478. The Kinks, "Something Else by the Kinks"

 


Number 478 and we're finally at some recognizable Classic Rock.  What is "Classic Rock"?  I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  When I was in high school, Led Zeppelin and the Kinks and the Beatles were all Classic Rock, even though all of those groups had released albums within the preceding 15 years.  Led Zeppelin's last album came out in 1979, just a few years before I started high school!  The Kinks put out an album in 1983!  I remember seeing the video for "Come Dancing" on MTV.  And they seemed ancient.  If we kept the same definition of Classic Rock based on how long ago the last album came out, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" would be Classic Rock.  So would Vampire Weekend!  Those do not seem like Classic Rock.

My theory is that Classic Rock is essentially guitar-based rock released from the 1950's to about 1979.  Then Classic Rock abruptly ends and so even something that SOUNDS like Classic Rock, like "Permission to Land" by the Darkness, cannot be Classic Rock.

Anyway, this album is DEFINITELY Classic Rock, even though it's really the Kinks' sui generis plinky baroque chamber-pop.  Everybody knows "David Watts" and maybe some people know "Death of a Clown" but of course the real star of this album is "Waterloo Sunset," which has been called by people who know a lot more about music than me "the most beautiful song in the English language."  I mean, it's a good song but FUCK.

It's definitely a very nice song! I don't know about most beautiful song in the English language.  There are a lot of songs in the English language and I'd have to think about it a while, though.

I'm anticipating there will be several more Kinks albums coming up in my future, which is fine.  I've always had a soft spot for the Kinks, even if I didn't particularly love them.  This is a nice album and it deserves to be played every once in a while, even if it's maybe a little too precious overall to really rock out.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

103. De La Soul, "Three Feet High And Rising"

Image
  Sorry for the service interruption!  Monday I had, like, work stuff to do and yesterday I was picking my wife up at the airport and they lost her bag and we had to file a claim about that and by the time I got home it was well into my Work Hours and you know, I'm just sorry.  (This was tail end of quite a journey for my wife that found her taking off in Ireland and landing in Newark, New Jersey, and then sitting in a plane for almost three hours and then the flight just getting cancelled and then staying in the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Newark, NJ [not recommended, she says] and then getting on a flight to SFO at 6:30 am and finally getting back here a solid 14 hours later than expected.) Speaking of the greater New York City metropolitan area, a group of kids from Amityville, Long Island, got together in 1988 and started making songs and released this album, one of the best in hip hop or any other genre, in 1989.  De La have been called the "Beatles of hip hop"
Read more

3. Joni Mitchell, "Blue"

Image
  Do you want the good news or the meh news first?  The good news is that this album is better than the other Joni Mitchell albums we've seen , or at least better for me.  I hated one of them and barely tolerated the other, so I was not expecting to like this, and after three listens yesterday, it was not as bad as I'd feared it would be.  The meh news?  I still don't love Joni Mitchell and I don't particularly like this album. Obviously, since it's the number 3 out of the Top 500 albums ever made, a lot of people feel differently.  Pitchfork called it "possibly the most gutting break-up album ever made," which may be true, who knows, but if it is it's about breaking up with a whole series of dudes, from Graham Nash to James Taylor to some guy named Carey.  (In Pitchfork's estimation, this is the 86th best album of the 1970s, so not exactly in number 3 overall territory). One thing that bugs me is Joni Mitchell's voice, which I find kind of g
Read more

1. Marvin Gaye, "What’s Going On"

Image
  500 albums later and we're out of albums.  This album was number 6 on the last iteration of the Rolling Stone list and has now moved up to number 1 (displacing Sgt. Pepper , which was the last album to hold that spot).  I think it's a lovely album with maybe three absolutely incredible songs, a fair amount of average-to-good, and some not great songs.  I'm not a voter and will never be a voter but I just don't think this is the best album of all time. In fact, I would be perfectly fine with this list if they just sawed off the top 3 and left the rest as is: 1. Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life 2. Beatles, Abbey Road 3. Nirvana, Nevermind 4. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours And so forth.  But let's take this album on its own merits. The first of the three absolute bangers is the title track, "What's Going On," the scene-setter for the rest of the album, a loose concept album that's told from the point of view of a Vietnam vet returning to a country th
Read more