bunch of lads, not their most memorable hits, but a pleasant listen
i liked this one quite a bit more than the last Kinks record. trippy and very fun
I have this record.
Good old 60s beat rock music.
Well this album has aged. I don't really know whether I think it is really good or not. It definitely is not bad, but very much a product of its time. Pleasant to listen to, but I think it will fall just short of 4 stars here. 3/5
some of the most all time goofy/cheesy 60's lyrics of all time but the album itself is so good that it just works. A little english psychedelia, a little folk rock, super catchy and just good songs all over it. Weird concept in a good way.
We have a pattern going on with Sticky Fingers and now this lol, a lot of classic British stuff. Familiar due to my love of The Beatles, The Who, The Animals, Yardbirds, stuff like that. I'm a fan! I think I just love all music. Not as raw as I would like, but it has a time and place to be enjoyed. I think some of the songs are a bit similar and therefore can be hard to remember or distinguish, but I enjoy the meaningful lyrics on certain tracks and early idea of a concept album. This album didn't chart or have much success but it's probably because it came out around the same time as The White Album. My favorite track was Wicked Annabella followed by Last of the Steam Powered Trains.
considered to be an early example of a modern concept album, the kink's sixth album takes listeners to the village green preservation society, an eclectic field somewhere in the uk where the most precious memories are kept in glass boxes. this album was a very entertaining listen! their past albums are much more rock-focused, while this one is much more poppy and softer on the eardrums with heavy nostalgia-theming, very classy and quite british melodic lyrics and more than enough tracks for the average listener to pick a favorite or two, it's not surprising as to why many musicheads like this album a lot... it's an album that treasures even the most ordinary of memories. it's an album where you really want to sit down and listen to the whole thing.
The stereo mixing is awful with headphones, makes you feel dizzy. If you can get past that, good songs!
Love the Kinks, was lucky enough to see Ray Davies play at Victorious festival in Portsmouth
Fully expected to give this kind of 60s pop rock a 1/5 but no - Campy and corny as hell, really quite fun.
Sometimes, I worry that I'm letting long held biases affect how I listen to albums on here: before starting the project, I wasn't particularly fond of Prince, The Rolling Stones, or Bruce Springsteen, and the albums I've gotten by them have only confirmed that. But the Kinks prove that I can totally change how I feel about certain artists. I wrote about this for "Arthur..." when I first had my 180 on The Kinks. Since then, I've fallen in love with their particular brand of songwriting, humor, and Britishness. They don't have the polish of The Beatles, but that roughness is great. They don't have the power of The Who, but the mundanity they write about is great. You can hear the underpinnings of punk and Britpop in their music. The Village Green Preservation Society is a perfect encapsulation of what makes The Kinks wonderful. I've listened to it four times through since I received the album yesterday. "Picture Book" is a new favorite song too. Love it!
What a charming record. A glorious golden-hour, nostalgic peek into a concept of England that maybe never really existed. Lyrics and melodies completely on point. Another where streaming service versions are taking the piss though. Brilliant though the Kinks may be, putting 60 tracks up and calling it an album - when the original had 15 - really cheapens the thing.
The Kinks have pumped out a lot of cool tunes over their run. Unfortunately for us none of them appear on this album.
I'm going to be really harsh and give this a 4 as albums by The Kinks for me are generally instant 5's. But... I find this marginally less enjoyable than Arthur or Lola, with a slightly less interesting story. However, it's still incredible. Love all the different styles towards the back end of the album. Maybe I'm being overly harsh and after another listen through I'll take this up to a 5.
Spectacular grower. Weak 4.
This is a really good collection of songs. These also just hold up really well. Absolutely exuberant. I don’t think I liked this quite as much as Arthur but this is definitely the same tier. Favorites were the title track, Do You Remember Walter?, Johnny Thunder, Last Of The Steam-powered Trains, Animal Farm, and Starstruck.
Awesomeness
I love you weird British band.
I don't think I had heard this album before today (likely might've). I feel like the influence of The Beatles ins massive in this album. I had to freshen up on The Beatles timeline to get a grip on how this sound fit in with their musical journey.
I remember when I heard this album first. A friend of mine worked in Zhivago, a local music store. Zhivago was an institution of our youth, a place where I had spent countless hours sifting through CDs, not looking for anything in particular, maybe just some inspiration as to what to listen to next. One of the perks of his job was that employees were allowed to borrow one CD or DVD each evening, bring it home to watch or listen to, and then return to the store the next morning. This happened to coincide nicely with the arrival of my desktop computer and first ever portable MP3 player. No, not the iPod. I’m even older than that now-obsolete piece of tech. My first MP3 player pre-dated the popularity of the iPod. I had a Creative Zen. So, thanks to the perks of my friend’s job, and the proximity of my apartment to Zhivago, my Creative Zen’s music library was filling up nicely. One day, he brought over “The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society”. I was intrigued. I had an old compilation of the best hits of the band, labelled “The Story of the Kinks”, that I had played the bajaysus out of. But, I’d never actually heard a full album of theirs. And this was a concept album. Needless to say, my Dell computer was quick to swallow the CD and digitally rip its contents into my Creative Zen library. But it wasn’t what I’d expected at all. To me, the Kinks were a raucous proto-punk 60s band, churning out raw, gritty fuzz-soaked tunes like “All Day and All of the Night” or “You Really Got Me”. I loved learning the fact that Jimmy Page played lead guitar on some of these songs, lending both his skills and his fuzz-tone to help shape their music. But this wasn’t that band. This was a refined, quirky, almost folky group playing laid-back acoustic songs about eccentric characters and the olden days of England. It sounded more like a precursor for indie rock than punk. It might have thrown me, and my preconceived perception of the Kinks, but I got over it pretty quickly. Songs like the title track, “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains”, “Big Sky”, “Do You Remember Walter” and many others really won me over. It’s like every song on the album is in a different genre, but they somehow all have a commonality to them. The Kinks sound here might not have been what I was expecting, but that “new” sound was easy to identify as theirs right away. “Picture Book” is my favourite track by a mile here. Like most of the songs, it’s a strange subject matter, which adds to the intrigue. The marching acoustic riff between the verse and chorus is something else. The drumming is a key factor, not just in this song, and gives these songs the right amount of kinetic energy to make them so enjoyable. It seems like The Kinks and Small Faces were two of a very small number of bands in the late 60s who were coming out with these lighter, more laid-back records that focused on less glamorous, “slice of life” themes. It was a real departure from the heavier rock sounds and the more experimental psychedelia that many other bands were producing at that time, so it stands out as something quite unique. I think that’s what makes this album work so well. There’s a real honesty to these songs, and taken in the context of the album’s concept, they work really well. Taken outside of that context, the music is good enough to carry them alone. I miss my Creative Zen. It was replaced by an iPod after I dropped it into the toilet, and now that’s been replaced by Spotify. Zhivago doesn’t really exist anymore, well, not in the way it used to, as a music shop. It couldn’t sustain itself solely selling music in a digital world that had turned its back on traditional music collecting. Now it sells mostly Irish tat, leprechaun hats, “Póg mo thóin” t-shirts and shamrock glasses to passing tourists. But I recently realised that a small section of the store is still set aside to sell vinyl. It might be a small selection compared to back in the day, but it’s still there. In fact, I recently bought David Byrne’s new record there. Maybe I’ll head in there over the weekend and pick up “The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society” on vinyl. I guess I owe them.
