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The Kinks: The Essential Album-By-Album Guide

Three decades of Ray Davies' songwriting, from 1964's "The Kinks" to the band's ultimate greatest-hits records

GREG MILNER

Posted Mar 06, 2008 12:00 PM

THE KINKS (1964)
Key Tracks: "You Really Got Me," "Stop Your Sobbin' "
Quick Take: Depending on your perspective, the Kinks' debut album is either a spirited but generic blast of Londonbeat mayhem with one phenomenal song in the middle, or one song that's so phenomenal that it dwarfs anything that surrounded it. That song is the proto-punk, proto-metal, proto-everything "You Really Got Me." The two-chord riff moves mountains. Dave Davies, all of seventeen, uncorks arguably the greatest garage solo of all time.

KINDA KINKS (1965)
Key Tracks: "Nothin' In This World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl," "Tired of Waiting For You"
Quick Take: Like their debut, Kinda Kinks feels too much like a studied exercise in blues and R&B idioms, with occasional hints of the genius songwriter Ray Davies would soon become. He sings like he just rolled out of bed, with particularly bizarre results on a Quaalude-ified cover of "Dancing in the Streets."

THE KINK KONTROVERSY (1965)
Key Tracks: "Till The End of the Day," "Where Have All the Good Times Gone"
Quick Take: From 1965 to '69, for reasons that have never been made clear, the American Federation of Musicians succeeded in prohibiting the Kinks from touring the U.S. Perhaps that explains why Ray Davies turned his gaze inward, infusing his songs with British themes. Before shutting the garage door behind them for good, the Kinks tossed off "Till the End of the Day," one final bit of "You Really Got Me" magic.

FACE TO FACE (1966)
Key Tracks: "Fancy," "Sunny Afternoon"
Quick Take: On Face to Face, Davies came into his own as a songwriter, while his band evolved into the perfect multifaceted vehicle for his budding genius. Like the Beatles were doing at the time, "Fancy" integrates overt Eastern musician influences, but in a way that feels much more organic.

SOMETHING ELSE BY THE KINKS (1967)
Key Tracks: "Waterloo Sunset," "Death Of A Clown"
Quick Take: The most underrated album of 1967. Like the title says, the Kinks had evolved into something singular but hard to define. To put their achievement in perspective, consider that three years after setting the table for generations of hard rock with "You Really Got Me," Ray offers "Waterloo Sunset," one of the greatest songs ever written, period, suitable for kids of all ages.

THE KINKS ARE THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY (1968)
Key Tracks: "The Village Green Preservation Society," "Picture Book"
Quick Take: Just as the Beatles' Revolver ended with "Tomorrow Never Knows," a blueprint for Sgt Pepper's, Something Else's closer, "Waterloo Sunset," was a preview for this loving and immensely appealing tribute to British small-town life. In an implicit rejection of marmalade skies, Village Green's mission statement is contained in its title track: "Preserving the old ways from being abused / Protecting the new ways for me and for you."

ARTHUR (OR THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE) (1969)
Key Tracks: "Victoria," "Australia"
Quick Take: A song cycle about a regular bloke who moves to Australia at the end of World War II, Arthur couldn't help but be compared to (and overshadowed by) 1969's other eponymous Brit-themed concept album, the Who's Tommy. Arthur feels a tad overdone and heavy-handed at times, but the Kinks haven't rocked this sure-footedly in years, especially on the joyously anthemic "Victoria," which anticipated the band's late-Seventies arena-rock phase.

LOLA VS. POWERMAN AND THE MONEY-GO-ROUND, PT. 1 (1970)
Key Tracks: "Lola," "Apeman"
Quick Take: Ray Davies wastes too much energy on Lola bitching about the music industry, which is ironic, since this album catapulted the Kinks to American stardom. As send-ups of the biz, "Top of the Pops" and "The Moneygoround" are pretty toothless, and the band's experimental bent, particularly its predilection for country-tinged tunes and music-hall balladry, doesn't always bear fruit. On the plus side, Lola is often very funny, and on the epic title track Davies took his songwriting to yet another level.

MUSWELL HILLBILLIES (1971)
Key Tracks: "Oklahoma U.S.A.," "Muswell Hillbilly"
Quick Take: With their American touring ban lifted, the Kinks set off on a seemingly never-ending tour of the country they conquered with "Lola." Muswell Hillbillies is steeped in Americana, but the Kinks never sound like dabblers, even when they proclaim allegiance to West Virginia on "Muswell Hillbilly." (The title is a pun on the London neighborhood where the Davies grew up.) [Listen]

THE KINK KRONIKLES (1972)
Quick Take: Curated by critic and Kink fanatic John Mendelsohn, this summary of the band's late-Sixties/early-Seventies "golden age" has largely been supplanted by other compilations. But it's still worth seeking out for Mendelsohn's excellent liner notes, which do a great job of putting the band in perspective.

EVERYBODY'S IN SHOW-BIZ (1972)
Reason for Existing: Rock stars of the era were allowed — nay, encouraged — to reflect on the rigors of the road.
Quick Take: Show-Biz, originally released as a double album with one studio disc and the other a live album, was both inspired by — and a document of — the Kinks' legendarily shambolic early-Seventies concerts. It's a fun album, but the problem is that the new songs don't have much to say about life on the road (food on the "Motorway" is bad? you don't say), and the live album, like most live albums, suffers from you-had-to-be-there syndrome. [Listen]

PRESERVATION ACT 1 (1973)
Reason for Existing: Rock stars of the era were allowed — nay, encouraged — to follow their muse wherever it might lead them.
Quick Take: Well, at least give Ray Davies points for truth in advertising. "Preservation" reveals we're back at the Village Green, and "Act 1" promises that this is another concept album. Unless you listen closely — which isn't recommended — the story doesn't cohere, although it's nice to revisit some of the Village Green's characters, like Johnny Thunder, valorized as a "survivor" on one of the album's more energetic numbers. [Listen]

