1970s albums review 3 - The Kinks

The Kinks have always been a big fave band of mine since the 1960s (and my childhood!) and although in the early 70s they produced some really good and interesting albums, as this blog is about my album faves and when I was actually buying the albums, I begin with 1975's 'Soap Opera'. I also saw this performed live as a semi-theatrical rock opera at the Liverpool Empire in 1975 too. I found the album very novel and it contains some classic Ray Davies songs with no strong single booster though. 'Face in the crowd' , 'Ducks on the wall' , and '9 to 5' were all about the mundanity and ordinariness of most of our lives, and in a way it did jolt me big time as to what I was actually doing at the time, which was working in a car factory (Ford's of Halewood). This album more than any other made me think about life and it's purpose, as Ray Davies has always been a bit philosophical in his writing. Not long after I would visit the USA for the first time and there decide to go back into education when I came back (as I failed miserably first time round) which I did successfully for the next five years. A game changer of an album indeed. My rating though 8/10. The next album I bought of theirs was 1977's (they didn't release one in 76) 'Sleepwalker'  which was more of a standard rock album with some very strong tracks on. I was now studying A levels (Sociology, Politics and History) and had moved out of the family nest with a flat and a close girlfriend to match! The punk revolution was in full swing and although I was hip to some of that, I still stuck to my faves, and of course the kinks. Some stand out tracks were; 'Stormy sky', 'Mr big', and 'Life goes on'. My rating 8/10.