The 500 - #258 - The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society - The Kinks

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #258
Album Title: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
Artist: The Kinks
Genre: Pop Rock, Baroque Rock, Folk Rock
Recorded: Pye Studios, London, U.K.
Released: November, 1968
My age at release: I was 3, my guest blogger was 5
How familiar was I with it before this week: Not At All
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #384, dropping 126 spots
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: The Village Green Preservation Society

Please welcome back, "Various Artists", who hosts the website, blog and podcast My Life In Concerts. He wrote his first post for us back in October, 2022, when he shared his rich knowledge of Velvet Underground's 1968 record, White Light, White Heat. Enjoy this post about the sixth studio record from The Kinks.

It’s 1968.

Police bash hippie protesters in London’s Trafalgar Square. Civil rights icon Martin Luther King is assassinated outside his Memphis hotel room, followed by rioting. Czechoslovakia explodes with potential during the Prague Spring, which is quickly and brutally repressed. Students revolt amid violence in Paris. The Vietnam war rages on. There are riots at the 1968 Democratic convention. American Senator Robert F. Kennedy is gunned down after winning the California primary.

And the reigning kings of UK rock—The Beatles and The Rolling Stones—release astonishing, high-water-mark LPs within a two-week span near the end of the year. Each album speaks to and reflects on the turmoil of the times: the former with their fragmentary, self-titled double album—colloquially referred to as The White Album -- and the latter with their first in a series of four roots-rock masterpieces, Beggar’s Banquet.

“But when you talk about destruction 

Don't you know that you can count me out/in” 

(Revolution 1: The Beatles)

“What did you kill, Bungalow Bill?” 

(The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill: The Beatles)

“Summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street” 

(Street Fighting Man: The Rolling Stones)

“Who killed the Kennedys?”

(Sympathy For The Devil: The Rolling Stones)

They are instant classics that have never lost their punch or appeal, with reverential praise following them through the decades. Each captures the zeitgeist of the era for all posterity and are major commercial successes.

1968 releases from The Beatles (White Album) and 
The Rolling Stones (Beggar's Banquet).

On the same day that The Beatles unleash their White Album (November 22), another legendary ‘60s UK rock great, The Kinks, unveil their new LP: The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. The album is a sepia-toned reflection of a vanishing Britain, played simply and directly with music that seems simultaneously antiquated and contemporary. It features tunes with titles like Do You Remember Walter?, Picture Book, and Last of the Steam Powered-Trains, and sports wholly unironic lyrics like “I miss the village green and all the simple people'' and “God save little shops, China cups, and virginity.” It is a commercial disaster that sinks like a stone in a rural stream.

Well, at least initially.

Back Cover of The Kinks Are The Village Green
Preservation Society album cover.

To say that the Kinks sixth UK album was wildly out of step with its time would be an understatement. The band had already been heading in a downward commercial spiral by this point. They exploded out of the British Invasion with 1964’s You Really Got Me, following that by a few years of raw and rocked-out hits, with the band’s explosive sound and Dave Davies’ ferocious guitar riffs having a profound influence on garage rock, punk, and hard rock in the years to come.

Dave Davies (front) with drummer Mick Avory. (1967)

But even on their early releases, main songwriter Ray Davies’ wistful and reflective side was evident on tunes such as Tired of Waiting, See My Friends, and Where Have All the Good Times Gone? This type of uniquely British observational songwriting came to the fore with late ‘65’s appropriately titled Kwyet Kinks EP, featuring the lynchpin track, the pointed and satirical A Well-Respected Man, among others.

Album Jacket for A Well-Respected Man.

Davies delved further into this type of songwriting during ’66 and ’67, setting the tone for their classic albums Face to Face and Something Else by The Kinks (#289 on The 500). Meanwhile, an onstage fist fight between Dave Davies and drummer Mick Avory got them banned from live appearances in America for four years, with all the possibility of airplay in tandem with promotional tours there similarly lost.

Mick Avory and Dave Davies (1965).

