"worldwide we'd be lucky if it [sold] 100,000 [copies]". Rogan writes that the available context clues and Ray's later estimate suggest that the album was likely "a seller". Stiff competition from other releases during the holiday season kept the album from appearing in any UK album charts, which often only listed the top fifteen LPs. After Something Else failed to appear on most UK charts, Village Green absence from all UK charts continued a decline in the performance of the Kinks' studio albums. The album marked the beginning of a commercial low for the band, from which they did not recover until their late 1970s US revival. Both Miller and author Jon Savage suggest Village Green failed to register with the public, something they attribute to its separation from the contemporary culture's focus on revolution, protest and free love. Rogan counters that Ray and authors like Miller have overstated the album's commercial failings. Rather than finding the album out of step with contemporary culture, he writes its release corresponded with a surge of nostalgia and escapism in England, and that its championing of country living over city life aligned with the burgeoning ecology movement. Rogan adds that the contemporary music press were typically excited by unified albums and that Village Green disconnect from psychedelia fitted with the back-to-basics approach adopted by many of the Kinks' contemporaries. Rather than laying blame with the album's content or its marketing, Rogan attributes Village Green commercial shortcomings to the Kinks' waning popularity and the album's lack of an associated single in Britain, which resulted in fewer opportunities for television appearances and publicity. United States In the United States, Reprise Records received Village Green master tapes on 20 December 1968 and planned to issue the album in . The label issued "Starstruck" as the album's lead single on . The single was initially afforded little critical attention as Reprise neglected to send review copies to US magazines. Reviewers in both Cash Box and Billboard predicted the single would help the Kinks return to each magazine's chart, though it ultimately failed to position in any American chart. Reprise likely issued Village Green in the US on 5 February 1969, though it may have been released in January. It was not advertised or announced in any American music magazines. After critic Robert Christgau requested press material regarding the band in preparation for his album review, Warner Bros.