Album Review: The Kinks – One for the Road

The Kinks – One for the Road

April 23, 2020

ALBUM REVIEW

OVERALL (OUT OF 10):  10

“Superman Superman I Wanna Fly Like Superman”

What a catchy song.  Our theme for the day is catchy.  One for the Road is full of catchy songs.  The album fascinates me – yeah, because it is full of catchy songs – but the resurrection of the Kinks is a pretty remarkable story too.  The Kinks exploded onto the airwaves in 1964 with “You Really Got Me”, and released a series of loud, intense singles until Ray Davies decided what he really liked was telling short stories in song, and the band became a purveyor of delightful vignettes on the vagaries of English life past and present.  “Waterloo Sunset” was a watershed moment for 60s music across the pond, although here in America it was mistaken for a sequel to that old Homer and Jethro song “Waterloo” and consumers didn’t bite.  And who can blame them.  But after that The Kinks hit a period of critical success and commercial decline, with The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society becoming one of the greatest albums of the 60s that nobody bought at the time.  The same was true of Arthur, although after that The Kinks had an ace up their sleeve and unleashed “Lola” on the world in 1970, one of the coolest singles ever and a massive hit worldwide.

But a couple of albums later, what had been a charming predilection for telling stories with songs had warped into a lamentable obsession with impenetrably dense concept albums, and Dear Uncle Ray had led the band so far off the beaten path many at the time completely dismissed their chances of ever finding their way back.  The Preservation albums were a substantial drop off in quality, and the band reached their nadir with Soap Opera in 1975, not redeeming themselves all that much with Schoolboys in Disgrace in 1976.  But then an interesting, unexpected thing happened.  Generally record company interference in an artist’s work is a bad thing, but for perhaps the first time ever it was beneficial, and probably saved the band.  A new label, Arista, offered The Kinks a contract, but said “no concept albums”.  And lo and behold, a few albums later the by-now-long-in-the-tooth Kinks were back in the Top 20 and touring America.  So they started the decade on top of the world, were has-beens halfway through, and ended the decade back on top.  What a ride.

One for the Road was released at the perfect time really – they had a couple more albums in the Top 20 afterwards, but their remarkable Renaissance was already on the downward slide.  Just a few more short years and they’d be back to has-beens.  If I could pick a year for a live album from the Kinks, though, 1980 would be it.  And what exactly, you might be asking, makes this album so wonderful?  Well I’ll tell you:

• Catchy songs.  Did I mention the album is full of catchy songs?  I’ve seriously had “(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman” stuck in my head all day, and unlike most songs that get stuck in your head, that’s a good thing.   You still feel like singing along “I’m a 20th Century man and I don’t want to be here” even if it’s not the 20th Century anymore, you do want to be here, and you might not even be a man.  “Catch Me Now I’m Falling” shamelessly steals the riff from “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” – I guess they thought it had been long enough no one would notice – but that “Now I’m calling all citizens from all over the world/This is captain America calling/I bailed you out when you were down on your knees/So will you catch me now I’m falling” really grabs you.  Politically I’m not sure I agree with its message – help from America often came with strings attached, so if other countries weren’t super enthusiastic about reciprocating and stepping forward to help in its time of need, who can blame them?  But the fist pumping fans in the stadium weren’t all that concerned about the nuances in the message of the song, and neither am I.  Then of course you have the old warhorses – “You Really Got Me” and “Where Have All the Good Times Gone” and “All of the Day and All of the Night” were the catchy songs that vaulted The Kinks to world prominence in the first place.  There is plenty of music to tap your foot along to, and if you can’t decipher the message while you are tapping, that doesn’t make the experience any less enjoyable.

 

• “Lola”.  This catchiest of all catchy songs deserves its own paragraph.  Any great version of this song is reason enough to buy an album.  And this is a great version, make no mistake.  I’m more partial to the original, of course, but this a version with fiery guitar and every bit of emotional nuance in the vocal as the classic single.  And the audience sing along is a lot of fun too.  I consider the original version one of the greatest singles ever – it’s got a clever arrangement, a melody that really grabs you, and lyrics that are hilarious yet remarkably moving.  I think a lot of people missed the point of the song and just laughed at “I’m not dumb but I can’t understand/Why she walks like a woman but she talks like a man” – yeah, I get why that’s good for a laugh, but Ray Davies wasn’t mocking Lola.  He was telling a love story that ends up as loving and caring as the story in any other love song.  There’s so much tenderness in his voice when he sings “Well, that’s the way that I want it to stay/And I always want it to be that way for my Lola”.  It is not, and has never been, a joke song.  It’s a love song.  And the catchiest one I know of.  Truly ahead of its time.  And this live version is very cool.