i liked it! i would like to find a version without an entire second version of the album.
bättre än annat från kinks
I'll precursor by saying that i do genuinely enjoy the Kinks' work, but this has never worked as well for me as other albums of theirs. There's a lot to like here, but a lot just leaves me cold. It's no Arthur or Muswell Hillbilllies.
Not knowing this album was a hiatus in my musical knowledge. It was a fun listen, The Kinks usually are, and the theme of the album is quite clear. I understand how this record became an evergreen, revered by many musicians of later generations.
I love the Kinks. I love how ironic and tongue in cheek they are. They pull it off with such musical competence. They’re able to jump genre and write a catchy and witty song with seeming ease. But it does get tiring. This album is only 40 minutes, but I was ready for it to finish. That’s my only real complaint. Boolean: yes, absolutely glad to hear a Kinks album, generally
Enjoyed this. Would benefit from repeat listens because there is a lot going on with the lyrics.
Earnest, well-written, nostalgic, and well-performed rock music. A pleasant listen, perfect for a summer drive through a city you grew up in.
Did not bring joy
Kinks forever
Fine
Kinky
Yas
Meh I am sure this is someones favourite
This kinda make me think of the Beatles This is a very happy album This was great
One of the best Kinks albums in my opinion. Sounds like a nice picnic in the country. Favorite track: Village Green 4.5/5
Great stuff
I love The Kinks, though this is my least liked of all their albums, I think. They certainly have a lot of commitment to the bit here, and it all gets a bit twee after a while. It's still a fun listen though, all cheerful and full of sunshine.
Pretty forgettable album yet there were some decent melodies
Couple good songs and a couple mid ones
Always loved this album.
Never listened to the Kinks much, and I don't think that will change, especially after listening to this. I don't hate them, but it's such a dated sound to me. I think I can appreciate their later work better. I can't get into this at all.
Such excellent simple songs
Pretty good concept album about the simple village life, good old times and quirky people. Reminds me of Nick Cave's "God is in the house", which I love. Of course it has the usual baroque melodies and satirical lyrics the Kinks are famous for.
Stop that. Silly. It's very silly.
My experience of the Kinks is pretty limited. I really enjoyed this album. There's a playfulness and lightness about the album that made it really enjoyable.
8/10: a charming album by one of Britain’s most charming bands. Makes me nostalgic for a world I never knew. More albums should be as fun as this are, whimsy is underrated. Best song: People Take Pictures of Each Other Best moment(s): the quaint little storytelling in the verses of the title track
I get that this rates highly because it's a little different than the psychedelic offerings at the same time. I understand the interesting theme of lampooning the fete faring, garden loving neighbourhood watch of Little Britain (later to be the aging Brexiteers). Also interesting as an early concept album... But It's too folk and musically boring. It really does feel like some Beatles C-side rejects at times. Someone in the reviews for something else said it should be important to rate something for its story and if it's interesting rather than if you found it to your taste. It's a good point to have. That in mind it's still not for me at all, it has to past the ear test and eventually it just sounds like the same song. Background music for The Good Life.
Pretty good Kinks album. I may not be as enamored by it as many people seem to be, I still prefer the band's tow lower stakes albums that preceded it, but it's doubtless very good. I know there's a concept here, but it seems to ingrained in the British class system for me fully grasp. I guess that's why I like the other two better. Key tracks: Picture Book People Take Pictures of Each Other
Evokes classic English country towns to me, in a good way.
I’m happy SOMEONE is ensuring our heritage is preserved. All those jam varieties are important! LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM, and if it doesn’t work for you, get an ear transplant.
Good stuff. Classic, But sounds rather Old
I've had three Kinks albums now, and honestly Arthur and Village Green are absolutely fantastic creations. Genuinely these albums shine as a whole above most Beatles albums, lyrically and musically intelligent, varied and catchy too. Not sure if I've got any more coming but happy to if they are at this standard.
Liked it a lot but not like yea want to listen to it more
A very fresh pop record. I knew very few of the Kinks and I quite enjoyed this release. Favorite Songs: The Village Green Preservation Society
The Kinks have a really consistent discography, and this sure is part of it. There's an overarching theme, yet every song here is single worthy in its own right. The Kinks are just really good and consistent while making their own special niche of music that can't really be replicated by other bands.
