Comments on: The Kinks’ Music: Percy

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Sat, 19 May 2012 22:59:02 +0000

I thought of those, that’s why I said “a lead vocal by *a band member* other than one of the Davies brothers” — the other lead vocals on Preservation Act II weren’t by members of the band. Sorry if that wasn’t clear enough though.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 19 May 2012 17:49:32 +0000

“The Way Love Used to Be” is quite nice. But, far better than anything on “Lola vs. Powerman”? That’s quite a stretch considering the latter contained Lola, Apeman, Strangers, This Time Tomorrow, Get Back In Line.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sat, 19 May 2012 17:37:34 +0000

There are tracks on Preservation Act II not sung by either Davies brother, the duets ‘Oh where oh where is love’ and ‘Nothing lasts forever’ with RD, and most notably the female singer solo track ‘Scrapheap City’.

By: Hal

Hal — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:28:30 +0000

There isn’t much to say about this (and I never could bring myself to buy this album as it seemed like a waste of money though I know God’s Children and I’ve heard The Way Love Used to Be) but you did a good job of informing those of us generally unfamiliar with it aside from hearing the songs/instrumentals within the context of the execrable film.
The most entertaining part of your post, however, is the tag “British Sex Comedies of the 1970s”! Nightmarish. Neither sexy nor comical it’s sobering that those things kept the British film industry alive at the time – just how bad were things in sexual terms that, say, the Confessions films were considered erotic by the British when they were as arousing colonic irrigation?! The book Keeping the British End Up (though somewhat ill-written) is good on this phenomenon, it’s available cheap and manages to be an eye-opening and frankly astonishing look at what is basically garbage (read it and never look at Chris Chittell from Emmerdale again- the horror, the horror). It’s fascinating if you love discovering the strange by-ways of British film and culture.
It’s certainly odd to think that while Slade got to act in Flame, the Kinks could only score a dreadful “comedy” with an excruciatingly tasteless premise. Yet it’s also fitting that this most eccentrically English of bands should contribute to an eccentrically English sub-genre.
Frankly, in an alternative world it would be funny to see you analyse such films as they feature such dubious attitudes (according to the book, and I saw Percy and the Askwith abominations when younger. Ack) that I suspect you’d spontaneously combust ;).