The Kinks

Record company pressure caused Ray Davies to rush this aborted rock opera out of the gate and though it shows, has there ever been a rock opera that ever really made any narrative sense? Typical of early 1970s Kinks, this careens between boozy, Status Quo-style lad rock, music hall nostalgia, Americana and flashes of the Davies genius of old.

Ray Davies is a sensitive artist, but he's never had an idea worth reducing to prose in his life. When he tosses off music toward no grand purpose his satire takes on a charity that justifies its shallowness. But when he gets serious he always skirts the edge of small-mindedness. This time he falls in. (Grade - C+)