With The Kinks completely isolated from the US, Ray began to focus on specifically British-themed songs and subject matter. Related singles from this time in that vein initially rewarded Davies and the band well with big, beloved hits such as Sunny Afternoon and Waterloo Sunset (surely in my 10 favourite songs of all time).

Kinks Extended Play disc featuring Waterloo Sunset.

But this wouldn’t last. As psychedelia advanced, the Kinks slowly found themselves in a commercial no man’s land, with their reflective, (mostly) untrippy tunes out of style. As for those who wanted the Kinks to continue with their mid-decade rocked-out style, the band’s contemplative turn inward was a turn off. 1967’s Something Else (my fave Kinks album along with Village Green) was their first commercial disappointment since their breakthrough.

Something Else By The Kinks (1967).

Ray Davies felt that the Kinks’ career might irrevocably be skidding to an end, with the commercial tide turning against them, and therefore saw Village Green as possibly his final musical statement. It was initially supposed to be a solo album, but at some point mutated into The Kinks’ new project. Regardless, this was a decidedly personal album. He dug in deep and produced it himself. This one was for Davies’ own satisfaction, and if the fans came along, so be it. Unfortunately, not many did. While the album’s related, stand-alone single, the excellent Days, returned them to the UK singles chart, and the LP got rave reviews from the UK press, the album itself performed poorly. 

Days single release album cover. 

I did not hear this album at the time but was an early Kinks fanatic. My parents had emigrated from the UK to Canada in the mid-50s, and I grew up in a Brit culture-focused household where I was born a decade later than my older siblings. The Big Brit Four (Beatles, Stones, Kinks, & Who) were ever-present via albums in our home or those brought over by their friends. It’s hard to know exactly why—perhaps the visceral empathy and intelligently detailed songwriting--but I always felt a deep and immediate bond with all things Kinks. In fact, the first album that I ever bought with my own money was the Kinks’ 1969 release, Arthur (or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire). It was heady stuff for my seven-year-old self, and it took months for me to save up my allowance to buy it in 1971, but I loved it then as now. 

Village Green and Arthur from Various Artist's collection

Every word and moment on that album is engrained deeply in my DNA. I bought more vintage Kinks in the early 70s and was totally on board when they signed to Arista records in 1977, kicking-off with their terrific Sleepwalker. It heralded a new era for the band, resulting in a huge American audience for more stadium-friendly material (which I also like -- the 1972-75 concept albums on RCA, not so much).But for me, the Kinks’ ’66-’68 corridor (which actually I would extend on through to Muswell Hillbillies in ’71) are their finest hours, with Something Else/Village Green and era singles as their apex. There is not one weak track on VG, and Davies’ passion and compassion shine through on each one. It’s a concept album looking back to a rapidly retreating past of a gone Britain, revisited in songs ranging from buoyant (People Take Pictures of Each Other) to strange (Phenomenal Cat) but always bittersweet and contemplative.

Alternative album jacket for Village Green.

Sonically, the album also marked a step forward for the band who had suffered crappy productions via tight-fisted Pye Records. Some tracks, such as the title cut, still sound a bit rough and distorted, whereas others, such as Animal Farm and All of My Friends Were There, sound cleaner and brighter than most of their previous recordings, paving the way for follow-up Arthur’s crisp, sharp production. While Village Green was their lowest-selling product at the time, their career began to rebound in 1969 with Arthur and its single, Victoria, achieving full breakthrough with 1970’s Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround and its massive hit, Lola. I pretty much played the grooves off my Pye 45 copy of that one.

Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround album cover.

Even then, I loved songs that progressively screwed with assumptions. New appreciation for late ’60 Kinks started to blossom as the 70s and 80s went on. I did not hear Village Green until 1988--20 years after its release--when a friend taped it for me. I immediately went ‘verklempt’ over it, eventually buying both vinyl and CD versions.

It has since gone on to be their most acclaimed release, finding particularly large fanbases in the UK Britpop and US alternative scenes. After decades of great critical acclaim along with several reissues of this title, it has gone from being their worst to best-selling catalogue LP in the UK. The world eventually caught up with Davies and his mission, and we’re all the better for it.