The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

33⅓ Main Series #4

by Andy Miller

Ignored by virtually everyone upon its release in November 1968, 'The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society' is now seen as one of the best British albums ever recorded. Here, Andy Miller traces the perilous circumstances surrounding its creation, and celebrates the timeless, perfectly crafted songs pieced together by a band who were on the verge of disintegration and who refused to follow fashion.


'Big Sky' contains some of the most beautiful, thunderous music The Kinks ever recorded, aligned to a vulnerability and warmth no other group - and I mean no other group - could ever hope to equal. It is a perfectly balanced production. On the one hand, the mesh of clattering drums and electric guitar never threatens to overwhelm the melody; on the other, the gossamer-light harmonies, Ray and Dave's vocal line traced by Rasa Davies' wordless falsetto, are bursting with emotion. When most of the instruments drop away at 1.20, the effect is effortlessly vivid - two lines where Davies' performance is both nonchalant and impassioned. The result is wonderfully, enchantingly sad, made more so perhaps by the knowledge that The Kinks will never again sound so refined or so right.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Pop Culture, Musicals, Audiobook

161 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2003

About the author

I believe books represent the best that human beings are capable of; if anything, books are superior to the human beings who create them. I hope that eventually books will become sentient and rise up like some robot army to eliminate their frail human masters. I see the e-book as the crucial first step toward that goal.

I am the author of the following:

* The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life (Fourth Estate)

* 33 1/3: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society (Continuum)

* Tilting at Windmills: How I Tried to Stop Worrying and Love Sport (Penguin)

In addition I have edited a lot of books by other people [full list to follow]. I have also written stuff for the Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent, Esquire, Mojo, Loops, The Second Pass and more.

I live in Kent, where I am being held against my will.

Please note, I am not any of the following Andy Millers:

Andrew Miller, bestselling novelist, winner of the IMPAC and Costa awards, author of Pure, Ingenious Pain, Oxygen, etc. etc.

Andy Miller, poet, winner of the Yeovil Literary Prize for poetry, author of While Giants Sleep

Andy Miller, television script writer and actor, author of Friday Night Lights

A.D. Miller, novelist, author of Booker-shortlisted thriller Snowdrops, whose Christian name is Andrew

Andrew Miller, pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, whatever that is

Andy Miller, guitarist in Britpop band Dodgy, co-author of ‘Staying Out For The Summer’

Andrew Miller, Labour M.P. for Ellesmere Port and Neston

Andrea Miller, founder of Brooklyn’s Gallim Dance company

‘Andy Miller’, concert pianist played by Gene Kelly in Jacques Demy’s 1967 film musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort

The Andy Miller on Facebook who counts “Women bringing me sandwiches” amongst his activities and interests. I am not on Facebook. I make my own sandwiches.

Other Andy Millers are available.

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I knew Ray Davies, the Kinks, and this album, The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society. Maybe I do know the Kinks, but I don’t know Ray Davies and this album at all. Maybe I do know this album, but not the way the writer of this book, Andy Miller, knows it. Some of the recording details were too much for me, but I liked the lyrics analysis, though it would’ve been better for my reading experience if I’d known the songs even more. Miller’s footnotes were especially enjoyable, as were his literary references: William Blake, Oliver Goldsmith, Dylan Thomas, George Orwell (reminder to self to read Coming Up for Air).

No one knows the album the way its mastermind Ray Davies does, but that’s also because even after all his obsessive tinkering, the album's still in his head, never to be achieved. One of the book’s epigraphs, a quote from the man himself says it all: “If I could live over again I’d change every single thing I’ve ever done.”

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Village Green Pres, etc." is a great Kinks album but Davies is just an asshole and the Kinks were the English Beach Boys the way they defied psychedelia by singing about dull traditional British ways and its preciousness.
The most interesting point made in the book was that following the band's Musicians Union ban from the United States they dramatically changed their musical complexion from US music (Chuck Berry, R&B covers) to an insular-cum-inbred British music hall style, which could be seen either as an "F-U" to the States or a neurotic retreat to their homeland.
Andy Miller, nevertheless did an outstanding job writing about the Kinks, and ironically, for someone who used both Ray and Dave Davies' books as source material wrote a better book about the Kinks than either one of them.

