disparaging the increasing modernisation of cities and destruction of "little shops", satirising those who photograph mundane moments, exploring the emptiness of celebrity culture and being suggestive of environmentalism. Jeff Slate of Esquire magazine writes that while some late 1960s records have come to sound dated, Village Green has remained modern sounding and accessible decades after its release, something he attributes to its simple and straightforward arrangements. Adding to its success, he writes, was the band's collaborative nature during its recording and their retention of some of their original garage rock sound. Michael Gallucci of the website Ultimate Classic Rock similarly writes that Village Green has maintained relevance decades after its release by sounding "both timeless and of its time", its pastoral sounds partly originating from the Summer of Love while its exploration of music hall and Victorian mores being part of a broader yearning for the English tradition. Morgan Enos of Billboard writes that rather than being bitter or anachronistic, the album's tracks "burst with unique, giddy joy", only becoming more relevant in the "more crowded, convoluted and bleak" 21st century. Though the term did not exist at the time of Village Green release, retrospective commentators identify the album as a candidate for the first concept album. The 2001 edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians calls it "one of the few aesthetically successful concept albums", and Ann Powers of Blender magazine suggests the album achieves the difficult task of being "a subtle concept album", its focus being everyday Britons. Author Nick Hasted compares the album's cohesiveness to the consistent melancholy which runs through Sinatra's 1958 album Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely, while John Mendelsohn writes it is more unified by the sound of its music than in its lyrical themes. Ray later suggested the album "[is] not a storyline, it's an emotional thread", a sentiment echoed by several commentators. Erlewine writes that while Something Else first displayed Ray's penchant for nostalgia, Village Green instead served as his "manifesto" on the disappearance of old English traditions, both real and imagined. Author Clinton Heylin writes the twelve-track edition of the album displayed more unity, while the songs added in October1968 – in particular, "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains", "Big Sky" and "All of My Friends Were There" – helped to "kill the album conceptually". Enos, by contrast, writes the album's format of separate vignettes allows for