Saturday, October 11, 2008

The Kinks - Muswell Hillbillies


A friend recently reignited my love for the Kinks. This band probably made the best pop songs ever. Muswell Hillbillies was released in 1971, and like most classics stands the tests of time. The Kinks were great at taking a serious or sad subject matter and translate that into a catchy pop song. This album is a concept album, which was very different than what RCA expected when they signed The Kinks after the smash hit "Lola", this album solidified the Kinks as just not a band who makes a hit and surround it with a few songs to make an album, every song is made to fit into the album as a whole. Muswell Hillbillies takes on matter of addiction, classism, and fad diets. Enjoy

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr Adams has leaked ...
/Bakamomo

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for posting this!! What an excellent album!

Anonymous said...

sheeeit the link don work. Can you repost it? I've been looking for this album for ages.

nffcnnr said...

my favorite Kinks album! Great post.

Anonymous said...

Any chance of a re-up?

Cheers.

Anonymous said...

re-up! re-up!

Anonymous said...

I have to slightly disagree - The Kinks began making masterpiece albums years earlier with Face to Face. Village Green Preservation Society, Something Else, Arthur (my favorite?) and Lola Vs. Powerman & The Moneygoround were all thoroughly classic albums. It was only after Muswell that the quality began to fall off a bit though, as you say, Muswell itself, is magnificent. Then there are all the singles and bootlegs from the 66-71 period!!! Genius! Jessina

Anonymous said...

Few bands had as great a songwriter inside as the Kinks did with Mr. Davies...
this is a brilliant record, with songs about an England that fading away before their eyes even as these songs were being written.
Funny, smart, poetic and even people who don't sing along with sing along with some of these.
It's great to see it available to people...
dugg