Behold! The trilogy is complete! Actually, the decidedly-weirder second part of the Preservation rock opera is a very recent addition to my library, inspired by some serious Kinks-listening back when I reviewed Kinda Kinks here back in January. I (or anyone else) would be hard pressed to consider the two Preservation albums and The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society to be a true trilogy of albums beyond a loose theme. Let's take a look back on how the band that gave the world "You Really Got Me" also educated listeners on British social strife.
The seeds of the Preservation project began back in 1966 with a song called "Village Green". That song failed to make it to either Face to Face or the following year's Something Else, but finally found a home on the 1968 album that practically bore the name name, full title officially: The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society. It isn't really correct to call this album either a rock opera or even a concept album, though all the songs have far more pastoral inclinations than any other Kinks album and it isn't hard to explain each song as a character sketch that, when grouped together, present a stylized image of the traditional English village. Although there are some weird and unlikable folks living in the village (the "Phenomenal Cat" and "Wicked Annabella" for starters), it's not a dark album and is a pretty spot-on encapsulation of the isolation the Kinks were experiencing as their peers soaked in Monterey and the Summer of Love and were on the road to Woodstock. Thanks to a U.S. touring ban, the Kinks were cut off from the mainstream and forced into a diversionary track that extolled tea and tobacco over pot and LSD.
The Kinks left the village green behind on 1969's Arthur, a far heavier album that dealt with other social issues and openly identified as a concept album. In 1970 they were at long last free of the pesky ban and enjoyed a really big hit with the uncharacteristic "Lola", who hailed from Soho, not the village green. In the mind of Ray Davies however, he was a longing to get back to that village green, but, instead of just idly observing as before, he wanted critique the demolition of a way of life, torn asunder by the rapacious private investors (Mr. Flash) and an oppressive morally-righteous utopians (Mr. Black). A few years would pass...
In 1971 the Kinks switched labels from Pye to RCA. "Lola" was still red hot, so RCA was probably pretty excited to add the Kinks to their roster. However, they probably weren't aware of the wild ride Ray Davies was about to take them on. Initially it seemed like the Kinks were trending away from the concept albums. Muswell Hillbillies was lightly themed, but nowhere near the levels of what the Who recently turned in with Tommy. The album had a distinctly "country and western" flavor, but the Rolling Stones were effectively doing the same thing, so the label probably wasn't that concerned. The following year the band delivered a double album called Everybody's In Show-Biz which featured a lackluster set of studio songs and a truly weird live show with Ray Davies doing drunken renditions of "Baby Face" and "The Banana Boat Song" alongside highly re-worked classic Kinks material. Even still, RCA was giving the band a pretty wide berth. And then, Ray would really blow things open with a full honest-to-God rock opera, released in two parts over two years, boldly entitled Preservation.
Last year I discussed Part One, so I won't get too heavy on that. I hadn't even listened to Part Two back then, so it's a bit minimal. Anyway, Part One usually gets better critical response than Part Two. It has stronger songs that can stand on their own and it's just songs. Part Two right away starts off with the first of five "Announcements", introducing Mr. Flash's counterpart, Mr. Black. I cannot and will not attempt to defend the decision to insert narratives (the aforementioned announcements plus the track "Flash's Dream") into the opera only on Part 2. It probably would have been best to do no narratives at all, but I think it was done because without them the much weaker song set of Part 2 wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. In the first part it was pretty clear that bastard Mr. Flash, through uncontrollable greed, was going to destroy the tranquil life of the village, whose residents apparently only exist to be manipulated. Thanks mostly to the "overture" track, "Preservation", the scene is laid out pretty well, and it is also made clear that some kind of blowback was in the works against Flash. However Part 1 never reveals the answer to Flash, who by "intermission" is bulldozing everything in sight to a tune that, ironically, is a very important factor in the second part of the story.
Right away we learn the identity of Flash's adversary: Mr. Black. Sadly, for the innocent residents of the village, he is just as crappy as Flash, but also just as manipulative. Black shines a light in particular on Flash's absence of morality and uses this to launch a Ted Cruz-style moral crusade. Even the residents are sounding a bit more haggard in songs like "Scum of the Earth" and "Second Hand Car Spiv", probably just grist for Black's morality mill. By the end of stalemate-level fighting between Flash and Black, a deus ex machina moment hits Flash and he rolls over to Black and the Village War ends. Alas, if the villagers were expecting either "preservation" or "restoration", they were utterly betrayed as Black mows down everything in his creation of a theocratic utopia, both extolled in the brilliant "Artificial Man" and deplored in "Scrapheap City". In the end though it appears that Mr. Black's new world order is a sham, with curfews and rationing imposed to keep the peace. The album concludes with a new national anthem, "Salvation Road", which astute listeners will notice is the bridge music from the last song of Part 1, "Demolition". Make of that what you will.
One common theme about rock operas of the 1960's and 1970's is just how messed up the world is. It is no surprise that Preservation has a sad ending. The Pretty Things practically did a mercy killing of their tortured S.F. Sorrow, Tommy was a manipulated mess in the final number, and (many years later), Pink was dragged through hell and fascism in The Wall. I've made it a kind of rule not to seek out happy endings in explicit rock operas. Even Quadrophenia, once you get past all of the cockney and rainfall, isn't exactly a sweet tale. Apparently RCA didn't mind the terrible reception of Preservation and the Kinks would go on to create two more rock operas, both about as bitter as their progenitor. Never one to leave the village green totally behind, Schoolboys in Disgrace is actually a prequel to Preservation, featuring Flash as a schoolboy. Origin story alert!
Three consecutive rock operas were enough for RCA, who cut ties with the band following Schoolboys. Arista swooped in and picked up the back, but took a far more active approach in persuading Ray that the operatic track of the band through the mid-1970's was a losing proposition. While I'm not a great fan of label interventions, this was probably one of the more tastefully executed transitions, resulting in the Kinks return to "regular" albums, a style they would maintain until their ultimate dissolution in the mid-1990's. While the new approach finally made them a big success in the United States, only about 10 years later than all of their peers, it tore at the very fabric of the band. Longtime bassist John Dalton and keyboardist John Gosling soon exited. The keyboard role, for all practical purposes, was returned to session-level, while the bass player slot was a revolving door for a couple years until Jim Rodford (ex-Argent) filled it permanently. Later on, in the early 1980's, relations between drummer Mick Avory and Dave Davies, never that great to begin with, soured completely, resulting in Avory's ouster. He was replaced by Bob Henrit (ex-Argent as well!). The Rodford-Henrit rhythm section lasted through the band's final album, though Avory never entirely disappeared and was a mainstay at Konk studios. While there's been endless talk of a "reunion" (some of which involves only one Davies brother), nothing serious has come to light. All is desolate in the village green at present time.
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