(Arista, 1984)The only CONFUSION one should having regarding this British EP is why it EXISTS, consisting as it does of two then-current LP tracks and edits of two songs off of the band’s 1980 live record. The bits lifted from State of Confusion – the title track and “Heart of Gold” – represent both sides of the bozo-rock coin that make that album such a disaster (one tuff/paranoid growler, one sensitive/Pretenders-style midtempo yawn). An accurate representation of the increasingly tired Kinks at this time, I suppose, but hardly a flattering one. The live songs, meanwhile, are the macho stadium versions of “Lola” and “20th Century Man” that chumps the world over had already bought years earlier on One For the Road. Weird. Honestly, I’m not sure whether this disc was released to promote a tour of the UK, to expose the back catalog to newly-minted fans of “Come Dancing,” or just thrown out there as a cynical (and lousy!) piece of product. All three, perhaps.
1 comment:
i guess we can't answer that one without more research into marketing trends of the early '80s. But 're-tread' was pretty high on the Kinks' horizon at that time, so, any thing to move a bit of product. Like, you wouldn't want the classic "Lola" (sounds too old) and you don't want to spring for that double live album, but you might want your stadium rock sooveneer and the hot new track you might hear on the radjo.
Pretenders-esque is right. Hanging with Ms. Chrissie made Rayday even more derivative.
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