THE KINKS @ 60

Celebrating its 60th anniversary today is the eponymous debut LP by The Kinks, which was released on October 2nd, 1964. While not fully indicative of the latent talents of the band, in particular the songwriting prowess of leader, Ray Davies, it is at least the home of the band's first chart topping single, You Really Got Me, a song that would become the blueprint for garage rock, hard rock, heavy metal and punk rock in years to come.

The band were founded by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1963, coming together in London around the same time as others of the looming "British Invasion", rubbing shoulder to shoulder with bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who. The group had signed to Pye Records, who were initially frustrated by the band's failure to connect with its first couple of singles. Both their cover of Little Richards' Long Tall Sally and its follow-up, the Davies' original, You Still Want Me, were pretty much ignored by DJs and record buyers, despite significant promotion.

After those two strikes, the label gave them one more opportunity to hit a home run, and they did so with You Really Got Me. Another Ray Davies original, the hit version almost never materialized. After recording a preliminary version, Ray Davies insisted on modifying the arrangement to something slower and more raw. The label refused to stump up the cash for the studio time, however, but Davies persisted until session producer, Shel Talmy, broke the stalemate by underwriting the additional session himself. The song was inspired by The Kingsmen's version of Louie Louie, and was taken to another level by the innovative mutilation of a guitar amp. Dave Davies took a pocket knife and put a slice into the speaker cone of his amp, causing it to have a distinct buzzing distortion. It was a sound that instantly gave the record an idiosyncratic edge, sounding unlike any other guitarist out there. The single, released in August of 1964, became a top ten hit in both the US and UK. It's gone on to be widely considered the root for many of the heavier branches of rock 'n' roll that grew from its inspiration. That fuzzy distortion became intrinsic to the hard rock and metal sounds that would proliferate in the following decades.

The rest of the album, however, wasn't so blessed with as much distinction. As was the standard of the time, being a new group meant that the record company expected them to record mostly covers, rather than original material. This is a situation all of the British Invasion bands went through with their first recording efforts, which is why many of those debut albums don't properly capture the true essence of a lot of those bands, and this is certainly the case with The Kinks. Their debut LP offers only a bare glimpse into the greatness that the band would deliver once they were allowed to shine in their own light.

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.

THE KINKS - MUSWELL HILLBILLIES @ 50

 

November 24th marks the 50th anniversary of the release of The Kinks’ 10th studio album, Muswell Hillbillies, which was issued on this day in 1971.

Coming in with the first wave of the British Invasion of the early 1960s and following on the success of their blistering proto-metal hits like You Really Got Me, The Kinks had built a career refining their songwriting sophistication through a series of albums which brought out Ray Davies’ talents as a storyteller to a degree that was quite unequaled in the realm of pop music. Yet, while they’d had success in the UK charts throughout the latter half of the decade, the US was pretty much a lost territory after their 1965 tour resulted in the American Federation of Musicians refusing to grant them performance permits until 1969, likely due to their rowdy reputation on the road. The result was that the US mostly forgot about them for the back half of the ’60s.

That began to change in 1970 with the release of the album, Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One. The album’s title track, Lola, an account of a confused romantic encounter with a transvestite, became an unlikely top 10 hit on both sides of the Atlantic and brought the band back into the spotlight in the US. That album also signaled the ended of their contracts with Pye and Reprise Records as they signed a five album deal with RCA. That got them enough of an advance to set up their own recording studio, where they recorded Muswell Hillbillies.

Muswell Hill is the area where the Davies brothers grew up and the themes of the album delved into working class subjects reflective of their background. Critically, the album was a success and garnered glowing reviews right out of the gate and the success of its predecessor had seemingly set them on course to continue that trend as they began their tenure with their new label. Yet neither critical acclaim nor momentum from the previous album managed to secure significant sales for Muswell Hillbillies, even though it had all the earmarks to succeed. The songs are top-notch, the styles reflect both British sensibilities, when it leaned into music hall influences, while also bringing in American influences of bluegrass and country. For many, it is considered the band’s last truly “great” album! Yet it flagged in the stores and ended up signalling the band entering into a downward trend until they rebounded in 1977, reinvigorated by the “new wave” vibrancy of the times.

While the band would go on to have more hits in the late ‘70s and beyond, Muswell Hillbillies, in retrospect, seems to be a marker of the end of their “golden age” that began with Face to Face in 1966. It caps a run of music that remains peerless in terms of its visceral connection to its subjects and Ray Davies’ ability to deftly concoct his narratives around the framework of meticulously crafted, unforgettable pop music. It’s music that defined the gold standard for its genre of narrative driven, folksy realism.