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| Artist: Ray Davies
Label: New West Records
List Price: $16.98
Buy New: $10.89
You Save: $6.09 (36%)
New (42) Used (11) from $8.49
Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 30586
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.2
MPN: 6136
UPC: 607396613625
EAN: 0607396613625
ASIN: B0010ZOCIU
Release Date: February 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW, Factory Sealed items direct from the Studios. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Quick International Airmail!
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 19
 Very good, but not great May 19, 2008
JEFFREY IHDE (Milwaukee, WI USA)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I decided to give this CD over 50 listens before writing my review. The good news is it never got boring over the course of 50 plus listens. The not so good news is I'm convinced (unlike many of the reviewers on this site) this is not quite as good as the previous Other People's Lives. That in itself is not a bad thing, but I do think there has been a tendancy to overrate this effort in comparision.
I miss the diversity of OPL. The songs on Working Man's Cafe at times seem underdeveloped and lyrically weak. This diminishes an otherwise beautiful song like One More Time. The lyrical subtlety of Davies seems to have been replaced by heavy handedness. On songs like Vietnam Cowboys it works brilliantly. This song demonstrates all the Davies strengths of memorable melody combined with social commentary that is both serious and humerous.
Some of the ballads are really strong on this CD highlighted by the closer, The Real World. Other songs such as In A Moment, Imaginary Man, Your Asking Me and Hymm For A New Age provide repeated listening pleasure. The "deluxe" version offers 2 worthwhile bonus tracks, Wrong Side of the Law and I, The Victim.
I would definitely recommend this CD, but still would choose Other People's Lives first if you had to make a choice. Its hard not to give the nod to a CD that contains one of Davies best songs ever, Over My Head. Overall production and musicianship is outstanding throughout Working Man's Cafe. Nonetheless, it would still be interesting to hear some of Davies' new songs in more of a Kinks context.
 The Head Kink Returns with Second album in three years February 23, 2008
Lance Swanson (Santa Clara, Ca, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Working Man's Cafe is the Great Ray Davies' second brilliant recording in the past three years. I bought the import last year when it was released in the UK and I consider it the best album of 2007, and this is on the heels of Other People's Lives, which was the best album of 2006! All the tracks are great, and Cowboys in Vietnam and No One Listens To Me sound like they're lost Kinks classics. Let's hope that Kinks reunion tour happens this year. At least Ray, the king Kink, is back and as good as ever with these two great records.
near-classic March 4, 2008
Jersey Kid (Katy, Texas, America!)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A somewhat unique opportunity presented itself the other day. I had to drive roughly three and half hours to see my son off for his third rotation in Iraq. No one accompanied me and so I was able to listen to Ray Davies' Working Man's Cafe in its entirety with little or no interruption.
By the end of the day, I have come away quite joyous over the album and its content. As you might expect from any Kinks and/or Ray Davies set of songs - really one and the same, I guess - the message is of an intensely personal nature. It's one man's view of the world and its events. However, at the same time, because of Mr. Davies' amazing, transcendent ability to view both the one and the whole at the same time, it is a work that will resonate with almost anyone.
And, coming, as it does, in the midst of what could well be a profound sea-change in the body politic of the United States, it is eerily prescient that this album is quite likely the least English of any that Davies or the band has done with only two or three songs addressing that little island across the pond. But, despite the US-centricness of the album, Mr. Davies still mourns and rails against those wishing to destroy "little shops, china cups and virginity." But, this time many of the attacks are directed against entities far more tangible and, in point of fact, much more risky. Davies takes on - as he has many times in the past - the duel-headed leviathan of corporate disdain and bureaucracy.
The former is addressed in the first cut, a melodic tirade about the movement of jobs offshore and portrayed against a backdrop of New Orleans. It could have just as well been an attack on the Queen Mary II having to be built in France. There are also other references to lost jobs and lost dreams on other cuts. The latter is addressed across three songs and it is here that Davies delves into his personal life in the greatest depth.
I think we are all aware of the fact that Davies was shot in the wake of a robbery attempt. The story - perhaps at first amusing [Ray Davies chasing a bandit who had stolen a girlfriend's purse] - became a bit more serious and dire as Davies' hospital stay extended. In these songs - not really a song-cycle but linked thematically - we learn of pain; a possible addiction to morphine, the failure of law enforcement to capture the perpetrator and how someone - through no fault of their own - can be mishandled by the American equivalent of those "men in gray." It's pretty deep stuff to be covered in a pop album, but also quite emblematic of where the American dream resides in the early 21st Century.