I really enjoyed it, every song was amazing!!!!
Me gustó, pero no me encantó. Last of the steam es temazo.
I want to appreciate this for what it is but it really just sounds like Beatle but bad?
No intention of kink shaming here…. Absolutely great record!
man the first three tracks on this album are total all timers. the kniks are pretty epicsauce but I feel a bit trepidatious about them... but tbh i never knew they have almost 30 albums and some of them (Soap Opera) seem hilarious
Album 182. The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society (https://open.spotify.com/album/0YgkR96bK9JSHcj236W9ZK?si=acxZFyhrQrGtke-fdD2m8Q) — The Kinks (1968) I don't believe there are no Breaking Bad edits with Do You Remember Walter song. Such a shame. Yeah, influential somehow and sometimes interesting album, but it doesn't work for me. 2/5 Liked: — Do You Remember Walter? — Animal Farm
I like the title track. And phenomenal cat Otherwise sounds kind of like the wiggles. Would not relisten
I think the kinks are over rated. Twee lyrics, poor vocals and cringey composition. Full of dated noises and infantile production.
very enjoyable, very english, will listen again fosho
Enjoying Do You Remember Walter Appreciate that this isn't about love or beauty but exploring people's histories Sixty tracks?! She's Got Everything is a bop
I have tried to give this album its due so many times. I just don’t get it.
I've always thought the Kinks were a really underrated band. I've loved them since I was very young. This isn't my favorite album by them but still fantastic.
This still isn't quite the Kinks album I want to hear (and I'm afraid that the one with Strangers isn't on here) but it's very charming nonetheless. (And of course I like seeing my daughter so happy.)
one of the best to ever do it. an absolute tour de force of songwriting from front to back. a tribute to nostalgia and how you can look back as much as you want, but you can never go back to the past. The Kinks knew how to write a good pop song and no album of theirs showcases this better.
Interesting concept album from The Kinks. Last album to have the original kinks lineup was an interesting trivia note for myself. Songs felt fairly quick and I was able to process some of the lyrics upon first listen. Not likely I’ll revisit the album itself or more of The Kinks music but I appreciate thee exposure and what I read about the album from Wikipedia. Happy listening all!
Cool music but no catchy hits
"Released in 1968" yeah no shit Real talk, I have no problem with this album. Pretty enjoyable, decent songwriting, unique. But holy moly the age on this puppy shows. Crazy to think of what some other groups were doing around this time. Fave tracks: - Picture Book - Last of the Steam-Powered Trains - Sitting by the Riverside - Animal Farm - Wicked Annabella
Es una banda que conozco y me gusta. En la voz, letras y melodía se percibe nostalgia. Se deja escuchar muy fácil.
Best Songs: Johnny Thunder
Feels like sgt pepper at home 4/5
Not really for me, but not bad either. Feels very of its time, but not in a dated way, just the feel of it.
6.5/10. I know how influential The Kinks are in rock history, and I really wanted to connect with this one… but it just didn’t happen. It’s well crafted and has its charm, you can hear the impact it had. It just never fully pulled me in.
meh 2/5
Pretty good band
This version of the kinks is a little jaggely for me.
Lowkirky Beatles
beatles auf wish
Eigentlich 4.5/5, weil das eine Zeit lang eins meiner Lieblingsalben war, aber wenn ich das jetzt wieder höre, ist es keine 5/5 mehr... Trotzdem ein sehr gutes und spaßiges album! Lieblingssongs: Sitting by the Riverside, Starstruck, Monica, People Take Pictures of Each Other
God Save the Kings. My second favorite album from my favorite band. The first is Arthur. Each song has interesting lyrics that are often depictions of run-of-the-mill concepts and ideas written poetically and elevated by some great melodies and harmonies. A view of a specific slice of British life. Can never recommend this album strongly enough.
Some interesting songs! 3.5 stars
What if we put a really bad blues song in like every British act from the 60s? Other than that I really like this album. A lot. The first track is stuck in my head. It’s so funny. It’s interesting that this is a small c conservative album, literally about conserving and reminiscing about the past. But it doesn’t feel regressive. It feels like an album for your uncle who really loves history museums. Me basically. I think it’s a little too inconsistent to be a 5. Definitely a 4.5.
Kinks have a style all their own and continue to earn the kudos that comes their way.
This is #day623 of my #1001albumsyoumusthearbeforeyoudie challenge, and… here's my third record from The Kinks already. I've rated the previous two a 2 out of 5, and I feel like I should revisit them. What makes Village Green work is that late-'60s pop/folk-rock sound with psychedelic elements, which I don't mind on this Thursday night. After all, they say this is the record that influenced Blur and Oasis, so that has to count for something. Still, I prefer The Beatles. Actually, The Stones. Let it be a strong 3 out of 5 this time around. Looking forward to #day624.
I mean, its just awesome, isn't it? Its so charming and cozy and weird and a little creepy and SOOOOO English and kind of psychedelic but not really? I loved this one as much as I have the past few times. Standout Tracks: Like, all of them except like, Animal Farm kinda sucks 4.5
Captures several of the things I hate all at one: nostalgia, the sixties sound, parochial anti modernism.
A bit random for my liking
It's as if The Beatles and The Beach Boys had a child
Great album, exceeded my expectations. Good vibes, made me feel happy Favourites: Do you remember Walter?, Picture Book, Sitting By the Riverside, People take pictures of eachother
Interesting album that flip flops between hyper silly and more complex seemingly every other song. Would have preferred less silly (especially on the B side), but there are things to like here. Top tracks: Picture Book, Last of the Steam-Powered Trains, Big Sky
Never heard of the band, never heard any of the songs. Hated Sitting by the Riverside, but the rest were fine. People Take Pictures of Each Other, Phenomenal Cat, and All of My Friends Were There were all funny.
