Friday Night Videos

Earlier this week I finally got my copy of Ray Davies' new album, "Working Man's Cafe." It's good. I'm not entirely sure what I think about it beyond that at this point--I'll have to listen a lot more and let my feelings congeal, as it were. I do like that it's not as over-produced as "Other People's Lives" was, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's better. Ray's funny that way.

I'm pretty sure at this point that I don't hold "One More Time" in as high esteem as Jeff Vandermeer does. It's a good song, but it's not "Waterloo Sunset." And I do think the semi-acoustic version Jeff links to on his blog works better than the studio version. Something about Ray's songwriting just lends itself to live performances. But I'm not faulting Jeff. Every so often a song just hits a chord with a listener, and resonates beyond all reason. For me, it was "To The Bone," which I first heard Ray perform on VH1's "Storytellers" series. I was so excited by it, I wrote to Konk Studios to ask (among other things) if it'd be on the U.S. release of the "To The Bone" album (I'd already gotten the British import by that time). So here's that original performance by Ray. Incidentally, this is one case where the polished studio version sounds better to me, but I still love his live take.



Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Art of Noise.

Now Playing: Ray Davies Working Man's Cafe