And, as with any Davies-written album, there is a love song of sorts. `Peace in Our Time' must be listened to both for its weariness with conflict and its sense of just how important it is to have someone. After hearing it, I was compelled to dig out `Animal' and marvel in the similarity of context. Sometimes, I guess, it takes time - with its opportunity to look back - to decide winning isn't everythomg.
For me, the only piece that didn't work was `Voodoo Walk,' a John Fogerty clone that seemed to offer little but a claustrophobic view of confinement; perhaps another song related to Davies' hospitalization.
To my mind, Working Man's Cafe fits into the pantheon with Village Green Preservation Society, Muswell Hillbillies, and Lola vs Powerman and the Moneygoround for works that are emotional bridges.
Another gem from Ray Davies March 22, 2008
Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA)
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
Upon learning that Ray Davies had a new solo album I was a tad nervous. 2006's OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES had been an absolute gem of an album, but my fear was that its excellence might partly have been the result of not having been in the recording studio for a very long time. He could have been working on those songs for years and years. But releasing another album scarcely a year later meant that these songs were all of recent vintage. I was nervous that there would be a decline in quality. Much to my delight there is no decline whatsoever.
The Kinks were one of my all time favorite bands and with them permanently disbanded. Ray's brother Dave suffered a stroke that means he'll never be able to play guitar again, or at least not on the level necessitated for a Kinks' quality endeavor -- ironically, in an NPR interview with Terry Gross Ray indicates that Dave's health problems have brought the brothers much closer together, a wonderful thing to hear given the longstanding rumors that they had their fair share of conflicts when the band was still together.
The miracle here is that Ray's songwriting is as sharp as it was on all but a very few Kinks albums. The songs aren't quite as brilliant as VILLAGE GREEN or ARTHUR or THE GREAT LOST KINKS ALBUM or SOMETHING ELSE, but I'd rank it higher than most Kinks albums. Even more astonishing, Ray is in amazingly great voice. The calendar says he was 63 when he recorded these songs, but he really doesn't sound any different than when he was 25.
There has been a slight change in Davies's songwriting. His songs for the Kinks always struck me almost like short, short stories. I never got the sense that he was writing about himself, but about characters that he had invented exclusively for those songs. If a song was written in the first person, I never really believed that that person was Davies. But on most of these songs, the "I" seems to refer to Davies himself. Another change is that Davies seems to have become more political. He has been living in the United States for much of the past decade and perhaps the political horrors of the Bush years have caused an awakening as it has for many others.
Although all of the songs on the album give me a sense of joy, some really stand out. "You're Asking Me" is just a flat out great song, something that would have stood out even on the best Kinks albums. "Peace in Our Time" is both lovely and wistful. I really love the song "One More Time." But the most surprising song from the standpoint of sentiments expressed is "Hymn for a New Age," in which Ray doesn't get religion, but expresses a wish that there was a religion that he could get. It is a song that expresses the belief that we need something larger than ourselves to believe in. He sings, "I want to pray but don't know what to." He doesn't really resolve anything by song's end, but raising the question was perhaps the point.
Just a great album. And now I want another. My fear had been that OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES was a fluke, the last great gesture of one of the great songwriters of the rock era. But he has now proven that he not only was one of rock's great songwriters, but still is. Come on Ray! Give us more!
Thank god the 80's have passed March 8, 2008
John Feodorov
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Working Man's Cafe is a far superior work than anything Ray Davies has done since "Sleepwalker" with The Kinks, or perhaps even since "Muswell Hillbillies". While "Other People's Lives" was a welcomed return to form for Davies, it had its problems's, "Stand up Comic" for example. Still, songs like "Is There Life After Breakfast" demonstrate how Davies' wry sense of humor can win the day. Throughout the 80's Davies' work suffered from a lyrical heavy-handedness--a few exceptions being gems such as "Better Things". On the other hand, Working Man's Cafe shows Davies as relaxed and playful, two elements that made The Kinks such a lyrically important band in the 60's and early 70's. Going solo seems to be a liberating experience for Ray Davies. I for one am happy to see that he has embraced a more fluid and conversational form of writing. Is it maturity? If all only more rock-stars aged so well!
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