The Kinks - 'Muswell Hillbillies' (RCA Victor)

Muswell Hillbillies shouldn't work as well as it does; this is where the Davies brothers' move towards American blues and country styles becomes fully integrated into Ray's extreme Englishness; somehow the whole mess congeals, and it attains some great heights. Ray wrote all of the songs here, making this even more of a one-man vision than Village Green; this lyrical cohesiveness holds together a record which borrows musical motifs quite liberally from honky-tonk, Dixieland jazz, folk-rock and music hall traditions. Because this blog only covers my vinyl accumulation, we've skipped a run of classic albums in between Face to Face that I only have on CD, so this jump would make this almost an unrecognisable band to the unknowing. And a band it is - the bassist has changed from the classic Kinks lineup but the core quartet really grinds through these songs, augmented by a brass section on some tracks and some really heavy, swampy organ. The first side is essentially perfect, moving through a suite of exaggerated lyrical concerns, starting with '20th Century Man' and ending with 'Complicated Life'. In between we look at poverty, alcoholism and British seaside holidays through Ray's glasses (eyeglasses, but I suppose pub drinking glasses as well), which blend his usual nostalgia trip with the urban neighbourhood proclaimed by the title and cover art. There is no reason that 'Acute Schizophrenia Blues' should succeed as well as it does ; the mix of Felix Guattari and the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band is unlike anything else I've ever heard, but it's catchy as fuck. '20th Century Man' could be a Tory fight song in its most favourable viewing, or an EDL anthem in its least, but this Marxist happens to love it. I would declare if one of my guilty pleasures, except I try not to believe in guilty pleasures; it does seem like quite a reaction to the Harold Wilson government and the plan, plan, plan mentality; technocracy was still nascent at the time this was written, and I wonder how the elderly Mr. Davies would feel about these matter. He sings a bit weird on this album, like he's letting the words escape from the side of his mouth for the most part, in that casual half-spoken style of singing that Lou Reed popularised. Yet he belts it out in a few places, namely the choruses ('ladi dah de dah dah' in 'Complicated Life' most memorably, which is actually written out in the lyric sheet); the jazzy affectations work well here as brassy complements to it. Dave Davies's guitar playing has always had a hard, blues-driven edge; 'Skin and Bone' and 'Complicated Life' take the 'King Kong' buzzsaw tone and somehow integrate it into the country-fried songs. Side two admittedly slows down a bit, but that's a good move; the songs are all still solid, and 'Have a Cuppa Tea' is so over the top with its Englishness that I get slight Ukip shivers while listening. 'Oklahoma USA' is a delicate piano ballad which is catchy to the point of infectious but also directly confronts the influence of American culture on the British. The title track closes things out by most explicitly stating this fascination, while acknowledging the essential Londonness. Simplistic in ways, but the way the music and lyrics come together into such a total package that over the years this has probably become my favourite Kinks album, though I've never given the rock opera era a chance, and I've never heard Percy.