[www.kindakinks.net]



Ray Davies reviews the Beatles LP

'Really, it's a load of RUBBISH'

BEATLES and Brian Epstein were so delighted with "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yellow Submarine", two of the tracks on the new "Revolver" LP out next Friday (August 5), that they're also being issued as a single for the same date.

But if that celebrated songwriter Ray Davies is a reliable judge, the Beatles have made a big mistake. Ray thinks Miss Rigby was definitely dedicated to John and Paul's music teacher back in primary school; while "Submarine" should sink into a dustbin. "It's a load of rubbish, really", remarks Ray.

Disc and Music Echo decided to turn over the task of reviewing the "Revolver" album to Ray - and the Kink certainly spoke his mind.

Here's the album, track by track, with Ray's inter-round summaries:
Side One: "Taxman" (by George)--lead voice, George: "It sounds like a cross between the Who and Batman. It's a bit limited, but the Beatles get over this by the sexy double-tracking. It's surprising how sexy double-tracking makes a voice sound."

"Eleanor Rigby" (by John and Paul)--lead Paul: "I bought a Haydn LP the other day and this sounds just like it. It's all sort of quartet stuff and it sounds like they're out to please music teachers in primary schools. I can imagine John saying: 'I'm going to write this for my old schoolmistress'. Still it's very commercial."

"I'm Only Sleeping" (by John and Paul)--lead John: "It's a most beautiful song, much prettier than 'Eleanor Rigby'. A jolly old thing, really, and definitely the best track on the album.

"Love You Too" (by George)--lead George: "George wrote this--he must have quite a big influence on the group now. This sort of song I was doing two years ago--now I'm doing what the Beatles were doing two years ago. It's not a bad song--it's well performed which is always true of a Beatles track."

"Here There and Everywhere" (by John and Paul)--lead Paul: "This proves that the Beatles have got good memories, because there are a lot of busy chords in it. It's nice--like one instrument with the voice and guitar merging. Third best track on the album."

"Yellow Submarine" (by John and Paul)--lead Ringo: "This is a load of rubbish, really. I take the mickey out of myself on the piano and play stuff like this. I think they know it's not that good."

"She Said She Said" (by John and Paul)--lead John: "This song is in to restore confidence in the old Beatles sound. That's all."

"Good Day Sunshine" (by John and Paul)--lead Paul: "This'll be a giant. It doesn't force itself on you, but it stands out like 'I'm Only Sleeping'. This is back to the real old Beatles. I just don't think the fans like the newer electronic stuff. The Beatles are supposed to be like the boy next door only better."

"And Your Bird Can Sing" (by John and Paul)--lead John: "Don't like this. The song's too predictable. It's not a Beatles song at all."

"For No One" (by John and Paul)--lead Paul: "This will get covered, but it won't be a hit. It's really better than 'Eleanor Rigby' and the French horn is a nice effect."

"Dr. Robert" (by John and Paul)--lead John: "It's good--there's a 12-bar beat and bits in it that are clever. Not my sort of thing, though."

"I Want To Tell You" (by George)--lead George: "This helps the LP through. It's not up to the Beatles standard."

"Got To Get You Into My Life" (by John and Paul)--lead Paul: "Jazz backing--and it just goes to prove that Britain's jazz musicians can't swing. Paul's singing better jazz than the musicians are playing which makes nonsense of people saying jazz and pop are very different. Paul sounds like Little Richard. Really, it's the most vintage Beatles track on the LP."

"Tomorrow Never Knows" (by John and Paul)--lead John: "Listen to all those crazy sounds! It'll be popular in discotheques. I can imagine they had George Martin tied to a totem pole when they did this!"

So, after listening to each track three or four times, the Ray Davies verdict: "This is the first Beatles LP I've really listened to in it's entirety but I must say there are better songs on 'Rubber Soul'. Still, 'I'm Only Sleeping' is a standout, 'Good Day Sunshine is second best and I also like 'Here, There and Everywhere.' But I don't want to be harsh about the others. The balance and recording technique are as good as ever."

Bury me with Aftermath .....



ROCKMAN

Oh yeah and before start shovelin' the clods ...
Make it the UK Mono Aftermath ....



ROCKMAN

One day The Beatles will make the perfect Beatles album as will the Stones make the perfect Stones album with not one bad or so-so track on either of them. Then, what will the critics say?