Wallah, it was peak
This was an interesting trip into 60s rock. I only new The Kinks from You Really Got me, so this album was completely new. Not as appealing as the more psychedelic stuff of this era, but still a chill listen.
so funky
3 or 4 idk, didn’t get through it but some good some bad kinda just like this era of sound
I like albums that tell a story. This one was a little campy at points but I’m excited to listen to more of them. Wish I could give 3.5
Highlights: The Village Green Preservation Society, The Last of the Steam Powered Trains. In a nutshell: God save the Davies lads... An ode to nostalgia, mocking the establishment, strawberry jam and their different varieties. There's a theme, but it's not quite a concept album. It's definitely a "series of vignettes" than a concept album. The reach The Kinks have, especially this album, is far and wide. From ELO to Oasis to Green Day. If you go in knowing that the band are serious about their music while taking the piss out of their home nation, you'll be right. Overall: 6/10
Más fácil de digerir. Canciones cortas, una vibra nostálgica muy clara y un mood que se siente como soundtrack
Some pretty good shit on here, surprised these guys don't get more credit.
Big influence on Brit Pop which might explain why it's totally decent but just not something I'm itching to spin back or ever hear again.
Enjoyable should revisit
We are the Village Green Preservation Society God save Picture Book, Monica and Big Sky-ity We are the Ray Davies Appreciation Society God save alt-rock and Merry England anxieties
Not my very favorite Kinks but this is very enjoyable. I hadn't heard many of these songs before. Get some Sgt. Pepper vibes for sure.
A good pop rock album representative of its time while also pushing the envelope a little.
lowk ass
Third Kinks album to show up on this list, and the best so far. Good songwriting and interesting touches to many songs, which takes it above the second-rate Beatles connotations of their other albums. Good stuff
Encore un de ces groupes que je connais avant tout de nom. J'ai déjà essayé de m'y intéresser à plusieurs reprises, mais je n'ai toujours pas eu le déclic. Je sais que ce groupe et cet album sont particulièrement appréciés et ont un statut culte, mais ça ne m'a pas parlé plus que ça. Mais, il faut admettre que c'est très bien fait, c'est bien de son époque, c'était plutôt travaillé, mais... j'ai pas assez retenu pour en dire grand-chose.
Hier hoef je niet veel bij te typen. Het is m'n vierde Kinks album en het is in mijn beleving altijd ongeveer wel een beetje hetzelfde. Deze keer is het gezapig en gezellig genoeg voor 3 sterren.
The Village Green Preservation Society // Last of the Steam-Powered Trains //
While interesting and full of classic folk rock and interesting lyrics and themes, the album meanders on in its second half and becomes a bit. The album is good, and I may even listen to it again, but the attempt at a concept album doesn't fully work (although again it really does for the first half). If the album were shorter, it would have been higher.
no me gustó me pareció aburrido y como que sin nada especial pero pues tampoco así maluco
A splendid little album
Great band, great album
I stand by my comment on the last album I had by The Kinks. They’re a less interesting version of the Beatles.
Phenomenal album, fun and interesting. Definitely an influential album, really stands out among the other British Invasion slop that was pumped out. I even listened thru twice!
Franchement pas dingue. Rien de mémorable, assez moyen
I love the kinks. My dad used to call them the poor man's Beatles, but honestly they are a top notch band on their own!!! 8/10 Top song Picture book
The indie/alt Beatles/Stones. A fun listen. Very English.
I liked this a lot! Keen to give it another listen not as background music on a three hour drive but tbf it suited that perfectly.
I liked this, felt like I was already familiar with the sound from Beatles albums around this same time - which I’m sure is greatly offensive to Kinks fans and maybe the wider music community. Consistently enjoyable, but great opening track and lyrics in The Village Green Preservation Society.
Lovely background music to our car ride home. Definitely not The Kinks I know and love!
I think this was quite pleasant background in car music but not necessarily much more than that. Very jangly!
This is beautiful and sweet. You can hear the influence of this on hundreds of other albums in the 80s and 90s and in particular in 00s indie rock. I love the little stories and the vision of British life and the characters he conjures. Lovely stuff.
15 cancioncitas sobre tus tíxs panistas (tengo un recuerdo super vívido de estar escuchando este disco en una playlist de youtube a los 16 en la sala de abordar del aeropuerto antes de mi primer viaje sola en avión. no sé si era la primera vez que lo escuchaba o no, pero recuerdo específicamente cuando llegué a big sky, y no sé si es la armonía, el riff (el mejor riff del disco y uno de los mejores riffs de davies, uno de los mejores escritores de riffs) o lo directo de los pasajes hablados después de cinco canciones tan melódicas (me encanta la simetría de la primera línea, big sky looked down on all the people looking up at the big sky, tiene algo desconcertante repetir big sky en vez de usar un pronombre, es sujeto y objeto del objeto, es personificación (o deificación) y a la vez no) pero me causó una impresión que todavía siento cuando la escucho, como un tironcito en el alma. igual ese fue un momento particular en una época muy cargada de emociones, y no lo digo de mamada, pero en retrospectiva esa rola ha de ser al menos parcialmente responsable de mi eventual desilusión religiosa. enormes los kinks)
Pleasant, but nothing grabbed me.
Old timey Honestly don't care for their sound.
I unexpectedly like it.
Son los inicios y este álbum marco el camino de muchos otros, sonidos revolucionarios para la época con gran valor
This one is really........weird.
Some bops but after the first 2 songs became a bit samey
Not their catchiest - okaaaay
Favorite Track: Village Green
Yeh it was ok. So many great albums from this era though and I don't think this is on par with a lot of those.
Pretty decent- very 60’s-esque
I enjoyed this album. Most of the songs were under 3 minutes and the lyrics and melodies were different enough that the songs didn't sound the same. I really liked "Sitting By The Riverside" especially the piano part.