[Kaoru · Rating 5 out of 5]

This probably is the best companion you could wish for the album. Not just the conceiving of it is being discussed in depth, the individual songs are too - and beyond! Every B-Side, every outtake that you can only find on bootlegs or on long out of prints compilations, pretty much everything there is gets its own long section in the book. Andy Miller isn't just a huge fan of the record, he's a huge Kinks-fan in general and it shows, for the better and the worse. You get a lot of affectionate analyses and dissections of lyrics productions and whatnot... but when it comes to flaws then they're forgiven too quickly or just not talked about very much. For instance, one thing that always bothered me a bit is how the album's village theme just seems to vanish the more the second side progresses. Miller actually acknowledges that... but doesn't make much of it and sets it aside after a few sentences to never speak of it again. And the album's perceived unfashionableness in 1968 certainly doesn't solely lie its content, but also in the production and presentation. It came out around the time in which "The White Album" did, but it sounds as if "Revolver" hasn't even gone into mastering status yet!

But whatever the case, if you're looking for more information than you can possibly chew on about "Preservation Society", then this is the definitive book to get hold of! (I listened to the audiobook version of it, very well read by Victor Bevine - and actually even cheaper than the printed and/or the kindle edition.)

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the 33 1/3 series from continuum. I got it to read on a plane flight and it was a perfect choice. The book is a pretty straightforward account of the making of Village Green. It includes song by song analyses of all the songs that made it on the final version of the album, along with songs that did not, and others that were recorded around the same time. Lots of good info and insight into Davies and the kinks. While the account is straightforward, the story it tells isn't--it's sort of a typically confusing early-kinks set of circumstances. I would only recommend this to fans of the early kinks or curious pop geeks who don't know much about them, but are interested in learning more. Still, i enjoyed it and for the right person, it is excellent.

[Todd Glaeser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like the best of the 33 1/3 books, it makes me want to spend time listening to the album.

[David Streb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book, and can’t understand where it’s been all my life.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just a wonderful stroll through the 1966-1969 era that produced the Kinks' album "The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society." This album sank when it was released but now people regard it as among the best of the Kinks. You can just listen to the album from beginning to end and enjoy it, and wonder why it needs a book to contextualize it. Well, it does need that book, because while the album was released with 12 tracks, at the time Ray Davies had many tracks to choose from. The book tries to figure out why some songs went in and how others were left out.

Listeners today (in 2022) are really lucky because many of the non-LP tracks which were difficult to find even at the time of the publication of the book in 2003 are now readily available in the extended versions of the album and of its followup "Arthur." You can hear all but one or two songs on Spotify.

A few nice things: The book does a fine job of contextualizing the album, and particularly the song "Village Green" in the history of English pastoral. I used to teach that stuff, and Andy Miller is right. For my professor friends: You could almost assign the song "Village Green" and Miller's reflections on it with your assignment of 16th/17th English poems in the pastoral tradition (unfortunately, though, college students today could probably not care less about the Kinks). The album is a celebration of pastoral but also a critique. Miller also notes a number of connections to George Orwell, and specifically George Orwell's novel Coming Up for Air -- Yup. The Orwell novel is all about the tricks of memory and the poverty [I would say] of nostalgia. It's a plausible connection (and now I want to re-read the Orwell novel). The book also includes an extra chapter on all of the songs that weren't included: You will listen to a song like "Mr. Songbird" and be baffled as to why it wasn't on the album. Meanwhile, Miller celebrates songs that were released as singles but didn't make it to the album such as "Days." He's right that the performance of "Days" is just OK, but the song has so much latent power: for a pop take check out Kirsty MacColl's version.

A final note: For these 33/3 albums: Usually they are structured with a first section that provides background, a second section with a track-by-track walk-through, and then a final section that wraps everything up. First you should listen to the album end-to-end; I'd suggest with good personal audio. The way to read is to play the album, and while you're reading about a song, play it. A lot of times the writeup is long enough that you will want to back up and play the song again. Then when you've finished the book, listen to the whole album again.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sat down at a library over by Cedar Point and read the whole thing in, like, 2 1/2 hours. Which is actually a long time to read this thing, it's just a little 33 1/3 book about the album. But it was good. I don't remember specifically what made it so enjoyable, sorry. If you're an Anglophile, by all means, have at.

