The Kinks\u2019 songwriting, formerly straightforward rock, had been changing since The Kinks Kontroversy<\/i>, and they were closer to grander songwriting with Something Else By The Kinks<\/i>. I say closer because they only reach magnificence with the final track, \u201cWaterloo Sunset.\u201d <\/p>\n
Something Else<\/i>, a typical abbreviation for the album, is hard for me to praise or bash. In a way, the album is solid in that only one song, \u201cLove Me Till The Sun Shines,\u201d is embarrassing. Most of these tracks often have at least one interesting thing about them, and the band is tighter than they had been on previous releases. But in many cases, the songs fail to elicit emotion, and some of them attempt to be funny and don\u2019t quite succeed. <\/p>\n
I would rather not pick on the first track, \u201cDavid Watts,\u201d as an example, but it represents the tepidity of the album rather well. Conceptually, \u201cDavid Watts\u201d is alluring because of its title: who is David Watts? Turns out he\u2019s a rich and successful childhood acquaintance of lead singer Ray Davies, who just wants to be in his peer\u2019s social class \u2013 or does he? Either way, I don\u2019t care. The song is quirky without being humorous or even potentially offensive. The delivery of Davies doesn\u2019t sting, and his story isn\u2019t that fascinating. But the song does have good piano, a neat muted guitar line, and a solid beat. Listening to \u201cDavid Watts\u201d is much like being thirsty and getting a dose of lukewarm water from a fountain. One shouldn\u2019t complain, but the situation isn\u2019t ideal. <\/p>\n
Something Else <\/i>also features a few tracks written and sung by Dave Davies, and I do not endorse any of them. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I like the \u201cLa, la la, la, la la, la\u201d part in \u201cDeath Of A Clown\u201d as much as anyone, but once Dave Davies starts singing \u201cLet\u2019s all drink to the death of a clown,\u201d I find myself uninterested and, curiously, not laughing. Another Dave Davies track, \u201cLove Me Till The Sun Shines,\u201d is the most generic song on the album. Honestly, Dave Davies sounds like a silly and drunk hippie on this song, and that muddy guitar playing sucks. \u201cFunny Face\u201d doesn\u2019t fare much better with its awkward bridges and dopey lyrics. <\/p>\n
Now then, Ray Davies doesn\u2019t get off the hook for \u201cEnd of the Season\u201d and its stupid bird chirping, the safe and easy \u201cNo Return,\u201d or any other half-assed effort (\u201cTin Soldier Man\u201d is annoying me as I write this), but he is responsible for the aforementioned \u201cWaterloo Sunset,\u201d a song so beautiful and blissful that it would be criminal to deconstruct its greatness. And there are two other tracks, \u201cTwo Sisters\u201d and \u201cLazy Old Sun,\u201d that hold up relatively well. I\u2019m saying all of this to illustrate that Ray Davies makes up for his brother\u2019s songwriting and lead vocals, and I believe Something Else<\/i>, more than anything, proves that Ray was a much better songwriter and vocalist and the reason why the band went on to create better music. <\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the only important thing the disc communicates as a whole. All you have left is a big handful of mediocre songs, a couple of good ones, and one masterpiece of rock songwriting and performance, \u201cWaterloo Sunset.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":30433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6465],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-42096","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-kinks","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42096"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42096"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}