Pensé mucho en el gato sonriente de Alicia en el país de las maravillas. Not my thing
this is some shit that would play on the radio in the car and its just listenable enough to not bother switching the channel. Also I'm not listening to a 3 hour album.
Best Track - "The Village Green Preservation Society"
outro 5/5 imediato
I mean, the Kinks were the Kinks, hugely influential on so many rock groups that would follow. But now nearly 60 years after it came out, most of the tracks on this particular album seem dated and not particularly memorable.
thought Waterloo sunset was on this and it wasn't.
Okay
Me parecio muy repetitivo
Haven’t heard this in years, what a pleasant surprise! I get why this didn’t exactly knock people’s socks off at the time, but this is really a good album. Excellent observational songs, played confidently and well by a band that had come into its own.
It was OK, had hoped for more
The Beatles: ok you can copy my homework but don't make it obvious The Kinks: ~ Favs: Picture book, Village Green, Starstruck, Riverside, Walter
4.5 stars if i could. so fun. id go in more depth about the progressions and vocal overlays but honestly just fun. saved it to my library.
Bangers. What was concept, set precedent. The songs rock n rollers listened to.
Review - so much better than I'd expected. Never listened to a full Kinks album despite always liking their music. They're not so much an album band as a singles band, but this was their first crack at a real cohesive album and it's great. Almost every track is a banger. And even when they start and seem a bit hokey (like the steam train one), if you leave it long enough there's always a musical or lyrical twist that makes it work. Great album. Rating - 9.5/10 Need to hear? YES
This is another album that’s not bad, but is also not particularly memorable. The Kinks were certainly creative and experimental for the time period, and I appreciate the goofiness, but this isn’t one I’ll revisit.
Two Hot Fuzz songs. I like!
Easily more intriguing than Arthur. The name Village Green Preservation Society has that "Sgt. Peppers" feel. The Kinks through the lens of Ray Davies take on this new skin and begin to write more odes to English culture. The songs act as a celebration of what they know best all while inspiring the later Britpop movement. It doesn't feel like too much of a concept as Arthur and it's 10 minutes shorter which makes it a more digestible listen. This and the added intrigue as aforementioned adds to how much I like this album. Side A is perfect, Side B has some misses but all in all, great improvement from last time. Save Donald Duck and all the varieties (8/10, 4/5 on this scale)
Solid album.
Ñe.
This was mid for the most part, 2.75. 3 if im feeling nice.
8/10 Is this the most British, or even English album ever made? It’s probably got a good claim to the crown. As it’s the Kinks, it’s got the core of that 60s British pop-rock sound, most characterised by the Beatles, but fairly prevalent across a number of the bands from the time. What it then adds is this incredibly British sensibility and concept, based around village life and the day to day goings on in rural Britain, from village fetes and pastoral scenes to farm life and friendship. But that would be a very picture postcard view of England, so they wrap it up in this very faintly absurdist package, with some slightly sinister edges, some sardonic and witty elements and a gentle bit of self-deprecating British humour. It’s a trick that they manage to pull of really well, resulting in a record that is at times incredibly twee, but has a depth to it that could easily go under-appreciated to a more casual observer. I mention them during my comments on Phenomenal Cat, but there are echoes of the kind of communities from The Wicker Man and Hot Fuzz in this album, but that stuff kind of bubbles along under the surface, rather than being the main focus. It’s artfully done and also has faint echoes of Monty Python or The Two Ronnies. The band perform admirably across the album, with everything feeling tight and consistent, despite the varying instrumental setups, and the production allows it all to shine, while not eschewing that very twee, country sound. I found moments of pretty much every instrument jumped out to me in various places, from interesting shifting drum patterns to some tasty little walking bass lines and guitar riffs. And Ray Davies was in fine form, providing a varied yet consistent delivery that offered great range across the record. I think the only complaint I could have about this record is that despite being only 40 minutes long, there are probably a few too many tracks. They could possibly have spent a bit more time developing a smaller number of tracks into lengthier and deeper elements, as it felt like everything was just a brief snapshot, rather than a deeper delve into the Kinks’ rural Britain. But that’s a fairly minor gripe, and I think there’s plenty to suggest that this album, while not only being pretty unique and high quality in its own right, was actually quite influential to the development of britpop and other British indie styles that would follow in the subsequent decades. The Village Green Preservation Society - The title track is a brilliantly twee pop rock song with some incredibly infectious vocal melodies along with perfect backing from the band. It imbues a very particular English rural vibe in a way that somehow both embraces and gently pokes fun at that cultural standard. There’s more going on musically than might initially be apparent, and it’ll stick in your head for ages without getting boring. Do You Remember Walter - There’s some quite Beatles-esque blends of melody and chord structure in places here, but it remains very much a Kinks sounding track too. It’s got a cool blend of rhythmic pacing across the different instrumentation that makes it skip along but also sound like it’s not rushing.It’s quite whimsical again, but it’s delivered in an engaging way. Picture Book - While there’s quite a 60s brit rock sound to this, it also has the bones of the kind of sound that would form into britpop in the late 80s and early 90s. It’s a bit quirky, no single part is particularly complex, but there are a lot of moving parts that come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts, particularly when the off the cuff swagger and laissez-faire attitude of the vocals are thrown in. Johnny Thunder - This is a bit more pedestrian. It’s got that slightly baroque edge to the chorus, which is cool. There’s nothing wrong with this and it still has a bit of a quaint edge to it, but it’s not got as much going on as the previous tracks, so it feels a little bit bland by comparison. Last Of The Steam-Powered Trains - Great riff to kick us off here, and then when you throw in a solid complementary bass, it provides a great groove. They do a good line in throwing in an energetic drum fill here and there that injects a little bit of pace to proceedings and prevents things