Working Man's Café : Ray Davies : Review : Rolling Stone

At sixty-three, Ray Davies is still pretty feisty: After getting shot during a mugging in 2004, the Kinks frontman recovered and knocked out 2006’s solid solo album Other People’s Lives. On this follow-up, “No One Listen” finds Davies railing at the Louisiana officials who dropped charges against the man who allegedly shot him. Elsewhere on Working Man’s Café, Davies carps about globalization (“Vietnam Cowboys”), young’uns who seek advice from him (“You’re Asking Me”) and the loss of a local greasy spoon (“Working Man’s Café”). Davies’ tune sense is still relatively intact, and he turns out loose melodies amid nimble bar-band grooves. Unfortunately, Davies’ feistiness fades at times, and he lapses into blandness: A couple of slow cuts sag, and though you can applaud the sentiment behind “Peace in Our Time,” that kind of anti-war anthem has been more or less written a thousand times before. Café offers glimpses of classic Davies: His talent for character sketches shows up on “Morphine Song,” about a hospital ward full of figures both funny and sad. A few more cuts like that one, and Café could have been killer.

CHRISTIAN HOARD

(Posted: Feb 21, 2008)

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Give us your review of Working Man's Café

Review 1 of 3

1of 5 Stars

Tired ramblings from an (even-more) tired, old queen.

Feb 19, 2008 05:57:40

Review 2 of 3

3of 5 Stars

Well, Other People's Lives is better produced and had potential hit singles such as Thanksgiving Day, The Tourist and the best of them all Is There Life After Breakfast? The problem is that he sounds like a tired old man complaining about everything.
On the other hand, the cool thing about his new album is that Ray Davies sounds fresh and new. This time he is not complaining, he is acting out and is actually saying things in a rage. Is a great CD that deserves to be listened to. Is a shame that many people won't.

Feb 11, 2008 20:11:11

Review 3 of 3

4of 5 Stars

While at first I thought this CD was not as good as Other People's Lives, after listening to it a lot, I found myself liking it more. I found it more raw, and more reminiscent of a lot of Kinks material, but in general much better production. Certain songs have a lot of depth, like Imaginary Man, and others like In a Moment catch glimpses of our intimate moments, and still others like The Zombie Walk set a kind of mood. The reviewer missed the point of Peace in Our Time, which is about peace in relationships, and is not an antiwar song; this shows quite a bit of shallowness and demonstrates superficial listening and a shallow review. Actually, this song, as many others, have some nice rock hooks. Once again, Mr. Davies shows us the fine art of songwriting, and if we take time to really listen, puts us in a certain unique frame of mind where we can appreciate the special moments of our lives, where we are flawed but alive and related to everyone else depite our warts. Also, Ray's voice continues to be truly excellent and expressive.

Feb 9, 2008 20:00:47

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