The Kinks

I LOVE The Kinks.

I love that "Picture Book" track that gets used in that HP advert.

Actually i love the HP advert too (So what?!? I respond to it. I'm not a bit of meat circulating the planet in a tin can)

I love "Stop Your Sobbing"

I love "Victoria"

Weren't The Kinks one of Lester's things alongside The Troggs?

Didn't The Fall cover "Victoria"?

Isn't "Lola" a really bloody interesting track?

Isn't "Arthur" supposed to be better than "Tommy" (never heard either!)

Why do we hear nothing but Beatles and Stones in the UK? (Just obliterate any memory of Blur for one second)

How many people could tell you the name and sequence of The Kinks LPs? (Not Me)

How many people could tell you the name and sequence of The Rolling Stones LPs?

Don't The Kinks RULE?
 

hint

party record with a siren
the kinks run things, no doubt

my dad's copy of "golden hour of the kinks" was one of the soundtracks to my youth... all the hits.

stuff like "you really got me" still sounds heavy as hell. "lola" is indeed interesting. "where have all the good times gone?" and "dead end street" weren't yer typical 60's fare by any means.

but I must admit I don't own a single kinks album - just that "greatest hits" style LP. strange really, seeing as I feel like I know and love so many of their songs.

perhaps the albums are mostly filler, so people just concentrate on the singles? maybe they never get the attention cos, well, they looked kinda funny instead of cool?
 

jwd

Well-known member
I've been on a major Kinks kick of late thanks to the 3CD deluxe edition of Village Green Preservation Society (which is just about nudging Arthur Russell's World of Echo as the year's best reissue.) When people ask me "Beatles or Stones" my reply is always "Kinks and Byrds". As far as Kinks albums go, there are plenty od classics - you would be safe with Something Else and Village Green Preservation Society. Arthur is good - a handful of classic tracks ("Victoria", "Brainwashed", "Drivin'", "Tin Soldier Man", "Princess Maria") but some filler (the ten minute "Australia" is a bit crap to be honest.) Albums that are immediately post- that era all have great tracks, ie soundtrack to Percy has "Way Love Used to be" and "All God's Children" from recollection. (Has anyone actually seen that film?) Also check out the much under-rated Muswell Hillbillies, classic record that.
HOWEVER (puts on Kinks nerd hat) the finest Kinks album is the Great Lost Kinks Album that was briefly released in the USA and deleted soon after, never to be reissued. Collected a bunch of b-sides, outtakes etc from the Something Else/Village Green era, some songs written for TV shows/movies/etc., absolutely great, easily one of my favourite records of all time. Many tracks have turned up elsewhere - "Lincoln County" and "There is No Life Without Love" on the Something Else CD, a clutch of tracks on this recent Village Green reissue - but the record in toto remains unavailable. Shame.
Why The Kinks over all else? The brotherly tension, the fudged sexualities, Ray Davies' voice - the laziest, sloppiest sound in pop music, inventing heavy metal with "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night", the shift from that era to music-hall influenced pop, the general reminiscence for times long past (particularly interesting for an Australian kid brought up in an English household - the distortions between home life and outside world could get quite fascinating, the Kinks sounded right when I started listening to them seriously, sounded like home. I'm well aware this is absolutely romantic and non-realistic.)
LOVE 'em.
 

carlos

manos de piedra
a couple of years ago a local (houston) weirdo theater group ("infernal bridegroom productions") staged the Kink's 1975 concept album "A Soap Opera" as a musical- something the kinks also did for uk tv when the LP came out. it's a later LP but it's very clever and with some great tunes- worked great on the stage with a "real" rock band as backup. and (bad) fake english accents.
 

chnewman

New member
Kinks are like UKs lynyrd skynyrd *that's a good thin, btw. Mix up their song titles, for example, and it sounds like one band:

Every Mother's Son
Waterloo Sunset
Tuesday's Gone
All I Can Do Is Write About It
Simple Man
Nothin In This World Can Stop Me Worryin Bout That Girl
Honky Tonk Nighttime Man
Some Mother's Son
Dedicated Follower of Fashion
Workin for MCA
Sweet Home Alabama
Big Sky

Check Kinda Kinks for Nothin In This World Can Stop Me Worryin Bout That Girl + the scene in Wes Anderson Rushmore that features it. It'll stick that song like Nadia Comaneci stuck dismountz.

