Kinks' The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society [Paperback]

Just in time for the re-issue of this classic record by Sanctuary, Mr. Miller's book is a fine example of rock writing without pretension or artifice. His writing is clear, well-informed, illuminating, and witty. A pleasure to read. A shame that he couldn't get Ray Davies to talk, but then not many can. Still, there is some good input from the rest of the band, including a wonderful remark from Pete Quaife, which is too rude to repeat here!

Another positive feature of the book is that Mr. Miller devotes almost as much time to the songs which never made it on to the LP as he does to those that did. I am sure the sleevenotes for the reissue will be good, but they are unlikely to be as fascinating as Mr. Miller's book.

Though the 3 cd reissue of Village Green Preservation Society is excellent, it lacks extensive liner notes that shed more light on it. This book details everything about the album, the band during that period, the recording sessions and how it translated live. The analysis is crucial. While the Kinks after their sound matured were masters at social commentary what they were expressing in their songs was not always obvious if you weren't there at the time. For example the song on Village Green "Last of the Steam Powered Trains" is referring (at least according to the book) about a blues rave up by Howlin' Wolf "Smokestack Lightning" that was a live staple of all the bands at that time until psychadelia encroached which made the music instantly nostalgic. The book expertly picks through the threads that that the album is woven from. I find all the books in this series to be enlightening but the ones that are the notable discuss albums that haven't been already picked apart by rock critics (e.g. Neutral Milk Hotel) and while the Kinks have been around for a while this book offers a fresh perspective on an album that not only has not dated but with its then unique mix of nostalgia and cynicism become ripe for discussion.

This is the second 33 1-3 book I've read and it'll probably be the last. It's much better than the first one I tried, Jim Fusilli's book on Pet Sounds, which was discursive and only occasionally illuminating. It begins promisingly, with a solid overview of the Kinks' place in the British music scene in the mid-60s and the band's fall from grace. There's a clear and informative summary of the band's disasterous year of 1968 and of the causes and effects of the group's internal strife during this period.

Once it gets to the album itself, however, the book falls short. For some reason (licensing? space constrictions?) the author chooses not to cite lyrics from the album; this weakens what analysis goes on here, as the reader is required to have committed the entire album to memory in order to follow some points made. Worse, most of the discussion of individual songs here is descriptive only, without much in the way of analysis of the song's musical or lyrical significance. That's a shame, especially for American readers who would really benefit from a discussion of the many specific and (to us, anyway) obscure British subtexts and references scattered throughout this great album.

Mr. Miller is an extremely capable writer, so reading this book was a breeze (Fusilli's book, in contrast, is full of annoying colloquialisms). There is some useful information here, but this is not the 'last word on TKATVGPS' that I'd hoped it would be. I'm beginning to suspect the entire 33 1-3 series has been too hastily written and edited--both books I've read fell well short of expectations.

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