[Memphisjay · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book you must have if you want to know more of this album. Every song has its own story and also much is told about what was happening with the band and Ray Davies at that period.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I knew a few Kinks’ songs growing up, they weren’t a band I followed or even explored. Although they started in Britain at roughly the same time as The Who, The Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, the Kinks failed to capitalize on their early successes, which this book by Andy Miller attributes to a combination of poor decisions on both the part of their main songwriter, Ray Davies, and his record label, Pye. The latter wanted Davies and the band to continue focusing on single releases, ignoring the trend in the late 60s to more album-oriented material, including conceptual albums. Davies, with his finger on the pulse, tried to follow Pete Townshend and Paul McCartney in creating albums, but dithered between trying to do it as a solo album or a band album or even a concept album at all. In the end, The Kings Are the Village Green Preservation Society (TKATVGPS heretofore) got issued late and sank without a trace.

And yet, today, it’s considered a classic. And that’s because people two decades later rediscovered it when CDs opened up music publisher vaults and enabled them to sell the same music they had already sold by repackaging and remastering and releasing on the new format. Now, TKATVGPS is the best-selling non-compilation Kinks album. Funny how time works.

For my part, I find Davies’ singing and the Kinks style in general not to my taste, kind of like Bob Dylan, but enjoy Davies’ songwriting when others cover his songs. And there are a lot of covers, from the top 20 hit for Kirsty MacColl of “Days” to the bombastic Van Halen version of “You Really Got Me” to the plaintive Chrissie Hind wailing on “Stop Your Sobbing” on the first Pretenders record to the impulsive Jam cover of “David Watts” (which I can never listen to without thinking of my high school friend of the same name, although he’s nothing like the boy described in the song). I had never heard TKATVGPS until I went looking for it after hearing Kate Rusby’s cover of the title track. As Miller explores in his book, even had Pye made a bigger deal of releasing the album, Davies’ concept was likely out-of-step with anything going on in rock music at the time, focused on small town life, nostalgia, memories, and regrets. Compare that with Pete Townshend’s ambitious quasi-SF rock opera about a deaf, dumb, and blind boy who creates a cult.

Perhaps it’s because I’m older now that I find Davies’ subject material more appealing than pinball wizards and acid queens. Miller’s track-by-track review of the songs on the album explore Davies’ likely state of mind, whether or not the song was originally intended to be included in the new album, and how it was recorded. He also covers all the songs written and recorded at the time and discarded, only to be found today in bootlegs or on Komplete compilations.

I’m not sure I can recommend this book to people who aren’t as obsessive about music as I am, but if you are interested in the Kinks and this period of British rock, it’s a wonderful trip.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a sort of underdog allure to The Kinks. Of course, they are an A-list British Invasion band. But in many ways, they don’t get the same appreciation as their more successful peers. This may be in part because while their early hits like “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night” are rockers, just a few short years later the Kinks’ late 60s albums, such as Village Green, are domesticated anti-rock n roll. Andy Miller’s descriptions of their music-making added to my impression that while their rock counterparts are out partying, The Kinks are tucking into bed early, probably reading a book.

“Accordingly, throughout the 1960’s, The Kinks–who Davies wryly calls ‘another family to me, however dysfunctional that family can be sometimes–would rehearse in the manner of the Davies clan, gathered round the piano in Ray’s front room while he led them through his latest composition. Dave Davies: ‘All the good stuff happened like that. The phone would ring and Ray would say, ‘Dave, come around, I’ve got this idea.’ I’d get in the car, walk in the house, Rasa would make a cup of tea. He'd say “What do you think of this?”...You listen to “Sunny Afternoon” and you can see the light coming through the curtains in the morning. It's got that kind of magic to it because that’s what it was like. It was like Ray’s front room’” (19).

This rings true. Their late 60s songs sound domestic. There’s something appealing about how un-rock n roll they are, singing about sunsets, greens, and afternoon tea. One senses a genuine interest in songcraft and dedication to character-driven storytelling, whether adoring or mocking (of course, some of their earlier 60s work could also be described as caricatures, from “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” to “A Well-Respected Man”).