from getting bogged down, and they even ramp up the pace half way through. It’s quite bluesy and perhaps feels less English than the rest of the album so far, but it’s still a great little track. Big Sky - We’re back to something a bit more pedestrian again now, despite Mick Avory trying to keep it energetic. There are some nice moments in there and it does bring back in the slightly more twee English edge to things. It’s not bad, but it’s a little on the bland side again. Sitting By The Riverside - This brings back a bit more of that English village vibe in an almost summer fair way, but then it drags things a bit more off-piste and into slightly more twisted territory. It’s really cool stuff and sounds especially interesting thrust into the middle of a track like this from 1968. It might be a nice but uneventful song if it wasn’t for that, but it gets given an extra breath of life just by being that bit weird. And that kind of thing is great in my book. Animal Farm - Again, this manages to sound both very of its time and also in some ways pretty ahead of its time, particularly the more sardonic elements of the vocal delivery. It’s more quaint stuff, and I think the changing pace of the different sections is really nice. There’s a decent amount going on in the arrangement and the strings add something good to the mix too. Village Green - More whimsical baroque pop. There’s something I really like about the melody here and while it’s a fairly simple song, it’s really effective. If they’d have stretched this out, it could have got tired, but at two minutes, it’s just right. Starstruck - Another with some great melodies and an excellent vibe. They actually do quite a bit to add variety here, with the strings adding some range. Rhythmically, this is pretty engaging too. It’s hard to find fault in well written pop songs that get everything done in two and a half minutes! Phenomenal Cat - There’s something über-British about the daft little oddities that dot their way around this record, of which this is one. It’s all done with a kind of knowing tilt of the head. It’s super twee, but also has that slight edge of creepiness that conjures up the feeling of the kind of rural community in The Wicker Man or Hot Fuzz. It’s pretty cool stuff. All Of My Friends Were There - The swing groove to this is fun, and then the modulation into the smoother chorus is cool too. It’s a super pleasant and sweet track that has pleasing rhythmic shifts and some more great performances from the whole band. Wicked Annabella - There’s more of that edgy, slightly sinister vibe to this, but it’s more outwardly obvious here and the folksy elements more pushed to the background. The vocal mixing is really effective to bring out that edge of menace and creepiness to things and the band start to go a bit more off the edge towards the end too. A nice change of pace. Monica - The melodic writing here is great, with the vocal delivery giving it an interesting sound. The rolling groove from the instruments is a nice shake-up and again, this is very sweet and well delivered. There’s quite a lot going on in the instrumental layering too that provides a depth to the track that isn’t immediately apparent on a casual listen. People Take Pictures Of Each Other - This almost a frantic ending, with persistent and forceful rhythms across the different parts. It still has that slightly weird edge to it that sticks to the theme of the album really nicely. Good melodies, delightfully twee, quality performances. Sums up the record pretty well.
3.9/5 ray davies is magical can make anything into a song
This is one of my favorite albums. Practically perfect.
Brilliant album. Obviously not a big hit at the time. For 1968 it was a bit of an outlier - leaning on nostalgia and English folk sentiments. An incredible range of songs from a genius song writer. Too many favourites to choose from.
Fantastic record, one song in the middle was really good!
this sounds like the beatl- oh hi british invasion period <3
The Kinks were pioneers. In 1964 they gave us early rock/punk classics “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night.” Banned from touring the US, they didn’t get to enjoy all the advantages of their fellow British Invaders but have a solid discography. This is a good album that would be more impressive if it had been released 2 years earlier. It’s uneven but has some great tracks, including the whimsical title track. The Kinks would go on to record some great albums following this one, including “Arthur” which seems to build on what the Kinks are doing here (and is a personal favorite). Also “Lola vs Powerman” and “Muswell Hillbillies.” They were still making interesting music into the 80s. (“Destroyer.”) So enjoy this album and hopefully explore the Kinks further as well!
The kinks are such a fun, quirky, niche, goofball, and provocative band. This album surprised me. I have heard it before and had a vague idea of how to rate it, but it popped for me this time. I still like Arthur and Powerman better (and they have more notable singles), but TVGPS won me over without punch, but more with vibe. Bravo Kinks
2.5
Definitely fun, but this is really some Sgt peppers Lonely Hearts Club rip-off hahaha
Lots of simple, happy songs. Good listen.
Si alguien quiere saber de donde sacaba la inspiración Blur y el resto de bandas del britpop ya tiene la respuesta. Mucha gente incluso pone a The Kinks por encima de The Beatles en lo que se refiere a la influencia en la música pop posterior. Lo cierto es que nadie puede sentirse defraudado con este álbum, que no contiene grandes hits pero hace gala de una cohesión y una riqueza de estilos que pasan por el music hall, folk, blues, psicodelia o el calypso. Ray Davis realmente logró un álbum redondo con una banda que todavía hoy sigue siendo infravalorada.
Fucking legendary
beatle achtig, wel leuk
Never really got the Kinks, felt like they were there to make up the numbers when it came to British bands of the 60s.
Me gusta, pero no está en mi top de favoritos
i love the beatles
More enjoyable album than contemporaries
Nice album cover. The kinks are massively influential. I’ve never heard one of their albums. This album was heavily criticised when it was realised, many labelled it one of the earliest concept albums. The village green preservation society: 5/10 Wow. It’s like the kinks are doing their best beach boys impressions. Do you remember Walter?: 5.5/10 That first chord reminds me of a day in the life. Picture book: 6/10 “ this is a public service announcement this is only a test “ Johnny thunder: 5.5/10 Last of the steam powered trains: 6/10 Big sky: 6/10 Sitting by the riverside: 6/10 Animal farm: 6/10 Village green: 5.5/10 Starstruck: 6/10 Phenomenal cat: 7/10 All of my friends were there: 4/10 Wicked Annabella: 5/10 Monica: 6/10 People take pictures of each other: 6/10 All together a bit too jolly for most people. I think when people want to hear the kinks they want to hear gritty rock, not an experimental album.
