CW50 - The Bands Edition - No. 5

[GIMH]

5. The Kinks



Points: 225
Nominations: 13
3rd Place: 1
2nd Place: 1
1st Place: 0

“I know of no game more fitting than the age old game of cricket
It has honour, it has character and it's British.”

The Kinks, and in particular their frontman and main songwriter Ray Davies, wear their Englishness so much on their sleeves it would somehow be more of a shock if they didn't have a song called simply “Cricket” somewhere in their repertoire; one imagines the sport's occasionally arcane traditions as well as the subtle eddies and undercurrents of an unfurling game appealing to an Albion romantic such as Davies patently is. For perhaps more than any other songwriter Davies gets Englishness & his vision has influenced pretty much everyone who's ever attempted to write songs that speak of our national condition, from near contemporaries like Pete Townsend & Steve Marriott through Weller, Lydon, Dammers & Morrissey to latter day English anglophiles such as Pete Doherty & Alex Turner.

Like Townsend's own band The Who, The Kinks emerged from London's thriving early 60s garage R&B scene and initially came to national prominence with the ragged, dexedrine rush of their third single & first #1 “You Really Got Me”. When I saw Ray Davies play a solo gig at the Cambridge Corn Exchange a couple of years back he introduced the song by relating to us that an early record company rejection letter had dismissed his younger brother Dave's guitar work as sounding like “a barking dog”. As Ray himself said, “Some dog; some bark”. The song's distorted powerchords are often credited as laying the blueprint for heavy metal, a debt acknowledged by genre overlords Metallica when they joined the senior Davies to cover the song for his 2010 “See My Friends” album.

Where The Who joined The Beatles & The Stones in going onto Stateside meganess though, the elder Davies refocussed his band's sights onto his homeland. The Kinks' still unexplained five year ban from performing in the US quite probably played a part in this, but Davies certainly wasn't kidding when he sang “I'm Not Like Everybody Else”. As a twenty-one year old at the very heart of swinging sixties London he wrote a song that asked “Where Have All The Good Times Gone?”. His refusal to compromise is as famous as his band's somewhat fractious interpersonal relationships. The former lead to his masterwork “Village Green Preservation Society” being delivered late and overbudget and dying a chart death thanks to his record company's subsequent lack of promotion and the latter to a near in-concert decapitation when drummer Mick Avory hurled a cymbal at Dave Davies's head after taking umbrage at the guitarist's suggestion his drumming might improve if he used his cock to play.

Ray Davies's timeless and era-defining songs from the mid 60s to the early 70s so perceptively nail England they've become a part of our national fabric, from the gorgeous wistfulness of “Waterloo Sunset” through the hidden cry for help behind the homely domesticity of “Autumn Almanac” & the elegiac farewell to the 60s that is “Days” to the near-tranny shagging anthemic iconoclasm of “Lola”; a song banned from the BBC not for its
frank transgendered subject matter, but for mentioning “Coca-Cola”. &, for this most singularly English of bands, it's almost too impossibly perfect that their satirical swipe at Harold Wilson's progressive tax “Sunny Afternoon” reached the #1 slot the week after Sir Alf Ramsey's side had won the 1966 World Cup. The Kinks literally provide the soundtrack of
England.

Kinks - Waterloo Sunset [Excellent quality] - YouTube

Line-up:

Ray Davies – Vocals, Guitars – 1964-96
Dave Davies – Guitars – 1964-96
Mick Avory – Drums – 1964-84
Pete Quaife – Bass Guitar – 1964-69
John Dalton – Bass Guitar – 1966, 1969-76, 1978
John Gosling – Keyboards – 1970-1978
Andy Pyle – Bass Guitar – 1976-78
Jim Rodford – Bass Guitar – 1978-96
Ian Gibbons – Keyboards – 1979-89, 1993-96

(Touring members not included)

Discography

Kinks (1964)
Kinda Kinks (1965)
The Kink Kontroversy (1965)
Face to Face (1966)
Something Else by The Kinks (1967)
The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968)
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969)
Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One (1970)
Muswell Hillbillies (1971)
Everybody's in Show-Biz (1972)
Preservation Act 1 (1973)
Preservation Act 2 (1974)
Soap Opera (1975)
Schoolboys in Disgrace (1975)
Sleepwalker (1977)
Misfits (1978)
Low Budget (1979)
Give the People What They Want (1981)
State of Confusion (1983)
Word of Mouth (1984)
Think Visual (1986)
UK Jive (1989)
Phobia (1993)

