180 Gram Heavyweight Vinyl. It’s easy to imagine the confusion with which this manifesto for the defense of the status quo was received on its release in 1968. The world was in turmoil and the pose of the street fighting man, turned on, rebellious and politically aware, was far sexier than the quaint homebody image the Kinks present here. The title track finds Ray Davies proudly declaring himself a preservationist of custard pies, vaudeville, and such comic book characters as Desperate Dan. To compound the weirdness there’s also ‘Big Sky’, a classic Kinks song about god that’s not remotely religious, and a rocker about a steam engine. The overarching theme of ‘Are the Village Green Preservation Society’ is nostalgia – it’s only today, now that many of the things Davies feared would disappear have actually vanished, that the truth and clarity of his vision is apparent.