Everybody's in Pornographic Cinema
Overall Album Score: 9.1 out of 10 Wow! There are ten more great songs from The Kinks on Everybody’s in Show-Biz! “Celluloid Heroes” is certainly another under-appreciated classic from this band … and all the other songs are very good as well. Indeed, this is another slap in the face for any imaginary person who would call Ray Davies a second-rate songwriter! However, these 10 songs I’m talking about is only one half of Everybody’s in Show-Biz. The second half is a live Kinks concert! I really wasn’t expecting a whole lot from it (and I’m also fairly hesitant about reviewing live albums), but that concert was really entertaining to listen to! … It helps that the Kinks write such great songs to play in a concert, but I hadn’t before realized that Ray Davies had so much vibrant energy and inflicted such deadpan wit to his audience. Alright, so many would tell me that Davies was drunk, but for a drunk guy, the live concert was very well done! All the songs on the studio part are much like Muswell Hillbillies, so you had just might as well consider it a sequel of sorts. It is still very much tied to ragtime and country-rock. As sequels normally are, this isn’t quite as amazing or as incredibly immaculate as Muswell Hillbillies … but this remains a very very well done album. That plus the live bit (which was a double album, but it all fits on one CD) makes Everybody in Show-Biz a very good value, and it’s essential for any Kinks fan. Amen. Overall Album Score: 9.1 out of 10 (This score only refers to the studio side of the album. There are tons of great melody and tons of fun to be had on Everybody’s in Show-Biz. For information about the live half of the album, I invite you to scroll down to the bottom!) Average Song Score: 9.2 (This is another set of great songs by the masters of melody!) Album Tilt: 9.0 (This is really good and fun to listen to … as much fun to listen to, I reckon, as Muswell Hillbillies.) Artist Rating: 9.0 (Strength in songwriting is a major plus to this album, but it’s not as artistically daring and significant as Muswell Hillbillies … If this was a sequel, then they did a really good job with it!) Track Reviews Here Comes Yet Another Day 9.5/10 Well, here is a pretty darned entertaining, upbeat ragtime-rock type song. It feels quite a bit more modern than most of the songs on The Muswell Hillbillies, but it sounds quite a bit more rockish. The melody is complex and wonderfully hooky … and we haven’t come to expect anything less from Ray Davies. He’s the hook master! Maximum Consumption 8.5/10 This is another ragtime type song. It’s very solid, quirky, and pretty fun to listen to, but it’s no real classic. Oh well. This is the Kinks! It’s got to be pretty good, then, right? Unreal Reality 9.5/10 This is yet another really fun, catchy and upbeat ragtime number. Gotta love the horns … gotta love the melody … gotta love The Kinks some more! … Really cool! Hot Potatoes 9/10 This song is catchy, bouncy and a whole lot of fun! … The fun never ends, it seems! I still love all this ragtime stuff, and … yep. I like this a lot. The Kinks are still awesome. Sitting in My Motel 9.5/10 How does Ray Davies do this? He makes all his melodies seem so effortless! … It’s like … why doesn’t everybody else in the music biz make melodies in mass quantities like Ray Davies can? … BECAUSE THEY’RE FREAKS OR SOMETHING???? This song, really, is a classical oriented one (and *not* ragtime whatsoever). It’s a slower ballad, and it’s gorgeous! Motorway 8.5/10 Another really strong song! This one has close country-music ties … but that’s not why the song only gets a 8.5. I don’t the melody as much … but everything else is as strong as ever. You Don’t Know My Name 8/10 Crap! Another really strong song! … This is a little bit country-folky, but it’s much more hidden than in “Motorway.” The melody is really good, but, again, I don’t like it quite as much. Supersonic Rocket Ship 10/10 AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME! … This is a *great* little Caribbean music influenced ditty that just sounds CLASSIC. Wonderful and tropical … even though the lyrics don’t sound very tropical. Oh well, this is The Kinks. What else can you expect? This is my second favorite song from the album. Look a Little on the Sunnyside 9/10 This is another very well done song that sounds a bit of a cross between ragtime and town-hall. It’s a bit simple, but it’s another