“This wasn’t merely unfashionable; it was anathema to the prevailing rock culture of the time, one that embraced Concepts but struggled with ideas. In a year when musicianship for its own sake was on the rise and ‘feel’ was all, when people could conceive of nothing finer that to boogie with Canned Heat, Davies makes it plain that everything on TKATVGPS–arrangement, performance, production–will be the servant of the song, and the songs will be about ordinary things and everyday people: ‘I go out of my way to like ordinary things. I cling on to the simple values…I think “ordinary” people are quite complex enough without looking for greater sophistication…’ Ignoring what was happening around him, Ray Davies pursued this particular vision to its conclusion and in doing so consigned the LP to swift obscurity and broke The Kinks” (59).

Contrasted with the overbearing self-importance of the Beatles, the epics of Zeppelin, or the hedonism of the Stones, the late 60s Kinks sound literary, “doing the best things so conservatively.”

[David Partikian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 33 1/3 imprint is a fabulous series of short books on seminal albums. While there are guidelines for the writer, there is leeway for each writer to approach the subject in a variety of manners. Thus, the series can appear a little uneven with some writers relying on a homage by a fan or how an album influenced a fan during his or her formative years, e.g. The 33 1/3 on the Replacements Let It Be by a fan from the Midwest or the one on Hole’s Live Through This which is recounted by an Australian looking for female musician role models. While those takes can be entertaining, the strongest—in my opinion—33 1/3 entries are by writers who catch a band or performer during a creative catharsis and recount it with information that is not readily available, e.g. Amanda Petrusich’s phenomenal analysis of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon.

Among the strongest of all the 33 1/3 entries—at least those that I’ve read--is Andy Miller’s exploration into Ray Davies and the Kinks during their most fruitful period, during the recording of The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, one of the most underappreciated albums of the 60’s, albeit one that is now considered the bands crowning achievement. What makes this 33 1/3 so special is that Miller breaks down the recording sessions and includes all the tracks recorded around that time, many of which did not make the album and only appeared on a single, The Kinks Kronicles or The Great Lost Kinks Album, the latter of which has never been issued on CD. Thus, Miller includes the classic Days and other songs like Berkely Mews, many of which have been released in recent years on an extended The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. Often, they were only available on bootlegs. As Miller coyly writes in one of his detailed footnotes: . . .The author needs to remind you that bootlegs are illegal and does not condone their sale or manufacture. Even listening to them makes you a bad person. (pg. 106).

Miller’s offering is scholarly, impeccably researched, and full of arcane information on the lyrics of each song. One footnote even has an entry referencing an essay that compares The Great Gatsby to some of Ray Davies work.

Ray Davies is a masterful songwriter. However, his tunes are so catchy and timeless, that one can hear a song of his a thousand times without properly gleaning the subtleties. Miller is also quite witty and tongue in cheek when he chooses to be sardonic. Witness his takedown of the band’s awful live performances of Last of the Steam-Powered Trains, where the band forgets that the song was meant to mock cheap noodling blues.

Although Ray Davies has written the autobiography X-Ray and performed as a one man show, there is a dearth of scholarly well-written accounts of the band, especially in the period beginning with Face to Face and Ending with The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. I’ve yet to read a good biography of the band, which makes Miller’s 33 1/3 contribution even more essential for Kinks fans.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid take on this overlooked at the time of issue and under-rated (compared to their later career in the 70s when patchy LPs full of arena-ready hits dominated the Kinks, by then little more than a vehicle of hired hands by Ray Davies, fighting with brother Dave...) song cycle, barely noticed in '68. Miller conveys the cultural touchstones--Orwell in not only the obvious call Coming Up for Air but a reference in 1984 to Winston Smith's recollection of Shakespeare--and musical trends working at the period which relegated this long-gestating set of tunes (many meant for solo Ray) as marginal.

He doesn't labor over the pastoral tendencies, and he emphasizes instead the complicated mixture of nostalgia tinged with bittersweet or even despairing self-laceration as voiced by the lyrics and the tellers envisioned around the Village Green. Which can shade grey as well as bright, certainly.

