The 1980s were winding down and so was the career of The Kinks. The Kinks was about to be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and they preceded that event with the release of one of the weaker albums of their career.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think any Kinks album was really terrible, as every release had at least a few good tunes to recommend it and a rabid fan base to praise it. Having said that, UK Jive<\/i> struggled mightily to be average.<\/p>\n
The album was not musically cohesive. Ray Davies had covered just about every topic and musical style his fertile mind could invent. A number of the tracks found him repeating himself, and sometimes brilliantly so, but the element of surprise was missing, which may be the most telling criticism of the release.<\/p>\n
All was not lost, however. The title track was an amalgamation of styles, such as doo-wop and power rock, that fit together nicely. The song was eight years in the making as it had been left off two previous releases. The title may have been out of date at the time but the music has held up well.<\/p>\n
\u201cEntertainment\u201d was the kind of Ray Davies composition that gets inside your head by its inventiveness and unpredictability. Entertainment for Ray Davies was rape, murder, and other sundry thoughts from the dark side of existence, which he wraps up into an excellent rocker.<\/p>\n
Later CD issues are superior to the original release as they contain two bonus tracks penned by Dave Davies, which when combined with his last track on the original release make for three fairly good songs in a row. The poignant \u201cDear Margaret,\u201d the hard-rocking \u201cBright Lights,\u201d and the six minute \u201cPerfect Strangers,\u201d which explores one night stands, combine for about 12 minutes of solid music.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, \u201cAggravation\u201d is a six minute diatribe against modern society, an area Ray Davies had explored better in the late \u201960s, \u201970s, and early \u201980s. \u201cHow Do I Get Close\u201d was a weak attempt at fitting in with the music of the time period. \u201cNow and Then\u201d was Ray yearning for a better world, another topic he had explored better in the past. \u201cDown All the Days (Till 1992),\u201d \u201cLooney Balloon,\u201d \u201cWar Is Over,\u201d and \u201cWhat Are We Doing\u201d find the band adrift and never quite coming together.<\/p>\n
As the \u201990s dawned, the music world was changing and The Kinks was being left behind. UK Jive<\/i> was not one of their better efforts. If you want to spend some time enjoying the music of The Kinks, there are a number of better albums to visit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":31599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6465],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-43304","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-kinks","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43304","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43304"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43304"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}