Also Kinks Kontroversy for stunning album cover.

Also get the Face To Face reissue with I'm Not Like Everybody Else. Don't know why this song isn't one of their most celebrated. Very fangy.

Mick Avory, the drummer. He's so extremely propulsive and he's usually mixed pretty high up. Listen to the drums on Victoria for ex.-on vinyl if you can. They're so warm and relaxed and visceral too. And the funk. Hip hop should rip some of his tracks. No, maybe I will.

It's all good. Very little filler. Do You Remember Walter is my favorite Kinks song. Ray Davies has/had an entirely unique vision in the rock world. Where are these people now? Theoddballsarealsopreciousnow(decembrists?).
 

dubplatestyle

Well-known member
"walter" is probably my favorite too. <i>village green</i> is probably my favorite 60s rock album (tho i fully admit its hard for me to get worked up about rock music prior to the late 70s) (with the obvious exceptions) (obviously.)

when i got a used vinyl copy of some "greatest hits" lp, i probably played "you really got me" and "all day..." about 4000 times in the space of a year. i don't even think i ever made it to the other songs for a few years.
 

jwd

Well-known member
WOEBOT said:
didnt jay at http://agonyshorthand.blogspot.com do something recently on the kinks lps? i had a trawl but couldn't find the relevant article...

for those who want to read the work of great man jay hinman on the kinks:

http://agonyshorthand.blogspot.com/2004/09/kinks-face-to-face-cd.html
http://agonyshorthand.blogspot.com/2004/06/kinks-arthur-or-decline-and-fall-of.html

and if you're wanting to know more about the Great Lost Kinks Album:

http://kinks.it.rit.edu/cgi-bin/MusicSearch.cgi?album=comps/album-glka

Which I note DOESN'T have Dave Davies' "Lincoln County" on it - my cassette dub has it added as an extra track, though it appears on the Great Lost Kinks Album/Album That Never Was CD bootleg (Album That Never Was being a Dave Davies solo release from 1987, mopping up scraps of his 'solo work'/Kinks songs.)

CHNewman: Yeah I can't believe I forgot "I'm Not Like Everybody Else", totally fantastic, I heartily second the Face to Face CD reissue, a complete must-have. But I'm far gone on the Kinks, I even don't mind some of the Preservation Act stuff...
 
John Bitumen said:
Actually i love the HP advert too (So what?!? I respond to it. I'm not a bit of meat circulating the planet in a tin can)

That ad - it could easily have been just so much cheesy nerdery, like every Intel/Microsoft ad. But the snappiness of the visual effect, especially when the dancing Marie Antoinette-alike is frozen at the moment she looks directly at us, is captivating.
 
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HMGovt said:
That ad - it could easily have been just so much cheesy nerdery, like every Intel/Microsoft ad. But the snappiness of the visual effect, especially when the dancing Marie Antoinette-alike is frozen at the moment she looks directly at us, is captivating.

glad i'm not alone here hmgovt. the casting is exquisite too.
 

jwd

Well-known member
Oh I thought you lot were talking about an advert for HP Sauce! (I'm from the colonies remember?) I was sitting there wondering 'why the fuck do THEY have to advertise? Surely it's ubiquitous?' :D

Why is there not more talk about the Kinks? Greatest band ever, folks!
 

hint

party record with a siren
I'm gonna get me some kinks albums sharpish. thanks for the recommendations everyone.

and yeah - the HP advert is fresh

and HP sauce is a must (unless you're a daddy's boy / girl)
 
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