A lot of the coverage goes in the last part to supplemental tracks on expanded reissues in the CD era. While this includes such as Days and Wonderboy, as well as the wretched Plastic Man, it can lessen the impact of the original package, itself however crunched into a single disc to satisfy the greedy Pye label who kept churning out bargain-bin material out of the Kinks' product in shoddy fashion.

And unlike Andrew Hickey's study Preservation (recently reviewed as was Rob Jovanovic's sub-par God Save the Kinks), Miller glossed over the possibly antisemitic section of When You Turn Off the Living Room Lights, and while Hickey takes umbrage at the ethnic accents indulged in by Ray, his successor in criticism prefers a subtler touch in analyzing the strengths and weakness of the tunes.

Miller keeps quoting Ray on the folly of self-producing the album, and those around this period, to me from Face to Face through Muswell Hillbillies their pinnacle, but I admit it doesn't sound half-bad to me. Yet one does wonder what in the hands of a Glyn Johns (who emerges slightly later, or the wonderful John Leckie who helmed so many great British indie rock recordings later in the last century) this might have come across as. Still, as the Who might sympathize, or the Stones, lacking the George Martin touch, and lacking even the workmanlike Shel Talmy or Andrew Loog Oldham all content to not to do much in the studio, the Kinks might have been as contenders if fate allowed.

[Bob O'Bannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Kinks are most famous for old hits like "You Really Got Me" and "Lola," songs that have become staples on oldies and classic rock radio rotation. But in between those hits, they released an album in 1968 called "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society," a record I discovered relatively recently and which has become an all-time favorite of mine. (incidentally, the local Muncie record store Village Green took its name from this album).

What made the Village Green album peculiar was that it was so out of step with the druggy psychedelia that was so trendy at the time. Instead, the Kinks, behind the vision of songwriter Ray Davies, started recording songs about family, small towns and drinking tea in a musical style that was saturated in nostalgia and was light years away from the rebellious and trippy Woodstock culture of the day.

"I cling on to the simple values," Davies once said. "I think ordinary people are quite complex enough without looking for greater sophistication." (59). Ray's brother Dave, the guitarist in the band, is quoted as saying he laughed at LSD, lamenting that it "seemed to close minds into little boxes and made a lot of people very unhappy . . . The Kinks all agree that Sunday dinner is the greatest realization of heaven." (88).

Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that Village Green was a total commercial flop and has only come to be viewed as the classic that it is as years have gone by. Songs like "Big Sky," "All of My Friends Were There," "Animal Farm" and "Picture Book" are quaint but perfect pop/rock songs, as good as anything by their exceedingly more famous contemporaries.

This is the first book I have read in the 33 1/3 series, and am looking forward to reading more.

[JJ Lehmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a pretty perfect review of an album. It was longer and, substantially, more properly cited edition from the 33⅓ series. It has everything that I expected and wanted from the series.
I'll about that I'm not the biggest Kinks fan. I think some of their big songs are essential in the history of popular music. Where would we be without 'You Really Got Me', 'All Day and All of the Night', or 'Lola'? Their contribution can not be overstated, but they aren't really in the conversation of the greatest rock groups of all time. I still don't think they should be, but their stock has gone up immensely for me. I see them as the band that influenced some of my favorite bands from England. Without them, I'm not sure that britpop or two of my top 10 favorite bands would exist.
I think it is easier to see this album as a masterpiece today than it would have been when it came out. It had the misfortune of coming out on the same day as The Beatles' white album and seven months before The Who's 'Tommy'. In light of that, It is not surprising that it was a commercial flop. History has given it the time it needed to be properly viewed as the incredible album that it is.

[Geoff Winston Leghorn Balme · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve ever marveled at the sardonic, clever, touching asshole who was Ray Davies his brother Dave and their Kinks mates Then you’ve marveled at their string of masterful hits and at least village Green. I don’t always love Ray’s direction but there were three albums of material that could rival anything by any rock band pretty much ever.
Village Green , Arthur, and lola vs powerman. There are a few duds in these collections. A few, too idiosyncratic, reaches into a trite memorabilia, but the majority of what the kinks offered on these records is pure, explosive charm and wow.
How was it done is always on my mind. In the end a kind of singular master driving a team of grumbling talents is the usual tale. And the kinks was another of those stories.

A fun little read. Making me realize I’ve mussed a bunch of The Davies brother’s efforts. I’ll need to look.

