As a general rule, a tribute album should always be taken with a grain a salt. It usually ends up being an exercise in shameless back patting or a bunch of lousy versions of outstanding originals.
Luckily, This Is Where I Belong: The Songs of Ray Davies & The Kinks is neither of those things, but a collection of thoughtful reworkings of some of the Kinks’ best album cuts. The band’s early singles like “All Day and All of the Night” and “You Really Got Me” are wisely absent in favor of tracks from the band’s golden period between 1966 and 1971.
The roster is impressive, too, with acts like Matthew Sweet, Fountains of Wayne and Yo La Tengo contributing their fave Davies tune. Many songs, like Cracker’s “Victoria,” take the original song in a new direction while retaining the essential elements of harmony, humor and nostalgia.
The best songwriters compose songs that, while intrinsically their own, can be easily interpreted by many voices. Lambchop’s laborious reading of “Art Lover” emphasizes this point as the song could be mistaken for a Kurt Wagner original.
Some tracks retain most of the original framework of the song, especially Bill Lloyd and Tommy Womack’s “Picture Book,” from the Kinks’ finest album, The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society. The bouncing bass line and piano fills are still there, but they sound so great that no one will complain.
The only misstep on the album is Fastball’s “Til the End of the Day,” which relies too heavily on the Kinks’ days as mod men and trounces on an already boring song. All is redeemed by the next song, Ron Sexsmith’s reading of “This is Where I Belong,” a true beauty of a song, especially when redone by Canada’s Paul McCartney.
Davies makes an appearance on the final cut, duetting on “Waterloo Sunset” with Blur’s Damon Albarn. While the sound quality is a little lacking (it was recorded from a British TV show), it is a fine relic of Davies’ most transcendent lyrics. Davies and Damon give hope to the lonely while affirming the grandeur of nature: “But I don’t need no friends / As long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset I am in paradise.” While the I Am Sam soundtrack, filled with unnecessary covers of overplayed Beatles tunes, will garner more attention, This Is Where I Belong is more worthy of your time. Grade: A
