SOMETHING ELSE BY THE KINKS @ 55

 

Celebrating 55 years on the shelves today is Something Else by The Kinks, their fifth UK studio LP, which was issued on September 15th, 1967. It’s an album that continued to move the band away from the proto-hard rock sound which had characterized early hits like You Really Got Me. The late 1960s Kinks, instead, favored a more baroque pop sound with English music hall leanings featuring Ray Davies’ introspective observational lyrical content.

It was a move that was not particularly chart friendly, though the singles from the LP, Waterloo Sunset and Death of a Clown, performed respectably. The LP, on the other hand, didn’t fare well with sales and critics were mixed. The US market were still banning the group from touring or performing on TV, so there was no way to properly promote it overseas. In the UK, the LP was competing with compilations of early Kinks hits and the advance singles sort of let the air out of the balloon, so to speak, and undercut interest in the album.

But the vagaries of the times have since given way to an appreciation of the complexities offered by the band at what has since become recognized as the peak of their creative genius. Indeed, the LP is bursting with brilliant songwriting and performances with songs like David Watts, Situation Vacant and Lazy Old Sun being but a few of the many standouts on the album. It’s a record that rewards repeat listening and offers layers of insight into British life during the post war era.