The story of The Kinks is chaotic because they were so versatile: mods of the British Invasion, art students, stadium hooligans of the 1970s. But over the years, Ray Davies built his legend as one of the most eccentric heads of rock. He is considered the poet of the English dead ends, who campaigned for the losers and outsiders and constantly argued with his younger brother Dave Dave on the guitar.
It wasn’t exactly a harmonious family relationship: The Kinks knew on stage for her fights. The hits were just the beginning. They produced classic albums and flops and created one of the most glorious and strangest works of rock ‘n’ roll. Here is a guide through your music – the absolute best of the best. God bless the Kinks.
The Kinks: Our album guide
Must-Haves: “Face to Face” (1966)
With their hit “You Really Got Me” from 1964, these boys invented practically punk and metal. But only two years later they found their own mature style with “Face to Face”, one of the greatest albums of the sixties. Ray Davies started his career as a songwriter by showing the young, glamorous people of swinging London satirically and exposed her anxious, isolated secret life.
The Kinks experiment with an old-fashioned music hall-shuffle (“Sunny Afternoon”), psychedelic roar (‘fancy’) and a dark doom mood (“Rainy Day in June”). And with such a sharp joke that the audience took years to understand him. Best moment: “Too much on my mind”. It is an airy ballad full of harpsichord and acoustic guitar, but the singing of which expresses pure fear. But after all the darkness on “Face to Face”, the album ends with the open -hearted “i’ll Remember”.
Must-Haves: “Something Else by the Kinks” (1967)
Ray Davies’ answer to “Pet Sounds”. A delicate, compassionate portrait of everyday loneliness that lurks in the hearts of the people who pretend to be outwards. And like “Pet Sounds” it was a commercial flop that almost ruined the band. He sings housewives with curlers in the hair (“Two Sisters”), agreed dandies (“Afternoon Tea”) and cockney nicotiga (“Harry Rag”).
“Waterloo Sunset” is his “God Only Knows”. A beautifully cool ballad about a lonely man who watches two lovers from his window who meet at a bleak train station. Terry and Julie will never meet this man or find out about his existence, but nobody will ever be so interested in her. This song would never suspect what a bleak place Waterloo station is. The ultimate homage to Davies’ ability to find romance in everyday life.
Must-Haves: “The Village Green Preservation Society” (1968)
The Kinks withdraw to the English province, which turns out to be just as twisted and scary as the city. While other bands fled to other worlds, The Kinks sang pastoral reveries such as “Animal Farm”.
“Big Sky” is an unsentimental ode on mother nature who doesn’t care whether you live or die; “Picture Book” is the best photo album song of the pre-Taylor swift era, only that it is a happy song about how we all get old and die alone.
“With ‘You Really Got Me’ and ‘All Day and All of the Night’ we said: ‘We are here, we will pack you’,” Ray told Kory Grow from Rolling Stone last year. “The music on Village Green says: ‘Come and find us’.”
“Village Green” was an obscure cult article until the 1990s, until Indie-Rocker discovered it and made him an influential template as “The Basement Tapes”. Today he is the cornerstone of the Kinks-legacy.
Must-Haves: “The Kink Kronicles” (1972)
The perfect place to get to know the kinks better! A few dozen brilliant songs from the band’s heyday. “Kronikles” contains hits, flops, deep cuts, B-pages, mod-raver such as “She’s got everything” and melancholic ballads like ‘Days’ and conveys a comprehensive picture of Ray Davies’ world.
He is obsessed with London, which is reflected in dirty city stories such as “Dead End Street” and “Big Black Smoke”. And from wild girls. Davies can identify with quirky, old people. And he has a preference for Queens, especially for two dominatrix women called “Victoria” and ‘Lola’. And Dave steals the show with “Susannah’s Still Alive”. It is a tribute to a tough old war widow that still bears her dead soldier’s medallion. She refuses to get her down by the modern world.
To continue listening: “Kinda Kinks” (1965)
The rough, brutal sound of the young kinks with Daves Power chords and Mick Avory’s violent drums. Ray begins to explore his introspective side, from “Something Better Beginning” to “Tied of Waiting for You”. Like all of their early albums, this is best heard in the expanded new editions, which important singles such as “I need you” and “set me free” have been added.
Dave shows his impressive shaky voice in “Wait Till the Summer Comes Along”. “See My Friends” is her extremely influential electrical raga about sex and death that explores Indian textures in front of the Byrds or Beatles. At the beginning of the psychedelia era, the kinks had already left them behind.
To continue listening: “Arthur” (1969)
Subtitle: “The Decline and Fall of the British Empire”. A rock opera about the life of a working -class family, inspired by the older sister of Davies, Rose, who married and pulled away. “I think Melancholy is part of the generation in front of me because they fought in the war and missed their youth,” Ray told Rolling Stone last year.
“Arthur” was his homage, with complaints like “Young and Innocent Days”. Ray had originally planned this as a soundtrack for a British television series. “Victoria” became an unexpected hit that was mocked to a bloodthirsty queen for centuries of English imperialism in a sarcastic rockabilly-ode who wanted to master the world.
“From the West to the East / From the Rich to the Poor / Victoria Loved Them All.”
Of all the political songs of the Kinks, this is the most common and funniest. Not to mention that it is the best.
To further listen: “Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One” (1970)
After four years of commercial failures, Ray finally landed a hit: “Lola” was ahead of his time. It is a cross-gender pub anthem about a boy from the country who goes to the big city and finds his great love there. The punch line: “I’m glad I am a man and Lola too.”
(It could have been the last time that he wrote a love song with a happy ending.)
Ray created a concept album that took the music industry on the shovel, with moving interludes such as “Get Back in Line”, Daves “Strangers” and “This Time Tomorrow”, which Wes Anderson immortalized in “The Djarleeling Limited”.
To continue listening: “Muswell Hillbillies” (1971)
A London Country Rock version of “Village Green”, in which the Davies brothers remember their homeland Muswell Hill. It is a place where the outsiders of the neighborhood drown in “Alcohol”, suffering from “Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues”. And they dream of fleeing “Oklahoma USA”.
“Have a Cuppa Tea” is a happy music hall song, in which you dance around the piano with a cup of tea. The Kinks were proud in 1971 to get out of the music scene. It was the year in which her colleagues with albums such as “Sticky Fingers”, “Who’s next” and “Led Zeppelin IV” set big statements. But “Muswell Hillbillies” crowned her historic seven -year career.
To further listen: “The Great Lost Kinks album” (1973)
Unexpected for many years, this album became a coveted collector’s item for fans. When the band changed the record company, her old label punished her by releasing this smorgasbord of unpublished treasures. Also included: the DAVE ballad “There is no life with Love” and the wistful “Rosemary Rose”. In addition, the proto-punk rant “I’m not like live everybody else”.
In addition, there was a satirical on English anti -Semitism called “When I Turn Off The Living Room Light”. The band had no idea that this album had been released until it discovered it in the Billboard charts and submitted a lawsuit to pull it out of circulation. Typical Kinks – even if they accidentally landed a hit, it meant that something was wrong.
To continue listening: “Kinks” (1964)
Dave Davies was just 17 years old when he changed the guitar sound with his noise outbreak in “You Really Got Me”. How? By putting knitting needles in his cheap amplifier to create feedback. As Ray said: “The sound was created in the living room of our parents and was finally copied by almost every rock guitarist in the world.”