are the kinks over-rated on this site?

[Corporate whore]

So how did I miss this one then? Talking about the Kinks when I'm on holiday is no fair!

Anyway (without reading the whole thread) - a personal view.


The Kinks are great because they are very English, without it being a put on. They are not even subconciously trying to be American - the fate of most non-US bands. This puts them is a very small, exclusive club of acts who reflect their roots. How many major acts pass this test? The Pogues, SFA?, Kraftwerk, (I hate to admit it) The Smiths ?

Ray Davies isa truly excellent song writer - the song writing equivalent of Harlan Ellison. His ability to summon time and place are pierless (sp?). Even on some of the albums that are not well regarded, if you listen to the lyrics the songs are marvelous (e.g. preservations Act 1).

No-one sounds like them - they are unique

'Just a singles band' - But some of if not the best singles ever written. Most song writers would give their entire career and their left testicle to write a 'Waterloo Sunset' (or All day and all of the night, or sunny afternoon, or Lola, or.......)

As an album band, there are very few bands who can match the run Something Else - VGPS - Arthur. Especially as there are bookended by Face to Face at one end, and Lola and Muswell Hillbillies at the other*

*Missing out Percy as that was a soundtrack album.


Variety and Evolution - Yes they have released some shit, but name a group that has released aproximately 30 albums that has not.
In that time they have moved on and evolved with every single album. Very few acts manage this - Niel Young (but fails the shit test) The Beatles yes - but they only released what, 12 albums?.


So - Overrated? Don't make me larf. One of the top 10 bands ever. You can argue about the others.

[Corporate whore]

For those who are only familiar with the big hits, but fear venturing into the albums, I recommend listening first to some of these:


Big Black Smoke (from Face to Face)
Dandy (Face to Face)
Fancy (Face to Face)
Holiday in Waikiki (Face to Face)
Session Man (Face to Face)
Too Much on My Mind (Face to Face)
Rosy Won't You Please Come Home (Face to Face)
House in the Country (Face to Face)
I go to Sleep (demo)
I'm not like Everybody Else (bonus track on Face to Face Castle reissue, or various collections)
This Strange Effect (BBC recordings)
Afternoon Tea (Something Else)
End of the Season (Something Else)
Two Sisters (Something Else)
Did you see his name? (either BBC recordings or the new VGPS reissue, bonus track)
Berkeley Mews (new VGPS reissue bonus track; various collections)
Lavender Hill (VPGS outtake, now on the new VGPS reissue as a bonus track, also various collections. Fantastic track. Like Noel Coward gone psychedelic)
Village Green (VGPS)
Animal Farm (VGPS)
Alcohol (Muswell Hillbillies, but the live version, from Everybody's in Showbiz, is better)
Art Lover (from Give the people what they want)
Mr. Reporter (bonus track on the last reissue of Face to Face; various collections)
My Diary (demo, found on The Singles Collection)
Shangri-La (Arthur)
Some Mother's Son (Arthur)
When I turn off the living room light (even with the anti-semitic line; BBC recordings)

Great list there -And for those poor souls who never got a copy, here's the tracklist from the comp I did a year ago of 'lost' classics;


Party Line -Face to Face
Rosie Won’t You Please Come Home - Face to Face
The Way Love Used to Be - Percy
Two Sisters - Something Else
End of the Season - Something Else
Misty Waters - Great Lost Kinks Album
When I turn off the Living Room Light - Great Lost Kinks Album
Some Mothers Son - Arthur
Shangri-La - Arthur
Phenomenal Cat - Village Green Preservation
Wicked Annabella - Village Green Preservation
Get Back in Line - Lola V’s Powerman
Kentucky Moon - Musswell Hillbillies
Alcohol - Musswell Hillbillies
The First Time You Fall in Love - Schoolboys in disgrace
Lady Genevieve - Preservations Act 1
Nothing Lasts Forever - Preservations Act 2
Have Another Drink - Soap Opera
Art Lover - Give the people what they want
Did Ya - hobia
Better Things - Give the people what they want
Last of the Steam Powered Trains - Live at the Fillmore West, 1970

[The Write Profile]

Does anyone else think that Shangri-La, and not Waterloo Sunset, was the Kinks' crowning moment?

There is something about that song, its mixture of real irony (the nonchalant: "she's conditioned that way") and the sense of change that Davies, however glibly, appears to encapture. It's almost a companion to something like the Beatles' "Day in the Life", except this time the observer is straight, the middle eight is something Macartney would've been proud of ("all of the houses look the same"). It's the simplicity of the language.

Incidentally, the character who inspired the song for "David Watts" actually moved to New Zealand for a few years and lived in Dunedin!
So, the story goes anyway. I'm sure it wasnt just one David Watts but a mixture anyway

(Not much else to add except that I think should be moved to classic threads)

[The Modernist]

Does anyone else think that Shangri-La, and not Waterloo Sunset, was the Kinks' crowning moment?

There is something about that song, its mixture of real irony (the nonchalant: "she's conditioned that way") and the sense of change that Davies, however glibly, appears to encapture. It's almost a companion to something like the Beatles' "Day in the Life", except this time the observer is straight, the middle eight is something Macartney would've been proud of ("all of the houses look the same"). It's the simplicity of the language.

Incidentally, the character who inspired the song for "David Watts" actually moved to New Zealand for a few years and lived in Dunedin!
So, the story goes anyway. I'm sure it wasnt just one David Watts but a mixture anyway

(Not much else to add except that I think should be moved to classic threads)

See My Friend was their greatest single.

[The Write Profile]

See My Friend was their greatest single.

