Our third rock opera from The Kinks may somehow be the most baffling and confusing yet - considering
Preservation Act 2, that is some statement.
Soap Opera is not necessarily worse in execution, but all-in-all the results are somehow more tepid than anything on
Preservation, and even more patronizing. The story of a rockstar (the Starmaker) switching places with a normal person (Norman), and while character observations were previously the best thing about The Kinks, the approach here becomes more "look at how boring ordinary people are!" and it becomes kind of painful. Some of the moments are assuredly awful, mainly on the absolute snooze-fest of the first half of the album - the second half has some quality with the somewhat cutesy "You Make It All Worthwhile" and the semi-sweet ballad "Underneath the Neon Sign," but these really don't make up for the absolute disaster of the entire thing. So far, I'm not entirely convinced that these rock opera albums weren't some sort of self-sabotage,
Self Portrait-esque bullshit - when you really get down to the nitty gritty, some of these lyrics are just so fucking ridiculous that the line between parody and a genuine college try is nonexistent. If this is all some sort of elaborate "fuck you!" to critics, than it is a truly brilliant piece of satire, but on its own you'd best wash your hands of this soap opera.
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Listen to Soap Opera.
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