 

• Dave Davies.  Sure, his super-powered high-octane riffs powered all of The Kinks early hits, but the band moved away from hopped-up garage rock, and his guitar playing became a less prominent part of The Kinks package.  When guitar gods are named, Dave Davies’ name is never mentioned.  But listen to his playing on One for the Road – I’d put him up against any guitarist in 1980 who wasn’t named Eddie Van Halen or Randy Rhoads.  Listen to the intro to “Celluloid Heroes” – those are quite the guitar pyrotechnics, and they improve the song immeasurably.  He really lets rip at the end of “You Really Got Me”, doing his damndest to steal the song back from Eddie Van Halen – and not quite getting there, but making a valiant effort all the same.  His playing on the album is exceptional.  Any time he takes a solo, he almost steals the show.  This is a guitarist who truly doesn’t get his due, even if he did rip off The Rolling Stones with the riff in “Catch Me I’m Falling”.  Mick Avory sounds fantastic on drums as well, not at all like someone who burst on the scene in 1964, when rock drumming was considerably less sophisticated than it would become over the ensuing years.  Mr. Avory acquits himself well.

 

• Probably the best setlist you could hope for on a Kinks live album.   Sure, nothing from Village Green, but other than that omission you get the classic early singles, a couple of highlights from the early 70s, and the best of their late 70s comeback years.  And they all sit together comfortably side by side, the older songs don’t sound the least out of place next to their younger brothers.  Any album that gives me  “Where Have All the Good Times Gone”, “Lola”,  and “Superman” all on the same album is a pretty amazing album in my book.  And “Victoria” – I promise you, no one in the audience that night had ever heard Arthur, and yet if I didn’t know where it came from I’d have thought it was a song that was born in 1979.  They play it like it belongs in 1979.  And it’s a lot of fun.  They reach all the way back to their first album for “Stop Your Sobbing”, which had just been covered by The Pretenders.  There’s some “David Watts” and some “Misfits”, tons of great tunes.  There are only one or two songs I don’t care for, “Prince of the Punks” and “Celluloid Heroes”, everything else is a great listen.

 

• I know this sounds like it can’t possibly be right, but The Kinks, those survivors left over from the original British Invasion, wading ashore right behind the Beatles, made a live album that captured a typical concert from 1980 better than any other band I can think of.  It is the quintessential live album of popular music from 1980.  See, while they got lost for a little while in a wilderness of pointless concept albums, before and after they had been producing the kind of short, powerful songs that fit nicely in the space between the punk that obliterated dinosaur rock and the New Wave that washed over the music world in the late 70s and early 80s.  The Kinks’ blasts of three minute garage rock melodies had just enough in common with both of them to be very of the moment in 1980.  There’s a reason The Pretenders and The Knack and The Jam were all covering Kinks songs at the time – their music naturally fit the aesthetic of the era.  There are parts of the album that are very Ramones-like, and that band’s brevity and condensed blasts of pure pop power align nicely with many of The Kinks’ most popular songs, although The Ramones were never half so subtly whimsical as Ray Davies.  And don’t forget Van Halen’s first single was “You Really Got Me”.  A band leftover from the 60s captured the sound of 1980 as well as anyone could.

 

• “Celluloid Heroes” sucks a little less live than the original version, mostly thanks to Dave Davies’s guitar heroics in the intro.  I’ve never figured out why people like that song – the lyrics are kind of awkward, and the message is a little muddled – we all walk on the names of the stars on Hollywood Boulevard and let’s name check a couple of dead ones but everybody’s in show biz and everybody’s a star but celluloid heroes never feel and pain and celluloid heroes never die.  Whatever.   Just listen to Dave’s guitar intro, which is awesome, then skip to the next track before the words start.

 

• Finally, this is the best live album released in 1980.  Easily.  Of course, 1980 isn’t just a year that is well known for awesome live albums.  In fact, name me one other great live album from 1980.  Yeah, that’s what I thought, you’ve got nothing.  But don’t let the lack of competition diminish the achievement,  it would have been one of the best live albums of any year.

Does it have its drawbacks?  Sure.  Low Budget is probably overrepresented, but you have to expect that since that was the album they were promoting at the time.  There’s some cheesy early 80s keyboards on a couple of songs, “Prince of the Punks” is the worst offender, but that’s not a great song anyway.  They don’t really ruin any of the songs worth listening to or anything.

You know, I really don’t know if the audiences were there to hear their old stuff or their new stuff. I suspect there were a few who couldn’t figure out why they were singing a Van Halen song, or thought they were covering The Pretenders when it had really been the other way around.  Everyone seemed to know “Lola”, and that song was 10 years old.  I’m sure everyone loved “20th Century Man”, even if not one in twenty knew it was off Muswell Hillbillies.  I’ve wondered what band the audience was there to see – the “You Really Got Me” Kinks or the Low Budget Kinks.  Either way, they were watching phenomenal show by a legendary band who had a far greater influence on rock than they get credit for.  A band who had one catchy song after another, enough to keep everyone entertained till the “Banana Boat” song brought it all to a close.

Yep, one hell of a catchy album. Just listen to “Superman” and try and keep it out of your head the rest of the day.  Can’t be done.

 

 

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