Orchestral and choral arrangements of rock songs have been a curious subgenre ever since the mid-'60s when Andrew Loog Oldham arranged The Rolling Stones Songbook for syrupy strings, but The Kinks Choral Collection stands apart from the pack for the simple reason that it's not the project of some associate or admirer, but rather chief Kink Ray Davies. His very presence as arranger and lead vocal means The Kinks Choral Collection isn't nearly as stuffy and middlebrow as so many of these orchestral rock albums; he manages to inject some semblance of rock & roll by pushing the songs forward with guitar, and letting the rhythms swing instead of plod. This looseness is the first big surprise of the album. The second is its unrepentant but quite possibly accidental silliness, how many of the major guitar riffs are transposed for choir, an audacious idea in concept that's simply goofy in practice. These choral chants hamper the hardest rocking songs here -- "You Really Got Me," "All Day and All of the Night," "Victoria" -- and they're mercifully absent from the slower tunes, songs that benefit from the gentle layered harmonies. In comparison to most orchestral and choral rock albums, these arrangements are subtle and sensitive, providing a nice counterpart for the surprising dose of rock & roll, both things that make The Kinks Choral Collection one of the better entries in this curious subgenre -- and while that's somewhat faint praise, it's praise all the same.
I've never really gotten deeply into The Kinks. That's not that I don't enjoy their music. The problem is there's so damn much of it, and the vast majority seems so good that I find it daunting trying to come up with a n obvious entry point.Head Kink Ray Davies may have just provided that to me with the release of The Kinks Choral Collection. The album sees Davies re-record fifteen classic
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Because the more thoughtful songs outnumber the straight-forward rockers, and the harder songs are camped up, the album works as a whole.The idea of Ray Davies re-recording more than a dozen classic Kinks’ songs with choral accompaniment suggests two contrasting ideas simultaneously. On the one hand, he wrote great tunes. To have new renditions of some of rock’s most enduring compositions recr
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I've never really gotten deeply into The Kinks. That's not that I don't enjoy their music. The problem is there's so damn much of it, and the vast majority seems so good that I find it daunting trying to come up with a n obvious entry point.Head Kink Ray Davies may have just provided that to me with the release of The Kinks Choral Collection. The album sees Davies re-record fifteen classic
More >
Because the more thoughtful songs outnumber the straight-forward rockers, and the harder songs are camped up, the album works as a whole.The idea of Ray Davies re-recording more than a dozen classic Kinks’ songs with choral accompaniment suggests two contrasting ideas simultaneously. On the one hand, he wrote great tunes. To have new renditions of some of rock’s most enduring compositions recr
More >
Another nifty little Ripple tidbit here. Ray Davies, the legendary lead singer of the Kinks, long one of our favorite bands, has a new project coming to disc soon.The Kings Choral Collection presents new versions of classics such as "You Really Got Me", "All Day And All Of The Night", "Waterloo Sunset" and many more, all featuring the 65 member Crouch End Festival Chorus.Choral Kinks. How cool i
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After massively successful career spanning more than 40 years, Ray Davies, the legendary lead singer of The Kinks, is back with creative and unusual interpretations of songs from his extensive catalog. Often referred to as "almost indisputably rock's most literate, witty and insightful songwriter," Davies had the ambitious idea to ...
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 "The Kinks Choral Collection")
