Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Jay Cost. Jay is the Gerald R. Ford senior non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of, most recently, James Madison: America’s First Politician. Find him on Twitter/X at @Jay__Cost.
Jay’s Music Pick: The Kinks
Haven’t we done these guys already? We sure did! But this is the part of the Kinks' career we didn't do any real justice to back six or seven years ago when Jay first joined us for our comically brief discussion of the Kinks' Seventies career.
We remedy that here, for the second part of our grand Kinks retrospective (covering everything from 1969's Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire onwards) sheds light on an era of their career that has been largely forgotten, but which contains much of their greatest music. From the conceptual ambitions of Arthur, Lola, and an entire passel of early-to-mid '70s concept albums that are usually more mocked than listened to (wrongfully so, we argue), the Kinks reclaimed stardom, promptly kicked it right back to the curb in order to do concert/stage production hybrids for a few years, and then with superb 1976 Sleepwalker went right back to climbing the album and singles charts. And all throughout it Ray Davies's lyrical vision -- singular in both its profundity and also its occasional cheerful mundaneness -- guided the group through a series of records that, while no longer discussed as much as their classic Sixties era, were extremely popular in their time and justifiably so.
We pretty much wrap up our discussion with Give The People What They Want (1981), so if you have to be a big Think Visual! fan, then this episode may disappoint you. But we doubt it. Because Political Beats is proud to have finally given the latter era of the Kinks their proper due, and in a way that we hope will make several new fans. Click play, sit back in your old rocking chair in your Shangri-La, and enjoy.
Episode 115: Jesse Walker / Willie Nelson [Part 1]
Episode 114: Steve Miller / Mott The Hoople
Episode 113: Andrew Heaton / 'Weird Al' Yankovic
Episode 112: Scott Immergut / Squeeze
Episode 111: Eli Lake / Prince [Part 3]
Episode 110: Eli Lake / Prince [Part 2]
Episode 109: Eli Lake / Prince [Part 1]
Episode 108: Mike Long / Robbie Fulks
Episode 107: Rory Cooper / Paul Simon
Episode 106: Andrew Prokop / Kate Bush
Episode 105: Bruce Edward Walker / Warren Zevon
Episode 104: Charles C. W. Cooke / Fleetwood Mac [Part 2]
Episode 103: Charles C. W. Cooke / Fleetwood Mac
Episode 102: Daniel Gullotta / Michael Jackson
Episode 101: Matt Lewis / John Mellencamp
Episode 100: Andrew Fink / The Allman Brothers Band
Episode 99: Randy Barnett / Traffic & Steve Winwood
Episode 98: Jeff Dufour / Neil Young [Part 3]
Episode 97: Jeff Dufour / Neil Young [Part 2]
Episode 96: Jeff Dufour / Neil Young [Part 1]
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