The Kinks Album: “Muswell Hillbillies [Bonus Tracks]”

Take it from an ancient Kinks fan...this is certainly one of their very best. I consider "Muswell" a masterpiece that stands confidently next to the other generally "accepted" Ray Davies masterworks ,i.e., "Lola vs..." , "Village Green Preservation Society", and the UNDISPUTED GIANT of Kinks works...."Arthur". I fully appreciate the common criticism that always seems to attend any meaningful discussion regarding "Muswell" among Kinks fans: that the album lacks the "English-pop" intensity of their previous works, so therefore it's "not quite" the Kinks...Well, boys and girls, THATS THE POINT of this LP ! It was a CONSCIOUS change of direction. Every great artist in history has experimented with the limits of his or her talents...and Raymond Douglas Davies is no different. Any TRUE Kinks purist would understand this and embrace this 1971 gem with open arms. Granted, it might take several listenings before this worthy disc endears itself to you but it's well worth the effort. However many spins it takes, eventually you'll sit up in your chair and exclaim loudly....Oh yeah, ...NOW I GET IT..! "Muswell Hillbillies" is an ACQUIRED taste. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, Ray teases us with delectible little country-flavored ditties like the Title tune (an effective ode to his hometown suburb in North London)or the heavily horned and witty "Holiday" and "Alcohol". When you first encounter these particular tunes (as I did in the early 70's), you might make the error of dismissing them out of hand as campy novelty tunes far below Ray's abilities. This couldn't be further from the truth.... if you LISTEN, I mean truly LISTEN to the lyrical content you'll detect the desperate sadness that he was trying to convey about the struggles of the English working class to maintain any semblance of sanity in the face of the modern technological society that was threatening to oppress them even more. Ray Davies WAS (and still is) very sensitive to this. Many would scoff at this...the world famous wealthy pop legend? how could he possibly relate to the poor? Easy, his fame aside Ray NEVER lost the common touch. Of all the pop icons, he never forgot his roots. Its a recorded fact that Ray always lamented the passing of a more simpler time. Recall his odes to "Victoria" and the magnificent "Waterloo Sunset" (which I always felt was Ray's greatest single composition, on a par with Lennon's "Day in the Life" on "Pepper') Just listen to the opening rocker on "Muswell" ,"20th Century Man" with it's vehement jabs at modern life and the painfully poignant line "I'm a 20th century man but I don't want to be here......" This seems to be Ray's personal philosophy in an aural nutshell, if you will, and this brilliant album captures this ethos perfectly. Ray is a walking anachronism, a man out of place in his time ...he has stated many times that he feels he was born too late. As far as I can tell he's adjusted pretty well and enriched the world with his genius. I highly recommend this cd, for any serious Kinks fan. GOD SAVE THE KINKS

At the start of the seventies, the Kinks changed labels (from Pye to RCA) in the wake of their biggest hit in several years, the glammed-up anthem "Lola." But instead of capitalizing on "Lola"'s success by delivering more of the same, the band reinvented their sound for "Muswell Hillbillies"-- an utterly unique blend of music hall, jazz, and country. Twangy acoustic guitars and rollicking piano prevail, with a jazz horn ensemble guest-starring on a couple of songs. Ray sings while chomping a cigar on "Holiday"; the title track features the Davies brothers' hilariously inept hillbilly accents as they croon about "old West Virginia." It's a strange mix, but it all works beautifully, and it's the perfect vehicle for Ray Davies' exploration of the improbable spiritual link between working-class London and the American frontier.

Thematically, "Muswell Hillbillies" is a loose concept album about the gentrification of the Muswell Hill neighborhood. More generally, it's about ordinary, tradition-minded English people finding themselves thrust against their will into the modern world. Ray rants against technology, conformity, and intrusive government-- some of the same sentiments that would suffocate later Kinks albums like "UK Jive"-- but here, crucially, he never lets the vitriol obscure his empathy and sense of humor.

Smart, angry, funny, and surprising, "Muswell Hillbillies" is the Kinks at their very best. If you like rock music at all, don't hesitate to add this album to your collection.

Imagine this: you're Ray Davies. The 60s are over. You just had a hit with "Lola," putting your name back on the charts. You switch record labels, get a deal, all that, and what do you do? Release a country-roots-rock album about urban redevelopment in England. What??? The guy is out of his mind.

What Ray did says so much for the man. Instead of bowing to commercial pressures, he created one of the most fully-actualized concept albums I have ever heard. It's unpretentious, funny, disturbing, honest, and catchy all at the same time. It's also become a complete obscurity. Nobody knows or cares that this disc exists. Fact is though, it's something everybody should hear, and it is as relevant to life in 2005 America as it was in its own time.

I drive past miles of tract housing on a daily basis. All these homes look the same. "No character, just uniformity." Ray nailed it so perfectly, there ain't much more to say. Western society is losing the little things that make life interesting, the small shops, the odd homes, the truly quirky people. What we get is bland, generic mega-stores, sitcoms, etc. Ray picked up on this way back in 1971. As far as I know, nobody else in rock ever touched the subject.

When you first listen to Muswell Hillbillies you might be taken aback. Here is one of the greatest bands in rock putting out what seems to be a country/folk album. But give the album a second and third listen and you'll be glad you did. As with all albums, it has it's ups and downs but each song is solid and the album has a sense of continuity that sometimes eluded the Kinks. The album starts out with Ray bemoaning the 20th century ("I was born in a welfare state, ruled by bureaucracy, controlled by civil servants and people dressed in gray"), one of the greatest protest songs ever written and even though it is from the last century, it has even more relevant today. Don't miss the harder version on One for the Road. The theme is picked up again in "Here Come the People in Grey," another great number. The second song goes right into a Dixie land jazz number, Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues, a hilarious ditty about a man so paranoid he can't leave his front door.

The humor throughout the whole album is some of the Kinks best, Ray even teases himself as he sings about places he's never been to. The album also stresses Ray's favorite theme, getting back to a simpler life, while echo's are heard throughout the album (as well as many Kinks albums) nowhere is it more pronounced as in Complicated Life, just try singing the la de da chorus without smiling. Oklahoma USA reminds us that dreaming is one of life's true pleasures.

I could on but suffice it to say, there is not one weak song on this album, which makes Muswell Hillbillies, in my opinion, the best album the Kinks ever made.

One of the highlights of my life was sharing a beer with Ray Davies in a small bar in Tottenville,NY at the southernmost tip of Staten Island in the late '70's. He stopped in to say hello to the owner who was his bodyguard several years earlier. I've been giddy ever since and can't listen to The Kinks without that memory filling my head. Muswell Hillbillies was the first Kinks album I ever bought and it was a cutout with a drilled hole in the corner and I paid a whole 99 cents for it. After catching up and owning almost every Kinks album prior to 1980, I still consider this one my favorite Kinks LP. Each song is great in it's own way, but my favorites are "20th Century Man", "Skin and Bone", "Holiday", "Alcohol" and "Complicated Life". I guess it took an effort to turn it over and listen to side 2, which is also great, just more collectively than individually. My next favorite album is "Kinks Kronikles" although being a compilation, it spent a lot of time on my cheap KLH record player. To me, Muswell Hillbillies is the most American LP ever made by guys from England.