LSquared Imaging: Album Review: The Kinks

Saturday, September 08, 2018

Album Review: The Kinks - One For The Road

Artist: The Kinks

Album: One For The Road

Released: 1980

This "Live" album from The Kinks was recorded during 1979, mostly from shows in New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. And released in the summer of 1980. I received this album at the start of the '80/'81 school year (college) from my roommate the previous year.

The playing is solid, the sound is good. A double album, and included a nice double sided poster (folded). This doesn't come off as a "contract filler". It introduced me to several Kinks songs I wasn't very familiar with, or at least didn't have in my collection. Such as Hardway, Misfits, Prince Of The Punks, and Celluloid Heroes. All that said, it's never really been a favorite album for me. Why?

Well, first flaw (IMHO) is a over-reliance on songs from the album Low Budget. Low Budget had been released in the summer of '79, so this tour would've been in support of it. Still, they didn't need to have it dominate this album. Over 1/2 of low budget is here, and it represents about 1/3 of this album. I had (and still have) Low Budget, so this level of content seemed excessive. It's not like the Kinks don't have a solid catalog to draw from. Nothing was included from Village Green, and only one some from Muswell Hillbillies, and Lola. Nothing from '77s Sleepwalker...

The other "flaw" from my standpoint is the prevalence of synthesizers. I don't know if they were giving new member Ian Gibbons some extra spotight, or if (more likely) it was just a reflection of it being 1980...

last "flaw": I thought the album title was unoriginal, deriving from Synysrd's One More From The Road

Bottom line: This is a decent album, one that gets played all along. But not a favorite, certainly not essential. I'd give it 3.0 out of 5.0. Allmusic was a little harsher, rating it 2.5/5.0. They have 185 user ratings which come in at 4.0/5.0. Their review calls the album "a fascinating document of trailblazing elder statesmen who paved the way for heavy metal and punk, but never felt a glorious pop song was out of their grasp."

One For The Road was a successful release, selling "gold" and reaching #14 on the Billboard album chart. It is available on Spotify, and the CD is available on Amazon. Not high on the "obscurity" meter....

Here's the back cover, inside the gatefold, and the poster (each side)
click through for larger versions...