I love and admire Ray Davies, but he is so wrong, Revolver was by far the best Beatles album ever in my estimation.

Then again, I didn't write Muswell Hillbillies so who am I to even speak out?

jb

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jbwelda
I love and admire Ray Davies, but he is so wrong, Revolver was by far the best Beatles album ever in my estimation.

jb

I agree!

There are some sub standard tracks on the album. They are: Taxman, Here There And Everywhere, Good Day Sunshine, And Your Bird Can Sing, For No One, Dr. Robert, I Want To Tell You, Got To Get You Into My Life. This make 8 songs of 14.

It proves that even a world famous musician, with rock credibility can be dead wrong. He showed no understanding of the songs. And no, he never wrote anything at good as almost all the tracks on Revolver.

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noughties
There are some sub standard tracks on the album. They are: Taxman, Here There And Everywhere, Good Day Sunshine, And Your Bird Can Sing, For No One, Dr. Robert, I Want To Tell You, Got To Get You Into My Life. This make 8 songs of 14.

Many of those are classics. Agree on Dr. Robert, though.

Looking beyond the headline, he liked most of the songs and had something original or unique to say about many of them.
Reading between the lines, it's interesting that he notes he was writing Indian-themed songs well before George Harrison. And by pointing out how well produced the Beatles were, he is bemoaning the Kinks often inferior sound engineering.

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DandelionPowderman

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noughties
There are some sub standard tracks on the album. They are: Taxman, Here There And Everywhere, Good Day Sunshine, And Your Bird Can Sing, For No One, Dr. Robert, I Want To Tell You, Got To Get You Into My Life. This make 8 songs of 14.

Many of those are classics. Agree on Dr. Robert, though.

Here, There and Everywhere a classic? -Hmm. However, Got To Get You Into My Life was translated into Norwegian and performed by troubadour Lars Klevstrand under the name "Du kan godt få sitte inntil meg, Knut."

At the time of its release, it was a very far sighted and progressive album. In a class by itself although the Stones tried hard with Aftermath (I might be getting my time periods overlapping a little).

And I disagree with that list of songs above, pretty much all of them I love and cannot see how they could be considered substandard.

To me the weakest song has to be Yellow Submarine, but its a Ringo song so its expected. Still has its charms though. And possibly Eleanor Rigby but thats because I didn't like its overproduced style. It was better than its successor She's Leaving Home, by a mile.

The albums obvious star though is Tomorrow Never Knows. Precursor to A Day In the Life, it is superior in most ways to my ears. Very interesting groundbreaking sound and production, and deep deep lyrics. The pinnacle of Beatles songwriting I would say.

jb

Haha... such a fun piece to read!

Refreshing to read reviews treating Beatle stuff as not some kind of untouchable work of almighty god or something.

But I wonder if Ray Davies given any Stones album reviews (if he has - well, I'm ready to burn all of my Kinks records haha...)

- Doxa

Sounds to me like there's a hint of envy in Ray's tone...it's almost as if he wishes he could have been a Beatle instead of a Kink lol.
The entire album is a classic imo - even the goofy Yellow Submarine w/it's groundbreaking sound effects which was surely an inspiration to bands like Pink Floyd.
Also Dr Robert...sweet/simple guitar riff, and the vocal harmonies throughout are fantastic (as is the case w/many Beatles tunes)..."Well, well, well, you're feeling fine"...sublime....
And Your Bird Can Sing has one of the best guitar riffs ever recorded, and sounds like Keith might have been inspired when he wrote the intro riff to Can't You Hear Me Knockin' - the similarities are clear to me.
Whatever Ray might have thought, the entire album was surely inspiring to every band at that time, and like all Beatles albums it helped change the course of popular music.

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Oh my Ray-- so wrong on so many counts. I mean I love the Kinks but even on their best albums 50 percent of those albums were nothing but filler. My Favorites were Kink- Size, Arthur, Muswell Hillbillies ( which I always thought was their Beggars Banquet ) those were probably the most realized of their releases ( to me anyway )

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24FPS
It proves that even a world famous musician, with rock credibility can be dead wrong. He showed no understanding of the songs. And no, he never wrote anything at good as almost all the tracks on Revolver.

A stupid thing to say 24.......

Music is subjective, and just because someone does not like something, it does not mean that they are "dead wrong".