Also:
7 Live Albums, 32 Compilation Albums

Download these songs:
You Really Got Me; Sunny Afternoon; Waterloo Sunset; Autumn Almanac; Days; The Village Green Preservation Society; Victoria; Shangri-La; Lola; Living on a Thin Line

Write-up by BoyBrumby

[BoyBrumby]

Chuffed The Kinks are as high as five. Massive fan of theirs and I only had them at #7 in my own twenty-five.

[GIMH]

They were actually 3rd about 5 or 6 votes from the end, there or thereabouts anyway

[grecian]

Love the kinks, were second on my list, so happy they're well above Queen.

[MW1304]

Absolutely superb write-up, does them complete justice. Also happy with their placing, my dad used to play them aaall the time, love them.

[Burgey]

Great, great band. Love them.

[PhoenixFire]

Was having a listen to sunny afternoon today. Absolutely love that song.

[The Sean]

Great band and a fantastic write-up from Brumby. I hadn't realised they were so adored on CW as to warrant a top 5 spot but I can't begrudge them it.

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Not in my 25, but I do appreciate the Kinks and have plenty of theirs on my iPod thing.

[Meridio]

Top, top band, and IMO always a bit under-appreciated, so good to see them up this high.

Think you should add Celluloid Heroes, to your Download This list Brumby - the version on their live album is stunning. Dave Davies' guitar solo in the intro should be required listening for any would-be guitarists; it's not a show-off bit of fast fretwork but it just utterly, utterly soars.

[nick-o]

Originally Posted by grecian

Love the kinks, were second on my list, so happy they're well above Queen.

And I was so certain I'd be giving them their highest ranking when I put them third....

It's a genuine surprise to see them this high in the list, but utterly deserved. I think Ray Davies was the greatest English songwriter of the 60s, even bearing in mind some illustrious competition.

I saw quite a few of the bands in this top 50 list live (a long time ago) -- The Who, Led Zeppelin (at Knebworth, their last in the UK), The Clash, The Jam, Floyd, Sabbath, the Stones -- but it's the Kinks that stand out most in my mind. Ray Davies visibly reveled in being an entertainer -- he knew he could twist a crowd around his little finger and he did it in a way that made you enjoy being twisted.

More than any other band, I've come back to them at intervals in my life -- when I was in my teens, my 20s, my 30s, my 40s -- and found something refreshing each time. Refreshing and rejuvenating and thought-provoking; and fun.

Also, little-known fact, but the original plan was to have Rod Stewart as the lead singer. True story. So this is also the band that escaped.

[Teja.]

So good to see the Kinks this high, I had them at #8, after shifting them between 5 and 9 multiple times and was just hoping they would actually make the 50!

One song of theirs, which I realize is not particularly specially appreciated in comparison to some of their more popular songs, Do You Remember Walter?, is probably my most favourite song ever. I refuse to believe that there has been a better written song.

We'd save up all our money and we'd buy a boat and sail away to sea.
But it was not to be.
I knew you then but do I know you now?/

Walter, you are just an echo of a world I knew so long ago

Must say my feelings towards You Really Got Me Going are that while it's definitely a decent guitar tune, it's position as the Kinks' magnum opus in popular culture is one thing I find ridiculous. The Kinks have done a considerable amount of material which are vastly better music to it, IMO. Maybe it's just not my song.

As always, great post Brumby.

[chasingthedon]

Like many of the above absolutely delighted to see them this high.

Would urge anyone looking into them for the first time to also add the fantastic "Powerman" and "Tired of Waiting for You" to the above download list.

Brumby, out of interest how old are you?

[BoyBrumby]

Originally Posted by chasingthedon

Brumby, out of interest how old are you?

Sadly now closer to 40 than 30.

[HeathDavisSpeed]

I have a penchant for their 80s hit Come Dancing which is a little hard to explain.