Preservation: The Kinks' Music 1964-1974

by Andrew Hickey

In the first ten years of their career, the Kinks underwent a creative explosion that was almost unparalleled in popular music. Starting with simple but potent garage rock tracks like You Really Got Me, the band, and lead singer/songwriter Ray Davies, quickly became one of the most idiosyncratic bands of the 60s, recording classic singles like Days and Waterloo Sunset, and albums like The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, widely regarded as one of the best albums of all time. In this book, Andrew Hickey analyses every studio recording by the Kinks from their first album in 1964 through to the epic triple concept album Preservation a decade later, looking at what influenced the songs, their subject matter, and the stylistic changes the band went through. Hickey takes a critical look at what makes songs like Lola, Sunny Afternoon and All Day And All Of The Night work, in a book that is full of forthright and sometimes controversial opinion.

Genres: Music

220 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 2, 2012

About the author

I had a biography here but it was very out of date. Currently my main work is my podcast, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. The New Yorker compared that to the Bible, Oxford English Dictionary, and the works of Gibbon and Pepys, and said it "will eclipse every literary project in history". So that's nice.

Reviews

[Mark Chadwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another well written dissection of the body of work of a Popular Music artist of the 1960s. Probably my third favorite band of all-time, behind only the Beatles and Beach Boys, this is another volume for which my five star review is intended for fans of this band, or devoted fans of 1960s music. Now, as I explained in earlier reviews, I eat this stuff up. I absorb this kind of background information as to how my favorite songs and albums were recorded, like a sponge. Your mileage may vary. These are not biographies of these bands. Those are out there, and there are some excellent works covering these bands. This focuses on the music, and, as such, hits you with some musical jargon. Not a lot. Just a bit. But these books are not for everybody!

Five stars if you are, like me, in the target audience!

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad for a self-published title by a writer definitely tilting left rather than Ray Davies' wobbly right or at least semi-coherent libertarian-reactionary, self-contradictory rock star slumming as working-class defender of strawberry jam, virginity, and now-"problematic" caricatures in suspect accents. At least Hickey understands the subtle nuances in the characters Davies depicts, as well as their flaws.

And he can talk about the music itself technically. Which makes this a mix of a guide for fans, and insider notes for the musos. He's sharp on the analyses within British culture and late Sixties political and social shifts. While critiquing justly the heavy-handed lyrical reductions rampant in lesser tunes as to the evils of the Establishment in a postwar welfare state enabling Davies and his mates a cradle to the grave safety net funded by the kingdom's high taxes (95%!) exacted on profits raked in, seedy promoters and sleazy managers aside, via the Kinks in their Carnaby Street prime creatively before tax-exile arena years, which mercifully lie outside the mid-Seventies termination of the first decade.

Therefore, respect is paid to their Face to Face- through Muswell Hillbillies run, one of the best in the era of rock and pop. The uneven attention given as each track of the reissued versions of their studio (and a few rather subpar live) efforts can give this short read a bumpy feel, but enough of Hickey's humanism endures to provide a thoughtful if, like the source material, scattershot, survey of 1964-74.

[Jay S Luxenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderful perspective

Excellent and insightful review of the Kink’s prime years. Great if these are long familiar albums or if you are just being introduced to the corpus.

[Gary Millstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a quick track by track review of every kinks song from this period. A bit too critical and overtley comparative with the same standards of classical music, which pop music seldom fares well.