Kinks - Village Green Preservation Society (Dlx)
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Music CD Cover
Artist: KinksEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2009-06-16
Music Label: Sanctuary UK
Free Music Notes for Village Green Preservation Society (Dlx)
Free Music Review: Still We Yearn....Even 41 Years Later.
Hit: 5 Stars
I first came to this Kinks album in November of 1998 right as I was preparing to end a near year long stay in San Luis Obispo, CA. Unbeknown to me at the time, it just so happened to be the album's 30th anniversary that month! My best friend John came up to visit me on his vacation and while he was there we would walk to the downtown area of San Luis and frequent Cheap Thrills Records. John had recently been getting into The Kinks and picked up two of their CDs on our very last visit to the record store. He bought the original Rhino CD reissue of "You Really Got Me" (long out of print even at that time), and the U.S. Reprise issue of "The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society." I, on the other hand, purchased two CDs of The Byrds. We took our CDs back to where I was staying, sat down on the two couches in the living room, and popped in "Village Green." Right from the upbeat strum of the acoustic guitar on the title track, we were mesmerized. We sat there through the entire album not saying a word to each other, but occasionally glancing back and forth with facial expressions of amazement and bewilderment (I specifically recall our reaction to the sped up elf voices in "Phenomenal Cat"). From Nov. 10th, 1998 to this very day The Kinks "Village Green" remains me and John's "buddy album."
I got my copy late that December as a birthday gift from John after I'd moved back to Southern California. I had already listened to it practically a thousand times on a recorded cassette I had made from his copy. In 1999, I bought the first remastered import of the album on Castle that contained both the stereo and mono versions and bonus tracks like "Days" and "Mr. Songbird." While reading the inside booklet included I was enlightened to the fact that the entire process with getting "Village Green" even released in the first place was a long and complicated one. And when it was finally issued, it suffered the dignity of being completely blown asunder by The Holy Trinity of 1968 album releases that fall: "The White Album" by The Beatles (RELEASED ON THE SAME DAY OF ALL THINGS), "Beggars Banquet" by The Rolling Stones, and "Electric Ladyland" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Not to mention The Doors' "Waiting For The Sun," Cream's "Wheels Of Fire," and Big Brother's "Cheap Thrills" released only a couple months prior! It seems the odds were stacked high against The Kinks "Village Green."
In 2004, this enormous three-disc package appeared in a Tower Records (R.I.P) that John and I would visit in the O.C. city of Brea. As impressed as we were with this new reissue, neither John or I bought it that day for some unexplainable reason. Now in 2008, as we Kinks fans celebrate this album's 40th anniversary, I have my very own copy of this deluxe version of what is undoubtedly The Kinks' finest hour ever to be pressed on vinyl! In the liner notes to this edition, Pete Townsend of The Who is quoted as saying that "Village Green" is Ray Davies' very own "Sgt. Pepper" and I couldn't agree more (and neither could John for that matter). Disc One features a newly remastered stereo version, disc two the mono, and disc three is chock full of rarities. You'll get to hear some previously unreleased mixes, jams, and songs that were to be possibly included on the album such as "Berkely Mews," "Misty Water," and "Rosemary Rose" (not to mention the all too true and hilarious "Where Did My Spring Go?" which is worth the price of admission alone if you ask me). Some of these tracks were first issued on either "The Kink Kronikles" in 1972 or "The Great Lost Kinks Album" in 1973, both on Reprise. And while "Kink Kronikles" is still in print, "The Great Lost Kinks Album" has LONG been deleted from the band's catalog making it a highly sought out Kinks collector's item!
"Village Green" has a rather lengthy recording history with the track "Village Green" itself dating back to Nov. 1966! The album's original release was scheduled for September '68 but Davies pulled it at the last minute to add a couple more songs, those songs being "Last Of The Steam Powered Trains" and "Big Sky." Even with tracks being recorded so far apart from each other, there is a cohesion evident that wouldn't let you think it was so. The main thing that connects "Village Green" is it's central theme, a yearning to return to innocence. To draw upon memories of happier and simpler times, the joys of one's youth, childhood friends and the where-are-they-now theories. "Village Green" is a happy, peaceful, and very nostalgic piece of wax. An album to put on right before bedtime to dream happy dreams. Just open up your imagination and let Ray tell you his stories.
This set will be a treasure trove for fans of this album like John and myself. I like to refer to it as the "Chunk O' Green." Mr. Ray Davies made a very quick transition from the hit single songwriter that penned "You Really Got Me" to the pop-poet laureate of "Village Green." It's a change evident in many of the popular bands from the era with The Beatles, of course, being the most well known for their transformation. The entire world was changing and so were musicians caught up in what was going on, or going wrong for that matter. Ray Davies wanted to bring listeners solace in 1968 with this masterpiece and that's exactly what he achieved. It may have been out of step with the times but never with the human spirit. That yearning that we all someday find our very own Village Green.
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Village Green Preservation Society (Dlx) Poster
Digitally remastered and expanded deluxe three CD edition of their 1968 masterpiece includes a plethora of bonus material featuring original stereo mixes, mono versions, demos, Euro editions, instrumentals BBC sessions and more. It's easy to imagine the confusion with which this manifesto for the defence of the status quo was received on its release in 1968. The world was in turmoil and the pose of the Street Fighting Man, turned on, rebellious and politically aware, was far sexier than the quaint homebody image the Kinks present here. The title track finds Ray Davies proudly declaring himself a preservationist of custard pies, vaudeville, and such comic book characters as Desperate Dan. To compound the weirdness there's also "Big Sky", a classic Kinks song about God that's not remotely religious, and a rocker about a steam engine. The overarching theme of Village Green... is nostalgia--it's only today, now that many of the things Davies feared would disappear have actually vanished, that the truth and clarity of his vision is apparent. Sanctuary.Classic Rock Music CDs
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