Yeah, I like that song no doubt. But it's Shangri-La for me. A sustained pop narrative, in its own way the "straight" version of A Day in the Life in its measured, sarcastic observation of consumerism. It's what "Apeman" should have been. (which really is one of their worst songs, appalingly gauche)

[The Modernist]

See My Friend was their greatest single.

Yeah, I like that song no doubt. But it's Shangri-La for me. A sustained pop narrative, in its own way the "straight" version of A Day in the Life in its measured, sarcastic observation of consumerism. It's what "Apeman" should have been. (which really is one of their worst songs, appalingly gauche)

I just like the twisted eastern sound of See My Friend. There's something hypnotic about it. I don't really associate The Kinks with musical adventurism (too much of their reputation hangs on Davis' lyrics for me) but on that they really do reach something powerful musically.
As for Shangri -La, it has that fussy, florid Davis approach I don't much care for. Too affected.

[The Write Profile]

I just like the twisted eastern sound of See My Friend. There's something hypnotic about it. I don't really associate The Kinks with musical adventurism (too much of their reputation hangs on Davis' lyrics for me) but on that they really do reach something powerful musically.
As for Shangri -La, it has that fussy, florid Davis approach I don't much care for. Too affected.

Interesting. I'll grant that musically See My Friend is one of the more intriguing Kinks songs. But was it as deft as, say , "Love You Too"?
Shangri-La risks becoming over-ripe, and, yes as you say fussy, but it's the drumming which is the key for it, when everything else is veering off in several places at once, the drumming remains constant.

[The Modernist]

Interesting. I'll grant that musically See My Friend is one of the more intriguing Kinks songs. But was it as deft as, say , "Love You Too"?

Yes. Melodically it is beguiling , the strange rises and falls, the plaintive beauty of the "She Is gone" part of the melody whereas Love You Too is melodically monotonous in comparison. Little surprise, although I quite like it. I must admit I haven't delved into late sixties Kinks as much as I should. Perhaps I am really missing out, but there's a worthiness surrounding the reception of those records that puts me off. I'm more excited about hearing some reissued Turtles albums than getting into Arthur or whatever.

[meetthesonics]

Certainly not. They're the best band ever save the Beatles. Calling the Kinks overrated is like calling oxygen overrated.

[Martial Lawniz]

I apologize for posting this right after Meetthesonics' enthusiasm, but as I said a couple three months ago, I suddenly awoke one day and realized that, try as I might, the Kinks for me were pretty average if not less so. Now I know I deserve to be horse-whipped for this, but keeping in mind it ¡s an opinion based on hearing them for the past 25 years or so, while not hearing all they've done, but by now a fair amount, I just find there is something in their style and sound which puts the T in wee, and although I recognise their music does possess its merits, in the end, its over-all effect on me is to swtich it off.

[The Write Profile]

Actually, the more I think about it, perhaps it was "Face to Face", and not "VGPS, that was their triumph. VGPS is a wonderful mood record, but the retreat: the introspection, the nostalgia, perhaps even the bitterness, lingering to itself.

Face to Face, much like its title suggests, appears to be a more upfront record, testing itself and trying to paint a picture of what it was like for them at the time, rather than a documentation of a past that was imagined.

"Too Much on My Mind" alone, sets the hairs on the back of my neck. It's the way Davies leers the vocal so casually.

[The Write Profile]

I guess it depends, "Something Else" is the populist fave, and has their two greatest singles ("David Watts" and "Waterloo Sunset"), but there's a wonderfully daring feel to Face to Face, which I love.

Have you read the essay on Something Else in the book, Stranded?

I can't remember who wrote it, but it's a wonderful read, it pitches the idea that the Kinks are a desert island (or a secluded village green, perhaps), which is why they wuld be a perfect Desert Island disc.

[The Write Profile]

Just what is it about the Kinks that has caused me to totally go almost aboutface on my opinion in regards to them? Well sort of, anyway. It's astonishing to think that, along with being probably the consistent British singles group from 1964-67, they might well be up there with at least the Stones in terms of their albums. The Kink Kontroversy is the first gambit, but it's the trifecta of Face to Face, Something Else and VGPS that seems to conjure its own world, pushing and pulling between the past, present and future.

By the end, Ray is confined to his own little (beautifully rendered) garden. There's so much attack in Face to Face, as if his satire was actually more barbed when he took it less seriously- compare the fussiness of the more indulgent parts of the (otherwise very good) LP Arthur to the simple, precise (com)plaints of Too Much on My Mind, Holiday in Waikiki, Rosy Come Home and House in the Country. That's before one figures in the barrelhouse pull of "Sunny Afternoon." It's where the snot and snar gets tempered with eloquence, whereas Something Else is beauty with bite.


For what it's worth, Modernist might've been right about See My Friend being their finest single, certainly it's their most oblique and modally malignant. Yet even their B-sides (Big Black Smoke, Mr Pleasant, Autumn Almanac, Days, This is Where I Belong, Two Sisters...) of this period were as good as anyone else's A's, certainly still uniquely idiosyncratic inspite of their pervasive influence. It's such a shame that everything post-Lola is so terrible. Davies' worldview was both their defining trait and ultimately their crux. It's a very strange worldview in many ways, a sort of embittered nostalgia- conservative, yet conflicted (except on VGPS, which is merely sedate). Maybe he took himself too seriously- still, "I'm Not Like Anybody Else", a seeming throwaway, remains one for the ages- the missing link between their early, blistering singles (You Really Got Me, All Day and All Night, etc) and the more reflective mid-period.

I often wonder whether they were too influential for their own--and others'--good.