THE KINKS ARE THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY - The Kinks

YEAR: 1968

LABEL: Pye/Essential

TRACK LISTING: The Village Green Preservation Society, Do You Remember Walter, Picture Book, Johnny Thunder, Last of the Steam-Powered Trains, Big Sky, Sitting By the Riverside, Animal Farm, Village Green, Starstruck, Phenomenal Cat, All Of My Friends Were There, Wicked Annabella, Monica, People Take Pictures of Each Other

BONUS TRACKS: The Village Green Preservation Society (stereo), Do You Remember Walter (stereo), Picture Book (stereo), Johnny Thunder (stereo), Monica (stereo), Days (stereo), Village Green (stereo), Mr. Songbird (stereo), Wicked Annabella (stereo), Starstruck (stereo), Phenomenal Cat (stereo), People Take Pictures of Each Other (stereo), Days (mono single)

IMPRESSIONS: I first heard this album while shopping at Tunes in Turnersville, NJ in 1998. They were playing the album overhead in the store and it was obviously the Kinks but an album I was not familiar with. The 15-song mono version of the album has songs which average about 2:30 so I shortly had heard the entire album which was then followed by the 12 track stereo version (also included on the same cd). When I asked what album this was, I was told it was the new remastered album reissue of "VILLAGE GREEN" and I promptly bought it. This was Ray Davies at my most "veddy veddy English" mode heard on such songs as "Two Sisters" and their masterpiece "Waterloo Sunset" from their previous album "SOMETHING ELSE" which I had owned for years. Despite the digital remastering the sound is very "trebly" (even on the stereo mixes) but apparently that's the best that can be culled from the source material; either way what we have here is a classic album.

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: The Village Green Preservation Society, Picture Book, Animal Farm, Phenomenal Cat, All of My Friends Were There, Wicked Annabella, People Take Pictures of Each Other

FACT SHEET: THE KINKS ARE THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY is the Kinks' sixth album. It is the last album to feature the original band members as bassists Pete Quaife left the group in early 1969. A trip to Devon by lead singer/songwriter Ray Davies was the inspiration for a concept album about English rural town and hamlet life as well as a nostalgic lament for the passing of old-fashioned English traditions. The album failed to chart upon its original release but has since become one of the Kinks' best-selling albums (over 100,000 copies) as well as being generally considered one of the most important and influential albums the band ever made. Guitarist Dave Davies at the time called it "the best thing we've ever done".