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.
