Sleepwalker (The Kinks album)
| Sleepwalker | ||||
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| Studio album by The Kinks | ||||
| Released | 12 February 1977 (US) 26 February 1977 (UK) |
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| Recorded | 1 July – 20 December 1976 | |||
| Studio | Konk Studios, London | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 40:10 | |||
| Label | Arista | |||
| Producer | Ray Davies | |||
| The Kinks chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Sleepwalker | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |    |
| Blender | |
| Robert Christgau | B− |
| Rolling Stone | (favourable) |
Sleepwalker is the fifteenth studio album by the English rock group, The Kinks, released in 1977. It marked a return to straight-ahead, self-contained rock songs after several years of concept albums. It is the first album in what critics usually call the "arena rock" phase of the group, in which more commercial and mainstream production techniques would be employed. The album also marks the last appearance of bassist John Dalton, who left the band during the recording sessions. Dalton plays bass on all songs on the album save for "Mr. Big Man". The lineup of The Kinks would be trimmed down significantly in 1977 following the album's release, as the brass section and backup singers were removed and the band returned to a standard rock band outfit.
It was their first album for the Arista label.
Despite their success with the twin hit singles "Lola" and "Apeman" in 1970, The Kinks had begun to achieve less and less commercial success throughout the 1970s, largely attributed to bandleader Ray Davies's shift toward concept albums and a theatrical sound for the band. After the release of the band's more rock-oriented 1975 album, Schoolboys in Disgrace, the Kinks switched labels from RCA Records to Clive Davis' Arista Records, signaling a transition toward less theatrical material.
Following the band's signing to Arista, plans for a new album began to emerge. Just prior to the album's recording, the band's Konk Studios was equipped with a new 24-track recorder. Davies said to Melody Maker in 1976 of the then-upcoming recording sessions for a new Kinks album, "Yes, I am looking forward to it, because the situation is right. It's a great studio; I'm proud of it."
Beginning in May 1976, the band began rehearsing new material (up to thirty new tracks) Ray Davies had penned, with twenty songs attempted by the band. Rejected song titles included "Power of Gold", "Stagefright", "Restless", and "Elevator Man", the latter being used by Ray Davies on the 1994 EP Waterloo Sunset '94. Throughout July 1976, recordings of multiple songs were recorded (though most were rejected), including the album's "Juke Box Music", "Life on the Road", and "Brother", future follow-up album Misfits' "Hay Fever" and "In a Foreign Land", B-sides "Prince of the Punks" and "Artificial Light" (flipsides to "Father Christmas" and "A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy", respectively), and the rejected "Back to 64 / Decade", "Lazy Day", and "The Poseur", the latter released on the CD reissue of the album.
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