When I read that Ray Davies had collaborated with the Crouch End Festival Chorus to make an album I thought, oh boy, this could be dry. I looked forward to hearing The Kinks Choral Collection with a mixture of curiosity and dread.
This was The Kinks. So I had to listen, and, because it was The Kinks, I should have known better. The group has never done anything that was 100% successful. No matter what Ray Davies’ ambitions – plays, musicals, soundtracks,concept albums – the final result has been flawed in some way. It is precisely those flaws that keep me rooting for The Kinks. I like the flaws; it’s part of its character and, now, history. I don’t know what I’d do if it ever was completely satisfied.
The Kinks Choral Collection is hit and miss. Ray sings eight well known Kinks songs, a medley of Village Green songs and one from his solo album, Working Man’s Cafe. The choir is used in different ways. In Waterloo Sunset, it doesn’t do much more than repeat the exquisite background vocals that were on the original recording, but use of the choir is more pronounced on You Really Got Me. The latter intrigued me, before I heard it: How would the choir adapt itself to this brute-force rock song? As it turns out, there is a band present, as there is on all the tracks, adding the necessary backing. The band is used discreetly and usually doesn’t make much more than its presence felt, but it does ape Dave Davies’ guitar solo while the choir stands back.
You Really Got Me might be one of the more radical reworkings here but it’s not a compromise; more a creative experiment that works for the most part. A lot of the choral parts is more cosmetic than integrated but on You Really Got Me there is a sense of ceremony.
What this record does is reaffirm what great songs they are and naturally sent me back to the originals, if only to compare Shangri-la with the new version. The track with the choir brings out the pathos but the original is a reminder that The Kinks were/are a rock band.
Of course, I can’t listen to just one Kinks album, so, after Arthur came Lola Vs. Powerman and Percy. Arthur is regarded by Ray as one of The Kinks’ failures, a TV soundtrack never fully realized, but it’s great nonetheless, possibly because it is so focused on the English post World War Two experience. It also has scope enough to allow the band sound affects, strings and horns, some uncharacteristic jamming and sense of release from trying to get back into hitmaking mode.
The hits came with the next album. Lola, of course, was the hit but so was Apeman, which has been overshadowed by Lola’s gender defying theme. Apeman is funny and is The Kinks at its most endearing. It’s also a break from the album’s generally grim view of the music business. If Arthur is The Kinks at its most British, Lola is the most autobiographical. It might be jaunty and humorous but there is a serious subtext to The Money Go Round, an uncomfortable truth to Top Of The Pops.
Lola’s naughty ambivalence probably raised the question – is he or isn’t he? – that made Ray the obvious choice to score the soundtrack to Percy, a film about a penis transplant.
Percy is not one of the highlights of The Kinks’ career, and is another example how the band regularly made bad decisions, but I’ve come to like the album. God’s Children is one of Ray’s best songs. You have to admire someone who stubbornly writes a song whose message is just the opposite of the gist and humour of the film. The Way Love Used To Be is just plain lovely and there are a few other reasons to smile as Ray and the band try on different personae.
The Kinks Choral Collection closes with All Day And All Of The Night. Ray has said this is his favorite song and there is that extra vigour in the choral arrangement.
The song also opens and closes the film Pirate Radio. It’s exciting and the film shows how hearing the song on pirate radio, even if it was a foreign experience in North America, was infectious. And important. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that rock and roll is central to life itself. It’s more than just music, more than a soundtrack (as it’s commonly tagged) but a lesson in how to live life, full of guiding principals and occasional inspiration. Rock and roll might also be full of disappointments that lead to dismissing rock in general, but the film reinforces the idea that rock and roll still has the power to move people. All Day And All Of The Night is a significant reminder.