Ray does not like "Revolver" and I'm sure plenty of people feel the same.

I rather like it, but I share Ray's opinion with regard to "Yellow Submarine"...... I also think it's rubbish, and I suspect that The Beatles felt the same. However, although it is tripe, it has something, so it's good tripe. A childs song really.....

If the Beatles thought it was rubbish, why would they make and release an entire movie based around the song?

jb

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strat72

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24FPS
It proves that even a world famous musician, with rock credibility can be dead wrong. He showed no understanding of the songs. And no, he never wrote anything at good as almost all the tracks on Revolver.

A stupid thing to say 24.......

Music is subjective, and just because someone does not like something, it does not mean that they are "dead wrong".

This is a classic. It's beyond excellent.

Revolver is a good record — but not The Beatles’ greatest album in my estimation. However, it has been reappraised much too higher than it deserves for some twenty years or so for the reasons beyond me. Ray Davies’ rather uncomplimentary statement is thus quite refreshing even though I don’t agree with every point he made. And I’m partial to noughties in that it has some fillers in it — in my view, more so than in Sgt Pepper. Let me quote my own post on the old thread: “OT: albums concidered great which I don`t get” —

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RisingStone
I never get this demotion of Sgt. Pepper that’s been going on over the years. I thought it was a great, even perfect record when I first heard it in early 70’s, and my impression hasn’t changed one bit ever since.
On the other hand, I feel Revolver is way overrated these days. Undoubtedly a good album in its own right, though not in the same league as Pepper IMHO. For me, Revolver feels like a transitional work that bridges the gap between Rubber Soul and Pepper. A fairly commonly observed modern opinion that Revolver has better songs than Pepper is totally beyond me.

Those generally regarded as below-par songs in Pepper, i.e. Fixing A Hall, Mr. Kite, When I’m Sixty-Four, Lovely Rita, Good Morning Good Morning etc...personally I’d rate them higher than the equivalent in Revolver, such as She Said She Said, Good Day Sunshine, And Your Bird Can Sing, Dr Robert, I Want To Tell You to name a few. Among the lesser talked-about songs on each one of the albums, I generally feel the former group better than the latter.

The rise of Revolver and the fall of Pepper for the last two decades or so...I suspect snobbery acts some role here.

My two cents.

[iorr.org]

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jbwelda
If the Beatles thought it was rubbish, why would they make and release an entire movie based around the song?

jb

It's one of Paul's songs, and he wrote a lot of crap. Good crap, but crap. It drove Lennon and George mad I've no doubt. Stuff like Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da..... Nonsense music that still has something about it.

Even Paul said that "Yellow Submarine" is a childrens song. A novelty song....

It's a fun bit of fluff not to be taken seriously.

The wise adage 'if it can be whistled'... You Really Got Me and Sunny Afternoon. That's all I can think of at the moment.

Ob La Di though... killer tune, really. Dumb? Sure. But killer. Everyone knows it. This is good, though, McCartney explaining how it came about.

Maybe I'm the super weirdo. I got rid of 'Rubber Soul' and 'Revolver' years ago when I was downsizing my CD collection. I really like their early stuff (especially 'Please Please Me' and 'Hard Day's Night') and then their later stuff (especially the White Album). For middle era stuff, I've always leaned toward Pepper because my mother always played it.

Sgt Pepper, now theres some overrated. Vaudeville. Rudy Vallie with a megaphone, been done before and been done since. There were only a handful of tracks I liked on it, amongst them Lovely Rita, the theme songs, and A Day In the Life of course, Being For the Benefit of Mr Kite has its moments.

(edit: Flood, I posted this while you were posting yours, not meant as a slam of you or your likes, just my opinion.)

Obladee Oblada was one of their lesser songs that I really liked too. Thought it had a great beat and good lyrics, great delivery. One of my favorites on the White Album. As far as being dumb, the Beatles were spending some time on the dumb side of town there for awhile, I blame the fascination with acid. The whole Magical Mysery Trip thing was dumb. Hello Goodbye? Dumb to the max. All You Need Is Love? I always took it as a satire otherwise...dumb. And it goes on.



jb



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-11-27 03:57 by jbwelda.