PRESERVATION ACT 2 (1974)
Reason for Existing: Act 1 was apparently not self-indulgent enough.
Quick Take: Act 2 of the Preservation suite is supposedly where the narrative rubber hits the road. The story seems to have something to do with evil dictators and hypocritical moralists. Good luck parsing it. [Listen]

SOAP OPERA (1975)
Reason for Existing: Davies' urge to create confoundingly conceptual music now officially a compulsion.
Quick Take: Yet another concept album, Soap Opera distills and rehashes all of Davies' usual obsessions: stardom, the common man, the crushing soullessness of modern British life, etc. The streamlined music makes it somewhat easier to digest than the Preservation albums, but whatever this album is resides mainly in Ray Davies' head. [Listen]

THE KINKS PRESENT SCHOOLBOYS IN DISGRACE (1975)
Reason for Existing: Having completed a long, hard journey into his own mind, Ray Davies needed a breather.
Quick Take: By this point, Davies could no sooner refrain from wedding music to "concept" as he could sprout wings and fly, so Schoolboys is loosely organized around the theme of childhood nostalgia. The result is no great shakes, but the album has its moments, particularly the hilarious "Jack the Idiot Dunce." [Listen]

CELLULOID HEROES (1976)
Reason for Existing: Providing a crash course in the wages of pretension.
Quick Take: If you really feel the need to immerse yourself in the murk of the Kinks' "conceptual" period, do yourself a favor and stick with this primer, which compiles that era's more listenable moments. Or, since many of those moments were on the excellent Muswell Hillbillies, you could just listen to that instead.

SLEEPWALKER (1977)
Reason for Existing: Davies, fresh out of "concepts," remembers he leads a quite popular rock band.
Quick Take: This is the sound of Davies and the Kinks emerging from high-concept hibernation — which is to say that it sounds like a new beginning, but also like the band is still wiping the sleep from its eyes. "It's only jukebox music," Ray sings. (Now he tells us.) The CD reissue contains the embarrassing "Prince of the Punks," a lame attempt at sending up '77's new musical subculture, set to a warmed-over knock-off of "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting." [Listen]

MISFITS (1978)
Reason for Existing: The Kinks were now officially an arena-rock band.
Quick Take: The title track, an affecting portrait of dashed hopes, sounds like Ray was studying the AOR competition, taking notes form Springsteen, Petty and Seger. Minus: "Black Messiah," Davies' bizarre "straight-talk" take on racial tension. Plus: the CD reissue contains "Father Christmas," the best song Davies had written in years, and the greatest Christmas rock song ever. [Listen]

LOW BUDGET (1979)
Reason for Existing: Another year, another Kinks album.
Quick Take: From the nicked "Jumpin' Jack Flash" of "Catch Me I'm Falling" to the fake ZZ-Top disco of "Superman," this album stinks of bad faith and worse vibes. Ray's sour lyrics and the cheese-ball production don't help matters. [Listen]

ONE FOR THE ROAD (1980)
Reason for Existing: Documents the Kinks' reemergence as arena-rock warhorses.
Quick Take: Although it suffers from the usual lost-in-translation problems of most live albums, One For the Road is actually a decent career overview of the Kinks, wisely striking most of '72-'75 from the historical record. The band sounds lean and road-tested, and Davies sounds like he's enjoying himself.

GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT (1981)
Key Tracks: "Destroyer," "Better Things"
Quick Take: As the title makes clear, Ray Davies had evolved into one cynical guy. Still, he and the band sound more energized than they have in years, and at least this time he steals from himself. "Destroyer" is a raucous mash-up of "All Day and All of the Night" (the melody), Muswell Hillbillies' "Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues" (the subject matter), and "Lola" (s/he's back in our hero's life). The album ends improbably with "Better Things," the most big-hearted song Ray had written since the days spent on the Village Green. [Listen]

STATE OF CONFUSION (1983)
Key Tracks: "State of Confusion," "Come Dancing"
Quick Take: The angst-filled title track would have made a great Bon Jovi song (that's a compliment), and "Come Dancing," the Kinks' biggest hit since the Sixties, is a charming addition to their ongoing hit parade. But too much of the album is simply a document of the workaday rockers the Kinks had become. [Listen]

WORD OF MOUTH (1984)
Reason for Existing: Just another day at the office.
Quick Take: Ray reveals too much on the album's first song: "Day after day, I get up and I say, 'I better do it again.' " (Ya don't say.) Also, somebody tell Dave Davies that Don Henley called and wants his "Boys of Summer" riff back. [Listen]

COME DANCING WITH THE KINKS: THE BEST OF THE KINKS 1977-1986 (1986)
Reason for Existing: Documents the band's improbably late-period resurgence as arena-rockin' warhorses.
Quick Take: Held up against the dizzying musical shifts and consistent musical genius of the Kinks' first nine years, these nine years don't come off so well. Too often in their late period (the band didn't officially call it quits until the mid-Nineties), the Kinks sounded like they were in it for a paycheck. Still, from "Father Christmas" to "Come Dancing," Ray occasionally demonstrated that he knew how to tell a compact musical story better than anyone. [Listen]

THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION (2002)
Reason for Existing: Because when all was said and done, the Kinks were a great singles band.
Quick Take: Even more than the Kinks' contemporaries from the Sixties, when singles still ruled, the Kinks were ill-served by the album format. The CD reissues of those early albums try to rectify this historical fact by adding singles that didn't appear on the originals, but you really have to hear a compilation like this to grasp how the Kinks ruled radio.