entertaining bit … that’s just great. Super Kinks super super! Celluloid Heroes 10/10 This ought to have been a big hit like Lola was, but, alas, the radio and the public are big morons! HAH HAH! I CALLED ALL OF YOU MORONS! He he he! This melody is so great that … that … it’s better than “Lola,” probably! The song itself is just so engaging and touching that … why wasn’t this a big hit, again? Oh, I forgot. The radio and the public are big morons! HAH HAH! I CALLED ALL OF YOU MORONS! He he he! … Uh oh, I’m repeating myself. I’d better call it quits now. THE LIVE CONCERT SECTION OF THIS ALBUM Live Album Score: 1 - The Best. Oh, wait, I still have a lot more of this album to review. … In fact, I’m only half way finished. However, since I don’t hold nearly as much importance of reviewing live albums as opposed to reviewing their studio counterparts, I’m not going to review this track by track. I’ll just write a bunch of paragraphs about them. Frankly, I wasn’t really expecting anything great from any live performances from The Kinks, but listening to the live concert section of Everybody’s in Show-Biz proved me wrong about that with flying colors! Not only are the Kinks very entertaining here, but some of these songs are even more enjoyable than they were on the studio albums! There are eleven total songs on this concert and there are also two live bonus tracks. It starts out with two songs that I would never have expected The Kinks to perform live … but, really, these are some of the best songs The Kinks *could* perform live, I reckon. The first is the Glammy “Top of the Pops” from their Lola album. Although, the live rendition isn’t much better than the studio one, it was great, I’d imagine, to hear this live. Next, there is “Brainwashed,” which is another great song to hear in concert. It’s probably one of the greater driving rock songs the Kinks have ever written, and a really fun one! Again, though, it’s not much more entertaining than it was on Arthur. After that, the Kinks do a cover of that old jazzy nightclub song “Mr. Wonderful.” It’s only 44 seconds long … it’s just here to be quirky. And then, the next song we get is introduced as “a really heavy number” … but, actually, it’s “Acute Schizophrenia Blues” from Muswell Hillbillies. … Unfortunately, apart from Davies’ more wild vocal performance, it’s pretty similar to the way it was on the studio part. Another Muswell Hillbillies song follows, “Holiday,” which is fun to hear live. Again, it’s not totally different from the studio version, but … eh, it’s a good song! So what if I have to hear it again? … After that is “Muswell Hillbilly,” which the band turns in a pretty fun performance. “Alcohol” performed here, however, is actually a bit better than it was on its album (Muswell Hillbillies) … Davies vocal performance is much more dramatic, menacing, and quirky than it was in the studio, and … this is really very memorable! A strange cover of “Banana Boat (Day-O)” ensues after that. This is a nice moment on the album because the audience sings along with it! … By the shoddy performance of it by the band, though, it’s pretty obvious that this wasn’t planned. But who cares? Ray Davies is so hilarious! A fun rendition of “Skin & Bones” follows … I can’t really call it better than the studio version, but it’s pretty good all the same. Next, there’s a cover of the old-time ragtime song “Baby Face.” It’s both goofy and wonderful! Davies’ vocal performance of it is really funny. Finally, there’s “Lola,” but Ray doesn’t sing it … the audience sings the chorus. … Oh well. And now for the two bonus tracks. The first is “Till the End of the Day,” which appeared on The Kink Kontroversy. It sounds like it’s in the same class as “You Really Got Me.” They could just easily have played “You Really Got Me,” but I guess they just didn’t feel like it. Finally, there’s “She Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina” from Arthur. I was never a huge fan of that song, but it’s alright when it’s performed here. Again, this live concert half is a lot better than I expected it to be. It’s really fun, and of course the songs the Kinks choose to sing are really good even though they manage to evade playing their big hits! I guess Kinks koncerts are only for the real fan! To be a celluloid hero, the first thing you have to do is to send me your thoughts about this album here... |
All reviews are copyrighted by Michael Lawrence. He can get jiggy with it.