Just a thoroughly enjoyable bit of 60s pop that I hadn’t heard before. The Kinks are a solidly underrated band.
Nicely psicodelic
Why am I drinking Pepsi when Coke exists? If I wanted to listen to the Beatles, I'd listen to the Beatles. The first two songs on this album are Beatles knockoffs. And the third one is right there, too. Song structures, quirky lyrics, some of the harmonizing...it's fine, but like I said...I'd rather just listen to the real thing. Giving this a 3. It's not BAD music. It's fine...it's just not worth coming back to. And like I said, if I'm gonna listen to someone ape the Beatles, I'd rather just listen to the Beatles.
I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this one. I used to love the kinks, but as I grew older their knowingly ironic twee-ness started to grate on me. Listening to this whole thing now, I can't really deny that the music is infectious. Ray is a great songwriter and Dave is an excellent guitarist. Perhaps the most underrated player of the 60s. Props also to Mick Avory on the drums. Maybe it is time for the Kinks to have a renaissance in my listening habbits.
Interessant
This isn't me hating on this album, because it's pretty good, but why do a band like the Kinks have 4 albums on this list??
The album that properly got me into the Kinks - some of it goes a little bit music hall for my liking, but the title track, Picture Book, and a few others are all time Kinks.
A fairly recent find for me. I really rate The Kinks.
This is why I enjoy 1001 so much! Heard the title track and people say "great album", and never would have thought to give it a go. :) It felt sad and nostalgic, in a way that maybe gets more heavy as the album ages, as there's two layers of nostalgia? Wow, and I could hear 90s Britpop all over this album too, so that was neat. :)
Fun and enjoyable, every song feels like a different genre or experiment that kept me interested Best: Loved All of My Friend Were There Starstruck
I now know why I overlooked this album
I really liked this! easy brit-pop from way back in the day, melodic and super easy to listen to.
It's very sweet. I'm not particularly fond of sweets.
All of the Kinks albums on this list are phenomenal, and I think this is probably the best one out of the bunch. Truly a Ray Davies masterpiece. To me, this is right up there with Sgt. Pepper’s and Pet Sounds as one of the most innovative albums of the 60s, it’s a whole 45 minutes of pure creativity and fun, I love it.
Kinda forgettable but okay overall
Usually I'm not a fan of whatever type of genre this is, but this was pretty decent. Not extraordinary, but I actually like a few songs from this album.
I really really enjoyed this. I'm a bit of a sucker for this era of 60's music and was ready familiar with The Kinks. Had never listened to this album in full though. Lots to love however some tracks really didn't land for me and stopped me giving this a 5. Really, what were they thinking with "All my friends were there." Truly awful. Doesn't stop this from being a great but not quite perfect album.
Gentle, doesn't have the best the kinks have to offer if you ask me
i love the kinks but this is not their best imo
I was not in the mood for this 5/10
2.2/5 It was ok I guess. Another album I don't see the hype for it.
Honestly I can understand the hype around the album but it really wasn't my type of music and reminded me of the really old beatles.
The beatles: mid edition Fav song: picture book
Spectacular from start to finish. One of the most generous albums ever made.
Another classic from the golden period of rock, the 60s Favorite track: picture book other picks: animal farm, village preservation society, do you remember walter
pretty cool, funky, sometimes country and a bit rock, some nice jams, mostly prefer some of their bigger songs than anything on this album tho
Although I listened to this a good month ago and failed to review, I do recall my growing annoyance with the album - a late ‘60s quirky concept album just not my jam these days. It got too wee and twee in parts, despite some good rock sounds in others, and I ultimately didn’t care to follow the story.
Ok
Every time I hear this album I’m in paradise.
Helt ok tidstypisk pop-rock.
Started off decent and devolved as time went on. It's generic 60s.
I liked it! Very happy sound!
I think the Kinks have better stuff
Лучшее, из того, что я слышала подобного рода
Charmingly English
Muy bueno, me gustó
Very similar to the style of The Beatles but with their own sound. Incredible harmonies, lovely summery vibe with the majority of the tracks. It had a very whimsical and almost soft, psychedelic vibe to it. Some of the tracks I recognise from watching Hot Fuzz. Favourite songs: The Village Green Preservation Society, Big Sky, Village Green, Starstruck, Wicked Annabella.
Ray Davies was always one for a bit of nostalgia, and The Village Green Preservation Society is peak nostalgia for an England that Davies most likely plucked from his imagination. Wherever Davies found his inspiration, the results were heady stuff indeed - but not a huge success when it was released. Probably because songs about Mum and Dad’s photo albums and steam trains weren’t quite the thing at the time - at the height of multi-coloured psychedelia, The Kinks were soaking their songs in tea-stained sepia. It matters not a whit. The Village Green Preservation Society is a wonderful collection of songs; its charms are timeless and thoroughly rejects a modernity based on pie-crust promises – a Mary Poppins reference there for the cool kids. Top tracks: the title track obviously, plus “Picture Book”, “Last Of The Steam-Powered Trains”, “Big Sky”, “Village Green”, etc. etc. etc. 10/10
Picture Book
I already like the Kinks but only knew Days and Picture Book (because Green Day plagiarised it) from this album, so this was a treat. I enjoyed the baroque pop sensibility and nostalgic lyrics.
Actually had good melody’s and whatnot and wasn't just look at us were super high on drugs which for the amount of late 60's on the list isn't a given. I enjoyed it. 8/10
I never thought before about how much The Kinks must have been an influence on a young Peter Gabriel. This is conceptual but less proggy than early Genesis but with a similar focus on Englishness. I like how the album sounds and Ray Davies' commitment to writing away from the usual lyrical concerns. But I mistrust anything that seems to wallow in this much nostalgia and an idealised version of England. The melodies mostly aren't that immediate but I like the variety of approaches and the different textures.
