The Kinks Album: “Everybody's In Showbiz”

At least the the live half of the CD At Carnegie Hall has feeling...It is pretty clear the Kinks were having a ball and so were the audience listening to the classics of the highly regarded Muswell Hillbilly album whose songs were an insightful view of mental stability in the 20th century...Alcohol,Paranooia etc. all included..The Muswell studio CD is indeed a classic and worth it's weight in gold,these live performances were originally the 2nd LP of the album and the CD presented here is one great long affair, half studio half live and it all flows together well.

The opening half is a collection of top rate songs chronicling Life and it's problems on and off the road.Celluloid Heroes,Sitting In My Hotel,Supersonic Rocket Ship all rate as some of the Kinks most finese moments laid down in the studio..An added bonus are the bonus tracks, additional live songs of the same performance not on the vinyl release.

Coming as it did after the incredible six-album streak which began with 1966's "Face To Face" and ended in 1971 with "Muswell Hillbillies", "Everybody's In Showbiz" is a step down in quality, and was savaged at the time by critics as a patchy, mediocre effort indicative of rock's ailing state at the time.

However, any album which contains an all-time masterpiece like "Celluloid Heroes" can't be all *that* bad, and indeed there are a number of gems which redeem this double concept album detailing the joys and trials of life on the road.

The studio half of the album contains an increasing amount of musical filler ("Maximum Consumption", "Hot Potatoes") which borrows a little too obviously from English music hall; by 1972 the band had worn out that genre and these tracks sound a bit labored. However, the opening "Here Comes Yet Another Day" is a pounding rocker that got even better on stage (check out the version on "BBC Sessions"), "Sitting In My Hotel" is a graceful ballad, "Motorway" a hilarious account of life on the road, "Supersonic Rocket Ship" a decent hit single (their last UK hit for ten years) slightly reminiscent of "Apeman", and of course "Celluloid Heroes" is one of the greatest songs in the group's entire catalogue. Lyrically, Ray was still capable of pulling out clever rhymes and juggling humor, cynicism and nostalgia with ease, which helps on the musically weaker cuts. More rockers along the lines of the snappy "Here Comes Yet Another Day" might have helped, but otherwise there's enough good--even great--songs here to make for enjoyable listening. It's only in comparison to, say, "Something Else" or "Village Green" that its weaknesses are more apparent. (One other characteristic of this album is the increasing presence of the horn section, which had made its debut on 1969's "Arthur" and would soon come to dominate their mid-70s rock-operas.)

The live half, which is an at-the-moment representation of the life described in the studio half, is another strangely mixed bag. The versions of rockers like "Brainwashed", "Top Of The Pops" and "Skin And Bone" are top-notch; each doubles the speed, volume and power of the original and proves that The Kinks could be very professional as a live act at this time and compete with the best of the classic rock giants from the era. However, half of the live show is devoted to tracks from the countrified, alcohol-laced "Muswell Hillibillies" album, and it is in these songs that the group plays camped up, slopped up renditions of fiercly personal, highly uncommercial tracks like "Alcohol" and "Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues" as if on the path to self-destruct their careers. This kind of good-time, lackadaisical playing was popular at the time, however (The Stones and The Faces were becoming particularly adept at it, although neither act could come up with songs as idiosynratically quirky as The Kinks' blend of US country and UK music hall here), and the group accentuated their new "camp" image by also performing short renditions of things like "The Banana Boat Song", "Mr.Wonderful" and "Baby Face". As if to put a complete question mark on the album, the one live track that might have given it a greater commercial push--their recent hard rock masterpiece "Lola"--is only given a 30-second tease at the end. This kind of almost frustrating perversity in the layout of the work--gems mixed with filler mixed with things that one doesn't know what to make of--perfectly reflected the state The Kinks were in at the time, a time when Ray Davies was having another of his nervous breakdowns, as he struggled to retain his genius in a pop music world that did not appreciate his talent and was veering in a completely different direction. The Kinks would finally find mainstream acceptance at the end of the decade (after at last giving in to partly changing their sound to fit US arena-rock trends), although "Everybody's In Showbiz" does represent one of the last gasps of Ray's original 60s stylistic genius for which the group is still best known by critics and fans.

Though most people give this one ****.I give it *****.It is truly excellent.It was one of the very first kinks cd's I ever bought.And I still love very much.Contrary to what some people believe I think the studio album on here is their 4 best one of all time.It has some very nice underated tracks.Here Comes Yet Another Day is a road rocker.I just like Hot Potatoes for some reason.I'm not sure why.One of the very best songs on it is Sitting In My Hotel.Not many people like it and it never gets talked about either.I think it's a beautiful piano filled track.With a great beat.Super Sonic Rocket Ship is also a great guitar filled dity about airplanes.Celluloid Heroes is the best known song on the album.And it really does hold it's own.Now on to the live album.It's also very good.I think they do Holiday and Muswell Hillbillies especially good.They also share some other classic well known hits.That you can't get anywhere else but this album.Such as Banana Boat.And thier EXCELLENT jazz filled version of Baby Face.Which is my favorite track that they do on the live part of the album.If you don't already have this get it some where.Remastered version or not.(It only has 2 extra tracks).HIGHLY RECOMENDED!

Thirty years ago this was the first Kinks album I ever bought. It was love at first listen. A 2-record set, one live and one studio. It's great that it can all fit onto one CD. The studio album includes the classic "Celluloid Heroes" and my favorite "Sitting In My Hotel" in which Ray reflects about what all his friends would think he was trying to prove "riding in his chauffeur driven jam jar dressed in satin strides and two-tone daisy roots". Every other song is fantastic with much of Ray's sardonic wit and his keen insights into, well, mostly food. Then it gets even better. The live album is a blast. It includes great versions of "Top Of The Pops, Acute Schizohenia Paranoia Blues, Muswell Hillbilly, Alcohol, Lola and Till The End Of The Day" plus covers of the "Banana Boat Song and Baby Face". 23 songs in all. In addition you get great liner notes and quotes from each of the band members (separately of course). Plus two bonus tracks that weren't on the album. I am willing to bet that huge amounts of alcohol and junk food were consumed in the making of this gem.

Of the thundering herd, only three English musical groups lasted well after the early sixties British invasion: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and the Kinks. Unlike the other two, however, the Kinks were just teenagers when they tasted their first successs with "You Really Got Me" and "Stop Your Sobbing".

Raymond Douglas Davies and his entourage produced great music at a phenomenal rate without the sort of promotional and theatrical nonsense that seemed to plague the other two acts. The bottom line is, what the Kinks were doing musically was more sophisticated than their counterparts. That's why they were able to survive.

This CD is a highlight of what would become a prelude to the last great pinnacle of working years for the Kinks. To someone who may be unfamiliar with that era of rock (from about 1971 - 1973), the music on this CD may sound like an average collection of songs that were thrown together for quick consumption. Not so.

This CD serves as a historical benchmark for the Kinks and shows how the band changed from their "Kinkdom" days of two guitars (or one), a bass guitar and drums to something else, entirely. The music is good, and if you can read between the lines, there's a lot of humor here.

This is a fun album; These are the Kinks going through a phase that highlighted their showmanship, with Davies throwing in a lot on unpredictable antics for good measure. Sometimes in concert, Ray would throw a case of beer out into the audience during "Alcohol", which of course, made the crowd go nuts.

"Everybody's In Showbiz" is one of the Kink's best, but because of the evolving nature of the band, is not necessarily representative of the majority of the Kink's work. It does, however, stand out very well.