I Am The Walrus ...
thats all ya need ..... dump the rest



ROCKMAN

Quote
jbwelda
Sgt Pepper, now theres some overrated. Vaudeville. Rudy Vallie with a megaphone, been done before and been done since. There were only a handful of tracks I liked on it, amongst them Lovely Rita, the theme songs, and A Day In the Life of course, Being For the Benefit of Mr Kite has its moments.

(edit: Flood, I posted this while you were posting yours, not meant as a slam of you or your likes, just my opinion.)

Obladee Oblada was one of their lesser songs that I really liked too. Thought it had a great beat and good lyrics, great delivery. One of my favorites on the White Album. As far as being dumb, the Beatles were spending some time on the dumb side of town there for awhile, I blame the fascination with acid. The whole Magical Mysery Trip thing was dumb. Hello Goodbye? Dumb to the max. All You Need Is Love? I always took it as a satire otherwise...dumb. And it goes on.



jb

No worries, no slam taken...thank you for your consideration! I listen to it now and it's lost some of it's mystical powers since my childhood. And I agree, Lovely Rita is a good one. And that intro to Sgt. Pepper (Reprise) "One, two, three, four..." into the drums/guitar I really like and wish it was longer.

Ray is supreme Royalty long before he was supreme Royalty. He might be the bitchiest of all the grande Rock bitches.
Really, Marc Bolan's entire career didn't rock as hard as a Kinks ballad on certain tours when Dave's hand. was healed from Ray stabbing it with a fork because get your bastard hands off my French Fries...
...
...so Rays doing Nawlins Horn arrangements and writing 53 GREAT rock operas and boy some of that live stuff even into the 80's was ferocious.
I like T Rex btw... that wasn't a slam.

It's just that he's a really great and really original writer. He's like the UK Bob Dylan , not near in sound, but in breadth and depth of stubborn originality and personal discovery launched in characters it themes.

From gorgeous miracles like Waterloo Sunset with perfect spooky heartbreaking bg vokes from Dave and Ray's ex Wife...to sorta acing You Really Got Me and for this 12 year old at the time.
...
The debut Hit me as heavy as Meet The Beatles...
Which is one of their best imo, or Stones and The Who and Them debuts. THAT was my Iron Circle of UK and Irish and each one had amazing original amalmagamalgamations branching off of teenage UK bar bands from different towns , all hip to James Brown and Little Richard.

Lol I still listen to tracks from The Who Sing My Generation.
Any friend here knows I've got cassette of the first half dozen Stones LP in my car to this day..
Oops got distracted.

Ray's really on Target IMO. on some..
A lot. Interesting observation too from a world class Producer songwriter. He learned fast like Mick and Keith did. Nicky all over the early Kinks albums which are ALL good.

And way wrong IMO in some but suitably snooty and Condescending. Lennon would have beat him in a fight , but he'd have scratch marks and an eye patch for the trouble.

He's Ray.
It doesn't really matter if he's wrong or right,. where he belongs is right.
Where he belongs. ( Might have been a little jealous too , that Ray. Other knights on High steed's... Lennon would have beat his ass in a bar fight. But...
If he had gone for one of Ray's fries?
There definitely would have been one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-11-27 06:08 by hopkins.

Fries !!! ... Chips ...



ROCKMAN

Chips, I meant chips!



Unless ,
Ray skewered in him the States, Rocky, which is my contention,
If so and it was AMERICA then those French FRIES , OUR uniquely ORIGINAL French FRIES is one of our NATIVE food stuffs.
Really stuffed if you're at an AMERICAN McDonald run by our real American 3rd be world and fourth World immigrant's.

Look, I just got back here after crawling across this country like Lewis and Clark. I was hoping not to have to Ban myself again right off the bat.
I was hoping to avoid this kind of correction stress that is obviously politically motivated so obvious if it's this tough to get thru s, drag me into culinary politics
flipping SIDE OF sometimes, not even the greasy meat...but go ahead, correct s guy who KNEW the guys related to the dude who came up with Curly Fries,?
Curly FRENCH American Fries, mate.

I see what you're doing.
Too many kanga- nuggets . Not mentioning names.

Americana was a much better album than the last 14 or so Macca projects.
Discuss.

eeeerrrrr me no fries mon .....
Always so thin ... DRY and get stuck in ya throat ....

Gimmie chips ... thicker ... fluffy potato center ... salt & vinegar



ROCKMAN