(Flashback, 1983)Sometimes life teaches you things. Like Thursday, when I pulled my air conditioner in after a rainstorm and, it being filled with water, promptly dumped a gallon of cloud-piss onto my bedroom floor.
Sometimes Arista reissues things. Like 1983, when the label paired two Kinks singles of the ’70s for a budget 7” and, it being a pointless catalog goosing, promptly dumped tons of unwanted vinyl onto the market.
See what I did there? It’s called craftsmanship. Savor it while I savor my Pulitzer.
All seriousness aside, though – I did in fact win a Pulitzer – this Frankenstein reissue of two semi-golden semi-oldies is a real jukebox champ: “Father Christmas” is mid-/late-period Kinks recalling their snotty/pissed best circa ’64, and “(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman” is perhaps the finest, heppest, slinkiest ’60s-band-gone-disco song out there… sure beats hell on “Goodnight Tonight,” “Miss You,” and even (MAYBE) “Wiggle That Wotsit.” A pointless cheapie not worth owning, this, but still, thing’s admittedly an impeccable two-song comp. And there’s enough similarly solid stuff out there that if you spring for an LP-length assemblage of Ray’s best from these years you’ll manage to appreciate the guy’s occasional hiccups of brilliance as spread – however thinly – throughout the RCA/Arista/MCA era; I give him a hard time, but dude was OK. Frustrating as heck, but generally OK.
1 comment:
the scariest thing about this is that a 1983 re-issue is called "flashback" to tracks released in 1977 and 1979 respectively. Do you remember your president Nixon... or even yesterday?
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