Talk:The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (final version) received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which on 1 October 2022 was archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

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Albums

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Pop music Mid‑importance

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Rock music High‑importance

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The Kinks (inactive)

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This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

"The 20 Worst Album Titles of All Time". Cracked. 2007.

Critical reception[edit]

"Upon its release, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society was greeted with almost unanimously positive reviews from both UK and US rock critics [...]. The LP went virtually unnoticed in the UK, receiving only a single review in Disc."

So the single UK review was almost unanimously positive? S.Camus (talk) 20:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

from redirect page[edit]

I noticed that there is a duplicate article, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. I went to merge them, but the two articles seem at odds. While this one calls it psychedelia, and claims that Ray Davies "managed to inject social commentary into simple observations of life," one of the central points of the other article is that he "composed the album as a gentle, nostalgic homage to English hamlet life. Its theme was very much out of step with the heavy social and psychedelic pop music trends of the day." So one is claiming that while psychedelic, its innovation was injecting social commentary into the simple, while the other claims it lacks the heavy social commentary and psychedlia of its contemperaries. Anyone? (that comment is from me, Bgruber. i had inadvertantly logged out)

I want to add a merge tag, but I don't know which one to merge into which. Plus, I don't know how to go about merging them. 00:50, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC) Shirimasen

A comment on irony.

Is it just me, or is there a degree of 'Tongue-In-Cheek' satire and irony in Ray Davies writing on this album, (and also on 'Arthur'), which is not reflected in this page. I mean how could anyone take "God save little shops, china cups, and virginity" seriously? I don't see Davies as a conservative at all - with a small or a big 'C'. That would be implied, at least within an English context, if we ignore the irony - and it was certainly not neglected by Weller, Blur and others.

From Alan Clark, University of Hertfordshire, UK.

It is affectionately satirical. That doesn't make it anti-conservative. There is a broad British conservative tradition of such writing, which you probably wouldn't be aware of, being at university as you are. 17:48, 28 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.253.95.70 (talk)

Table comparing UK and US versions[edit]

Ok so i made that table right. And someone undid it, commenting "rv, per convention" whatever that means. If you're going to delete someone's hard work, at least explain why on the discussion page.

Yeah it might be unconventional to display the tracklisting in a table like that, but its also unconventional for an album to have two different versions that are as different as these two are. The table makes it easy to compare the two versions, see how they differ and how they are the same.

And besides; isn't the whole idea of wikipedia that its made by the people for the people? so why should it have to follow pointles conventions?

That's my view, but what do you guys think? Is the table a good thing? Should we have it as well as the normal listed tracklisting? Or instead? Or not at all? Caleby 13:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I am the one who reverted that change. With "per convention" I was referring to the fact that no other album articles use such a table AFAIK (at least none of the 1400 album articles on my watchlist). Hundreds of albums have track listings for multiple editions, and they all either use sub-headings, or note which tracks are bonus tracks in parentheses after the track name (the latter only when it's a matter of bonus tracks being added at the end). For reference, 98.5% of those 1400 articles use numbered lists for track listings and 1.5% use tables. I was purposely vague in my edit summary, because this convention is not yet codified in the guidelines at WP:ALBUM#Track listing. Incidentally, I am currently proposing that this convention be codified (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#New paragraph about track listing). In general I think it is useful if album articles on Wikipedia follow certain guidelines for formatting. If you feel strongly that this type of table is appropriate for cases such as this (when track listings for different editions differ significantly), I suggest you propose this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums, to possibly add this to the guideline. After all, if this is deemed appropriate, it should be used on other album articles as well, not just this one. --PEJL 14:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's horseshit. Not everyone spends as much time on Wikipedia as you do, i just wanted to edit an article of an album that i love, i dont want to have to go through these pseudo-official channels in order to make a change which quite obviously makes a lot of sense; i originally made a table for my own personal benefit and it does aid a lot in comparing the albums. Why should all articles about albums have to follow the same conventions? That goes against the spirit of wikipedia. You may think you own the place because you monitor so many albums but perhaps youve forgotten that wikipedia is supposed to be by the people for the people... pointless bureaucracy does more harm than good in cases like this. I dont accept the authority of your guidelines, but even if i did, your convention is not even codified, so piss off. Caleby 02:21, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

