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 35: Jon Gabriel / New Order
Episode 34: Mark Joseph Stern / The Velvet Underground
Episode 33: Kevin Madden / Wilco
Episode 32: Ellen Carmichael / Dire Straits
Episode 31: Christian Schneider / Pixies
Episode 30: Matt Murray / Talking Heads
Episode 29: Terry Teachout / The Band
Episode 28: Mark Davis / Paul McCartney and Wings
Episode 27: The Cover Version Special
Episode 26: Jay Caruso / Foo Fighters
Episode 25: Ezekiel Kweku / Talk Talk
Episode 24: Eric Garcia / AC/DC
Episode 23: John J. Miller / The Police
Episode 22: Eli Lake / Steely Dan
Episode 21: Bruce Walker / The Monkees
Episode 20: Guy Benson / Billy Joel
Episode 19: Karol Markowicz / Pulp
Episode 18: Julie Roginsky / Led Zeppelin
Episode 17: Stephen Miller / Oasis
Episode 16: Josh Jordan / Pearl Jam
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