The Kinks are going all out for the 50th anniversary of their music industry-satirising 1970 album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One.
Commonly abbreviated to Lola Versus Powerman, or just Lola, the record is renowned as a classic concept album of the ’70s music era. Artistically free, ahead of its time (read up how hit single ‘Lola’ was “lifesaving” for one trans activist), and philosophical, Lola was initially slated as two-part album, hence the “Part One” at the end of the title. “Part Two” was planned, but the Kinks changed direction with Percy and Muswell Hillbillies.
Seen as a ‘comeback’ album, as it followed three records that failed to chart inside the US Top 100, the record was both critically and commercially successful. It hit the Top 40 in the US and contained two hit singles: ‘Lola’, which reached the #9 US, #2 UK and Germany – becoming the Kinks’ biggest success since ‘Sunny Afternoon’ in 1966 – and ‘Apeman’, which peaked at #5 in the UK and Germany.
This December 11, the Kinks will unleash their highly-anticipated special multi-format releases with a variety of options. Those include single-CD and LP editions of the newly remastered album, all the way up to a “Deluxe Box Set” that includes the three CDs featuring B-sides, alternate original mixes, new medleys with Ray and Dave Davies’ spoken word commentary, new Ray Davies remixes and original session outtakes, previously unreleased session and live tape audio, instrumental and acoustic versions, previously unreleased demos and BBC material; along with two reproduced 7-inch singles from the era (‘Lola’/’Berkeley Mews’ and ‘Apeman’/’Rats’).
The aforementioned medley of the Kinks’ track ‘Any Time’ (titled ‘The Follower – Any Time 2020 Feat: Anytime by the Kinks’) was originally written by Ray as a possible B-side for ‘Apeman’.
Check out the Kinks’ new track ‘The Follower – Any Time 2020’:
Ray Davies said of the new version of ‘Any Time’: “The isolation caused by Coronavirus can give people time to re-evaluate the world and re-assess their lives. Music can comfort the lonely, transcend time and it’s not the future or the past, yesterday, today or tomorrow. It’s anytime.”
He added, “I saw a way of making this unreleased 1970s track connect to an audience in 2020. I also saw a way of showing that music can time-travel, that memory is instantaneous and therefore can join us in the ‘now’. I put this together as something surreal then realised that it was really happening. The song has found its place – after its 50th Birthday!”
The Kinks’ massive re-issue options
- Limited Edition, Deluxe 10” Slipcased book pack (containing 60 page book, 3 X CDs, 2 X 7” singles, 4 X colour prints)
- 1LP Gatefold
- 2CD Hardback Book
- 1CD Softpack
- Digital
- HD Digital
- D2C Limited Edition Exclusives (free with boxset orders): 7” Single, Enamel pin badge
Ray Davies said, “The album is a celebration of artistic freedom (including my own) and the right for anyone to be gender free if one wishes. The secret is to be a good and trusting person and friend.”
The Kinks’ Lola Versus Powerman and The Moneygoround Part One 50th anniversary multi-format album re-issues are out December 11th via BMG. They are available to order now.
