British rock stagecraft has flirted with theatrical conceits for over a decade. What began as a performance dynamic in which movement was a direct function of the music itself (for example, the early Who and Stones) has evolved to the self-conscious spectacle of David Bowie's Cecil B. DeMille imitations and Jethro Tull's ridiculously cluttered, absurdist program pieces….

What's missing from this Grand Opera approach to rock performance is the solid conceptualization which can only come from strong songwriting point-of-view. The clarity and simplicity of statement which has always been one of rock's most positive songwriting attributes is gone from the tangled web of solipsistic allusions which visual concerns seem to have necessitated. Only the most clever writer can overcome the immense problem posed by this artistic conflict of interest. It does not surprise me that the person to finally put it off is Ray Davies.

Davies is arguably the finest rock songwriter England has produced. Sure, Lennon-McCartney, Jagger-Richard and Townshend have written more standards than any of their peers, but only Ray Davies and Townshend have been able to completely articulate a unique point of view which evolves in direct relation to their on-going attempt to understand themselves and the world they live in….

As their introspection led Davies and Townshend to song cycles, Townshend became mystical in the high Romantic tradition of [William] Wordsworth and [John] Keats, while Davies refined his cameos and determinedly became a social and political critic in the manner of the 19th century neo-Romantics, [George Bernard] Shaw and [Oscar] Wilde.

As a performer, however, Davies is strictly out of the English Music Hall-cum-vaudeville tradition, a stance which gives him ironic distance from his "Art" (which he may take seriously but would never admit to). For the last few years, Kinks shows have been drunken burlesques with equal parts rock and camp—the songs were great but Ray would always play the calculated onstage drunk, reaching for the automatic good time and fearful of the possible pretension involved in presenting his songs as they are. Thus, it was unexpected when the rambling sociopolitical dramatic treatise Preservation appeared as a full-blown stage production last year. In its staging, Preservation still had a Music Hall sensibility, but it was extremely well-disciplined for a rock show….

It is not accidental that Preservation, Ray's modern epic, followed closely on the heels of Townshend's Quadrophenia. Both works were attempts at capsulizing the themes of a career into a coherent overview, and both failed onstage. Quadrophenia failed because the Who never felt confident that their American audience could relate to it, Preservation because there was too much to digest at one sitting for the average rock 'n roller who had come to hear "Lola" and "You Really Got Me," so Ray streamlined his follow-up for maximum stage effectiveness. Where Preservation telescoped the three records worth of material down to a workable dramatic formula, Soap Opera serves as a blueprint for its much more elaborate stage treatment.

Indeed, Soap Opera is a confusing record until you've seen what the material becomes on stage. In this sense it is decidedly a soundtrack, as opposed to Preservation's two-years-in-the-making proclivity for digression. Soap Opera is also … the perfect marriage of rock and theatre. It is light but not dumb (the essence of rock success), a restatement of various themes that have fascinated Ray in the past and are now given the sharpest edges they can possess. The message of Soap Opera is subliminal (as opposed to the conscious polemic of Preservation). The identity crisis which has plagued Ray's career and informed much of the pathos of his most moving songs in the past has never been dealt with more directly. (pp. 65-6)

[On "Everybody's A Star"] Ray, as the "Starmaker," has a particular point to make. In a subtle Pygmalion-esque allusion, Starmaker claims he can elevate the most ordinary life to stardom by exchanging places with one of the "Ordinary People" and writing about his mundane existence. The creator can reshape the dross life of a mortal to be one of the god-like characters of gentility. This is not empty rhetoric on Ray's part. As simple as this story seems, it is also the cumulative expression of Davies' attempt to deal with the problems of the working man, a theme he first treated with contempt ten years ago in "Well Respected Man" but later with compassion in Arthur and Muswell Hillbillies….

"You Make It All Worthwhile" is the central element of the soap opera. The Starmaker finds that he appreciates the security and simplicity of domestic life, and for a moment it appears that maudlin sentimentality will indeed triumph. The bubble bursts in "Ducks On the Wall," a seeming throwaway to get things moving before the finale but actually a clever satire on bourgeois British taste….

At this point, the album, which overall does manage to stand on its own because of the quality and vitality of the music, fails without the help of visuals. Starmaker has fooled himself—he no longer understands who he is. The confusion of roles makes him believe he is just "(A) Face In the Crowd," and you really have to see Ray do this one on stage to understand its full impact. In the performance, Ray is left alone and sings directly about himself….

"You Can't Stop the Music," which sounds like a reworked combination of "One of the Survivors" and "Celluloid Heroes" if taken by itself, is actually the epilogue of the stage production, as well as a statement about aging rock stars whose anthems outlive them, thus serving as another Davies introspection.

Just as it opened, Soap Opera closes with a vintage Kink chord sequence. After all, you can't stop the music. (p. 66)