Heeey, You Really Got Me Now | The Kinks’ heyday influenced everything from hard rock to hair metal.
Ray Davies
July 15 (8pm). Winspear Centre, Sir Winston Churchill Square. Tickets: from $47, available at the Winspear box office (428-1414)
Ray Davies and The Kinks spent much of their storied careers in the shadow of The Beatles’ worldwide takeover—but while they may have been underappreciated by the masses, the band had an influence far greater than their sales would indicate.
Davies and The Kinks claimed a place in pop history thanks to a string of early hits like “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night,” but you have to wonder how different pop music would sound nowadays had the group not been banned from performing in the U.S. in the ’60s heyday of the British Invasion, or if Davies’ masterwork, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, had been as well-received commercially as it was critically.
Above all else, what’s separated Davies from his contemporaries (not to mention just about anyone else who’s tried to follow him) is his steadfast dedication to telling real-life stories. His witty wordplay, pointed lyrics, and droll British humour remains unmatched, no matter how hard Damon Albarn tried to duplicate it on Blur’s Parklife and The Great Escape, which wore their Kinks influence heavily on their starched sleeves.
Last year’s Working Man’s Café adds to Davies’ collection of working-class British vignettes, but that astonishing string of Kinks albums released between 1966 and 1971 remain the songwriter’s crowning achievements. Here’s a neophyte’s guide to the Kink kronicles:
Face to Face (1966)
While critics often point to 1965’s The Kink Kontroversy as Davies’ entry point into true brilliance, Face to Face’s more subtle sonic palette holds up better. “Sunny Afternoon” was a #1 hit in the U.K., but “Too Much on My Mind” and “Rosy Won’t You Please Come Home” show the seeds of The Kinks’ darkly blossoming pop heart. The best pop is always the saddest, and few pull off this balance quite as skillfully as The Kinks do here.
Something Else (1967)
As everyone else got louder, The Kinks got more pastoral and folksy. “Waterloo Sunset” (an eternally fascinating sketch of a couple’s loving meetings at the titular London tube station) usually gets the bulk of the praise, but Something Else also offers up the simple pleasures of “Afternoon Tea” and “Situation Vacant,” a tale of a better job, a better life, and spatting with the in-laws.
The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968)
More has been said about Village Green than any other Kinks album, even though it flopped upon its release. Just as The Beatles gave listeners a snapshot of their Liverpool hometown with “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” Davies turned his attention to small-town English life, in the process creating one of the finest 20th century documents of a nation as a whole.
Arthur or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (1969)
Davies reacted to the Summer of Love by composing his first narrative concept record, enlisting a range of English characters, including WWII soldiers, Queen Victoria, and Winston Churchill. It’s nearly as perfect as Village Green, yet even more painfully underheard.
Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One (1970)
A sudden stylistic shift saw Davies dropping the orchestral overtones of Arthur and Village Green in favour of Southern-flavoured rock, leading to one of The Kinks’ greatest opening salvos, “The Contenders.” There’s far more here than just “Lola,” although that song alone helped keep the good ship Kink afloat after the commercial failure of everything from Something Else onward.
Muswell Hillbillies (1971)
Striking a chord with “Lola” made Davies shift gears again, resulting in this dark portrait of middle-class London. “Alcohol” and “Oklahoma U.S.A.” stand up as two of his finest heartbreakers.
