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"&lt;p&gt;It isn&amp;apos;t only because I received this album gratis that I won&amp;apos;t take the safe way out and coo something glib like, &amp;quot;To hear Ray Davies intone such lines as &amp;apos;You&amp;apos;d better come to bed, darling&amp;apos; (in tones so urbane as to cause Bryan Ferry to tremble with envy) is alone sufficient justification for the purchase of &lt;em&gt;Soap Opera.&lt;/em&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;wm:embed type=\"related\"&gt;&lt;/wm:embed&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nor on the other hand will I succumb to the enormous temptation to sniff, &amp;quot;On &lt;em&gt;Soap Opera&lt;/em&gt; the Kinks sound pretty well washed up.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;What I will tell you is that, compared to such earlier splendors of their creation as the utterly marvelous &lt;em&gt;Arthur&lt;/em&gt; &amp;#x2014; of which &lt;em&gt;Soap&lt;/em&gt; is in many ways a lame and tepid rehash &amp;#x2014; this album sounds like the work of a group that&amp;apos;s attempting to conceal the evaporation of its genius by inserting spoken dialogue between tracks so they can ask you to believe they&amp;apos;re pioneering the concept of the rock-album-as-theater.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;Musically, there isn&amp;apos;t one really striking melody on the album, although there are plenty of tedious, hackneyed, ready-made ones: It may be that I didn&amp;apos;t retain sufficiently close rein on my attention, but I still can&amp;apos;t recall hearing even one remotely arresting melodic phrase throughout the album. As for the words, we&amp;apos;re one to ignore the laxly adhered to, skeletally developed and none-too-innovative plot (a big shot investigates an alternative, less glamorous life-style and discovers too late that he can&amp;apos;t return to his own). One might well hear this album as a collection of songs Ray left unrecorded over the years because he knew he could do much better. Surely he&amp;apos;s treated every theme represented here infinitely more poignantly elsewhere. Example:&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Answering phones and dictating letters&lt;br&gt;Making decisions that affect no one&lt;br&gt;Stuck in the office from nine until five&lt;br&gt;Life is so incredibly dull&lt;br&gt;Working from nine to five.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;To be fair, no album featuring Ray Davies&amp;apos;s singing could ever be less than at least intermittently delightful. Why spring for &lt;em&gt;Soap Opera&lt;/em&gt;, though, when you could instead add to your collection one of the many Kinks albums that are as amazing for &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt;&amp;apos;s being sung as for &lt;em&gt;how&lt;/em&gt; it&amp;apos;s being sung.&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/a-soap-opera-19750703>