The Kinks Something Else by the Kinks Reprise [Listen]

Conceptually bound only by the compact genius of Ray Davies' writing, Something Else was the Kinks' last great album of songs before Davies became consumed by operatic studies of a disappearing Britain (1968's The Village Green Preservation Society, 1969's Arthur). The schoolyard romp "David Watts," the delicate envy of "Two Sisters," the plaintive rapture in guitarist Dave Davies' vocal on "Death of a Clown," the young lovers bathed in London twilight in "Waterloo Sunset": They are all complete dramas, concise in their emotional detail and depiction of fading majesty and morals, with harpsichord and brass adding shades of loss and yearning to the Kinks' basic spunk. A shocking commercial stiff (it peaked at Number 153 in Billboard on its U.S. release in early 1968), Something Else may still be the best Kinks album you've never heard.