October 7, 1999
After bouncing this one off my eardrums about 50 times, I’ve decided that Muswell Hillbillies can reasonably challenge the crown bestowed on OK Computer as the premier document of pre-millennial angst. Rock’s (disputed) Poet Laureate Ray Davies lays out his theme in the first lines of the album: “This is the age of machinery/A mechanical nightmare/The wonderful world of technology/Napalm, hydrogen bombs, biological warfare/I’m a paranoid schizoid product of the 20th century.”
A concept album in the finest sense in that it provides variations on a theme rather than being burdened by a clumsy narrative, Davies takes on faceless bureaucracy (“People in Grey”), ecological destruction (“Holiday”), prison brutality (“Holloway Jail”), traditional British escapism (“Have A Cuppa Tea”), paranoia (“Acute Paranoid Schizophrenic Blues”), mindless conformity (“Muswell Hillbilly”) and more.
Sound depressing? Surprisingly, it’s not. With crack New Orleans musicians backing the Kinks’ customary simple rock n’ roll crunch, the album is downright catchy – the blues, Dixieland jazz and country melodies are memorable and fun, making Davies’ indictments initially obscure, then throwing them into stark relief. You’ll find yourself gleefully singing along with lines like “Life is overrated/Life is complicated” before their bitterness blindsides you. The corker is “20th Century Man” – with its simmering organ mirroring Davies’ anger and slashing slide guitar cutting through the haze, it encapsulates the individual’s desperation to maintain dignity in the face of overwhelming odds. This album is a defiant stand against an impersonal century, and if Davies concludes that disillusionment and insanity are the best he can hope for – well, at least in two more months he’ll get his wish: “I’m a 20th century man, but I don’t want to die here.”
- Jared O’Connor
Pre-millenium tension