Album: “Celluloid Heroes [Remaster]”

Description

Includes liner notes by John Swenson. <p>Composer: Raymond Douglas Davies. <p>Audio Remasterer: Bob Ludwig. <p>After the artistic success of their brilliant, quirky 1960s albums, the Kinks upended their sound yet again when they began recording for RCA in the '70s (the rocking "20th Century Man" and the countrified "Muswell Hillbilly" sound unlike anything the band had done before). CELLULOID HEROES skims the RCA years, and this reissue revises the '76 compilation of the same name, with a new track list and remastered sound. <p>The title song is a glamorous rock epic, as is "Artificial Man" (RCA signed the Kinks on the popularity of the gender-bending anthem "Lola," hoping to cash in on the glam-rock movement then in vogue). But the band mixes it up as per usual, with the swaggering, blues-influenced rock of "One of the Survivors" and the herky-jerky jam "The Hard Way." Ray Davies's flair for a cheeky melody and a clever lyric is perfectly intact, however, as "Sitting in the Midday Sun" and "Mirror of Love" prove. Since the Kinks' '70s work for RCA was somewhat uneven, CELLULOID HEROES is an excellent sampler of the group's best moments from the period.