PS: i disagree that my change should be "rv"ed for now. Just because you spend more time on wiki doesnt make your opinion any more important than mine. Nobody has complained about the table (well, you didnt even give them time to complain), and it doesnt do any harm or remove any information from how it used to be. The only possible reason to reject it would be so that it fits in line with other tracklistings. So until someone objects to the table for reasons to do with the album, not to do with conformity to other Wiki articles, it should stay. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caleby (talk • contribs)

I love righteous indignation from people who say "I'm too important to spend a lot of time on wikipedia figuring out how things work, I just want to slap down whatever strikes my fancy!" - particularly since they tend to be the first to freak out when somebody else's fancy disagrees with theirs. Speaking of which, I think I'll go listen to Fancy right now! - DavidWBrooks 12:28, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't objecting to his fancy disagreeing with mine... i was objecting to his bureaucratic reasons for rejecting my change.203.173.133.8 23:37, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As for noone complaining about the table, I have various problems with it, other than the fact that it defies convention: Using a table makes a page more complex and difficult to parse, especially for people using assistive technology. The table makes a great effort to present the differences of the track listings, which may be interesting for some, but probably less interesting for a majority of readers. The reason we have guidelines about the formatting of articles on Wikipedia is so that discussions about the best way to format articles don't need to occur for every single article. Besides ensuring consistency, which makes it easier for readers who view multiple articles on a subject to parse their content, this generally means that the formatting will be "better", because it will be the result of the opinions of more people. The guidelines I mentioned have now been codified at WP:ALBUM#Track listing. Like I said, if you really think this table of yours is a better way to you format track listings than the current guideline, lobby for it at WT:ALBUM. Otherwise we should follow the current guideline. I'm reverting the track listing again. --PEJL 09:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really get what you're saying about "parse". Even after looking at all the possible dictionary definitions of the word, i still don't get you. Sorry. Anyway i suppose you win if it's been "codified", but i still don't hold to the authority of those codes, and i dont think everything has to be the same - i think the idea of Wikipedia is that it can be different from other encyclopedias: more anarchic, more adaptable and informal, yet still as accurate as possible. This argument is more of a wider Wikipedia issue and i've been burned by the oligarchy of Wikipedia several times before, which would be why i reacted so angrily this time. Anyway, it would be pointless to lobby for it at WT:ALBUM because its a special case for this album... it wouldn't make sense for all albums, cos not many other albums have significantly varying tracklistings like this. 203.173.133.8 23:37, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With "parse" I meant roughly "interpret". As I wrote earlier, it's not a special case at all. Lots of albums have multiple track listings for different editions, that differ to this extent. So many that a guideline for how these should be formatted was codified. So I don't see why you couldn't lobby for changing that guideline to your proposed table. --PEJL 00:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Castle Communications Release[edit]

I've added details for the 1998 Castle Communications release. Mickraus 21:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Article expansion[edit]

Just a note that, for my next Kinky project, I will be focusing on this article, cleaning it up, adding citations, and expanding it. When I fell that it is ready, I'll nominate it for GA. If you have any comments, feel free to ask me below, or post on my talk page. - I.M.S. (talk) 23:51, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The title track...[edit]

...doesn't get a mention? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.234.198.222 (talk) 02:45, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Overwhelmed with personal viewpoints?[edit]

To me this page seems filled with personal observations. The opinions frequently do not reference other works.Frank Lynch (talk) 23:27, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Potential Good Topic[edit]

I have opened up a discussion at WT:FTQ about a possible Good topic based around this album. Comments there are welcome. Tkbrett (✉) 15:26, 24 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Witanhurst[edit]

Shredux pointed out in an edit recently that Witanhurst mansion is viewable in the background of the Scandinavian cover shot. Indeed, it shows up in a lot of the pictures taken during the photo shoot (e.g. [1], [2], [3]).

I haven't seen Witanhurst mentioned in any reliable sources regarding Village Green however, meaning this information cannot be included in the body. This article in the Guardian points out that Witanhurst is not that far from Ray's house, but the article doesn't mention the mansion showing up on one of the album covers.

In lieu of being able to mention Witanhurst in the body, I've switched the image of Kenwood House to one of Hamstead Heath with Witanhurst visible. The image has very nearly the same angle as many of the pictures taken during the August 1968 photo session. I want to use a better picture, but it is unfortunately the only one I've seen like it on the Commons. Tkbrett (✉) 20:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I may be able to take a picture myself as I pass by there frequently and add it to the commons. Will update if I do Shredux (talk) 09:25, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]