Driving home from soccer training, number 1 son just told me with some enthusiasm that his music homework is to analyse 3 pieces from an artist of the 60s or 70s, colour tone, variation etc. Seems like a nice idea and he’s obviously into it. I have to point out at this juncture that any dialog with a 15 year old is rare, so anything that goes beyond monosyllables and grunts is amazing in the first place, let alone enthusiasm. Car rides tend toward silence usually.
So anyway, he said his first thought was HJH, but it seems like everyone else in the class is going that way. You also have to bear in mind this is in a music department talent night where the boys did a *very* convincing Pat Metheny cover where I wasn’t biting my knuckles, so awareness and choice aren’t an issue. Anyway, I piped up with The Dame (70s, Ziggy era, and he’s a fan), but he was ahead of me….he’d already picked the Kinks, all on his lonesome. Fair bought a tear to the eye it did.
Anyway, his “research” (presumably the first 3 results on Google) reveal that some deranged lunatic reckons “All Day and All Of The Night” is the toppest of the toppermost Kinks tracks. Waaahhh ???? Wither “You Really Got Me” (inventing metal), “Waterloo Sunset” (inventing narrative pop, maybe), “Lola” (sex and narrative on steroids, for the era) and “Dedicated Follower Of Fashion” ? Ok, so ADAAOTN might be close to inventing garage punk but still.
Haven’t seen a Kinks thread so,…. thoughts ?
N.B. Some chronological attributions of credit may have been blurred in the fullness of time. Or diabolical liberties taken rewriting history. One or the other.
All Day And All Of The Night invented Hello, I Love You by The Doors.
and I Can’t Explain by The Who
Sounds like a very interesting project.
Makes me wonder which artist and tracks I’d have gone for.
Tell him to investigate “Alone again, or” whatever you do: it’s the dogsnads as far as being genuinely different goes.
I’ve been listening to a lot of early 70s Kinks so from that era I’d have:
20th Century Man
This Time Tomorrow
Celluloid Heroes
Manfred Mann
5-4-3-2-1
My Name Is Jack
Up The Junction
How about 3 70’s Eno tracks for variation?
Needles In The Camel’s Eye
1/1
No One Receiving
Celluloid Heroes
From 1972, tucked away on ‘Everybodys in Showbiz’. This was the point The Kinks were an album band (ie they weren’t selling singles anymore).
One of Mr D’s best (in my opinion, leastways).
Also, there may be some mileage in comparing and contrasting Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur.
Two quintessentially English albums released at a time when everyone around them was going psychadelic, hippy, freak-out.
He’s an Aussie kid so not sure those albums would appeal.