Maybe you had to be there? It wasn't bad but didn't capture me at all.
p133. 1968. 3 stars. Proof that The Kinks were always more of a singles band. This isn't dreadful by any means, with sharp lyrics and sly asides - but there's a lot of filler. It's all a bit tired and twee to be honest.
- Just some fun, whimsical, feel good listening
Very hippie, British, early mid 60s. Reminds me of Spinal Tap the early years, but that is my only frame of reference.
Love the kinks
On the surface, this album sounds just like other British bands from that era, such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. But The Kinks manage to insert a few darker undertones in their otherwise happy music and thus make for a more varied and interesting listening experience. Best songs are The Village Green Preservation Society and Wicked Annabella. 7/10, just like British cuisine, their music is better with more spices.
I'll show these guys a kink or two
Good album!
Halt beatles in nöd so guet
Gonna be an unpopular opinion because I know this is a lot of people's favorite album, but I bounced back and forth from really enjoying some songs ( Last of the Steam-Powered Trains, Wicked Annabella, Picture Book) to absolutely hating some of them (All of My Friends Were There, Phenomenal Cat, The Village Green Preservation Society). I honestly think the kind of almost whispery, sing-songy , whimsicality of the vocals on some of the songs got on my nerves after a bit. I enjoyed the instrumentals way more than the singing. It's a British Invasion album, what can I say. It's got enough high points and interesting songs/ guitar riffs that it kept me engaged *almost* the whole album, but the lows were low.
I'm gonna be real, this is way too British for me. It's kind of like a more annoying knockoff of The Beatles' low points. Psychedelic without the "rock" just kind of sucks. Wicked Annabella is the closest thing to an actual rock song. The rest can be best described as musings set to music and I really don't connect with it.
Visai nieko, bet nieko nepamenu. Bet taip pat aš ne visai sąmoninga, tai nežinau.
Pretty interesting experiment in a variety of genres. But I can see why the kinks have largely been left behind while contemporary such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones continue to be relevant.
I thought if the Kinks as one of those bands where I liked the singles but not the rest. But this is really good despite not having anything as catchy as their hits. The style is pretty variable, often touching on things I usually find pretentious (baroque rock), but here they manage to make it work. Impressive effort
4 macht irgendwie Spaß
Perfect encapsulation of the era
Three solid standouts but very samey for me....still good tho
5* for me, love the Kinks' songwriting - every song here is 4* + and around 10 of them are 5* songs. The record also has great theming/cohesion and gets bonus points for being a quirky British record overtly criticising Britishness (lightly although very clear thematically, Arthur is the more obviously critical record of the two)
This album feels like opening a slightly dusty storybook and realizing the stories still matter. It’s gentle, observant, and a little wistful without slipping into pure nostalgia. The songs are small on the surface but carefully built, full of melodic turns and lyrical details that reward attention. Nothing here is trying to overwhelm you. Instead, it creates a quiet world of ordinary people, fading traditions, and affectionate satire. That restraint is part of the charm, though it also means the record can feel modest to a fault if you’re craving big emotional peaks. Still, the warmth lingers. It’s thoughtful, humane songwriting that grows on you the longer you sit with it.
None of their biggest hits. Not unpleasant just not scintillating for me.
RE LARGO MAAAN
I'm clearly predjudiced. I've given this album 4 listens over 3 days and that's not the same goodwill I would give many other bands. But this is The Kinks and I think I've been rewarded. Although it is almost like the soundrack of a West End musical, with many of the tunes being more like dittys than deep meaningful opuses, all the songs are growers. So with apologies to other acts that I might dismiss on first listen, this has grown to a 4
My favorite Kinks album loaded with songs that show how great a songwriter Ray Davies is. I first got to know the Kinks through their late 70's, early 80's albums when they were arena rock stars. So to discover this one, which was recorded in the midst of their most creative period, was a revelation. Incredibly melodic, nostalgic, and yearning for a simpler, more meaningful time that may never have been. My favorites are the title track, "Picture Book," "Do You Remember Walter?," "People Take Pictures of Each Other"....actually, they're all good. I especially love the weirder songs toward the end like "Phenomenal Cat" and "Arabella." I put this album right there along with the best of the 60's. Of course, they followed it up with "Arthur," so the later period Kinks was something special.
Great psych-pop album from the second best British Invasion band (I don't count the Stones because their best stuff might as well be American.) I think it must be really hard to be so consistently creative while remaining pretty accessible to a large audience. These guys never lost their soul as a band, and this was their golden era. Love Last of the Steam Powered Trains, Village Green, and Starstruck especially.
it was ao comforting and homely, almost nostalgic too
I’ve listened to the kinks before I don’t mind the band and the album is alright but they have better music available so not their best but by no means bad
What a curious mixture of songs. The album is lighthearted and easy to listen to, I loved all the funky elements throughout the album. This is a strong 3.5 for me.
Isn't It A Shame The Way Our Little World Has Changed? 1001 Albums Generator 246 (3/12/2026) I totally get the Beatles comparisons, but there is some sort of inexplicable sheen of nostalgia over this whole album that gives it its own unique feel. I can't believe that The Kinks were the British band left to east of the Atlantic. The Beatles, Stones, even The Who, made their way over to the U.S., but you'll never hear someone here talking about the Kinks, even though they are way better than The Who and probably even better the The Rolling Stones. I mean these guys could write a freaking pop tune. The first three songs are all pop perfection. Last of the Steam-Powered Trains has a riff that it sounds like The Black Keys stole for Lonely Boy. Nearly every song here is a different flavor of pop/rock, from blues to folk to sunshine to psychedelic to everything in between. A few of the songs are a bit silly for me, but The Village Green Preservation Society is a great album. 4/5. Favs: The Village Green Preservation Society Do You Remember Walter? Picture Book Least Fav: Phenomenal Cat