[Curmudgeon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great little write-up of a great little album, although it could benefit from an updated edition given that the availability of a number of tracks has changed since the book was first published, along with a couple other things, like the availability of the video of the bands appearance on the Julie Felix show which is described in the book as being presumably lost. (You can watch it on youtube now!) I don't share Miller's beliefs on all things Kinky--what does he have against 'Arthur'?--but as I've been revisiting VGPS quite heavily lately, it's been nice to have a written companion to take along for the journey. God save the Kinks.

[Chris Nagel · Rating 2 out of 5]

The butler did it.

These 33 1/3 books are hit-or-miss. This one is a miss, unfortunately, because The Kings are the Village Green Preservation Society is a fascinating album and deserves close examination. Miller mostly relates the story of the commercial failure of the album and the artistic and commercial struggles of the Kinks surrounding and following. I wanted a critical discussion of the album as a serious artistic production, comparing it to Sgt. Pepper or Tommy (both, incidentally, briefly panned by Miller). Perhaps that is extant elsewhere.

[Jeroen · Rating 2 out of 5]

If it were reduced to just the first chapter it would make a semi-decent essay, but I have never been a fan of the song-by-song description mode that the rest of the book employs. It almost invariably becomes a boring enumeration: "oh yeah, this song is quite nice,", "oh yeah, this one's nice too". Much better to zigzag through the record and bind its themes (of which this one has plenty) together.

Not worth your time.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a happy circumstance that recent in-depth remasters and reissues have managed to render some elements of the text obsolete (pertaining to the unavailability of many vaulted tracks), and a happier one that the book remains a solid look at an album that sank like a stone at the time as not fitting in and has since gained critical and commercial ground as being a perfect expression of its time, a portrait of an in-between England.

[Austin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well-researched and terribly written. Confusing who this is directed at; the author glosses over quite a bit of Kinks lore that seems relevant to anyone wanting to learn more about their most iconoclastic album, but then repeats ad nauseam how bold it was to be singing about nancy-boy Britannia in the time of rock and roll reinvention. Like yes thanks girlie that’s why I like this record in the first place — now can I have a crumb of context?

[Vanyo666 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am relatively new to Kinks fandom, so there was a lot to learn here about the group's career, their interpersonal dynamics, and the figure of Ray Davies in particular (and the influence of Rasa). TKATVGPS gets the accolades it deserves and their subsequent output is thrashed and mangled beyond recognition. Very complete with all the a-sides, b-sides and out-takes from the period between Something Else and Arthur.

[Spiros · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very useful and workmanlike history of the circumstances surrounding the making of one of the great albums of the 1960's, and a cogent track by track analysis of what makes the album work. I could probably have done without his detailed overview of the songs which The Kinks recorded contemporaneously with the album, and which may or may not have been part of a purported two record album which Ray Davies wanted to make, but that is a minor cavil.

[pianogal · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the fourth book in the series and my least favorite so far. Partially because I'm not a big Kinks fan and partially because it was too much like a dry book report. I wanted more than just the facts. Nothing in this book made me care about either the album or the book. It's fine, but it's not for me.

[Wombat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of the best of the series. Not one of the worst. It is very much just a track by track analysis including B-sides and unreleased songs recorded at the time. This author really hates “Plastic Man” with a vengeance. I actually don’t think it’s that bad. You won’t get much from this if you don’t know the album very well. For diehards only.

[Tristan Eagling · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don't think Ray Davies is genius please click here .

Books is great , quite short, but any longer and it would have been indulgent. There is only so much to say about a 39 minute album.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man, just an exhaustive (and occasionally exhausting) journey through the minutiae of the songs that made this great album (as well as a number of the songs written by Ray Davies around the same time).
For a mere 140 pages it feels and reads longer.

[Seth Arnopole · Rating 4 out of 5]

To my mind, this is one of the more successful books in the series, with an appropriate amount of attention on the history of the artist, the genesis and execution of the album, and the songs recorded for it.

[Rich · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spent an hour with this book and it never took off for me. Win some, lose some.

[Ray Dunsmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent history and critique of The Kinks' finest hour (though, at the time, it certainly seemed like anything but). Illuminating, insightful and extremely interesting.