Kinks (album) is mix of blues rock, rockabilly, and that overall “British Invasion sound” that mixes R&B, skiffle, rock with catchy melodies. This is a time-capsule and it’s funny to open it up from time to time.
Kinks is the self-titled debut album by English rock band The Kinks, released in 1964. It was released with three tracks omitted as You Really Got Me in the US.
It is not rated among the best Kinks album and I can see why, it was made to capitalize on the success of the You Really Got Me single and were filled out with (nice enough) covers. It is a promising record and points toward greatness.
The best tracks are the Kinks’s own songs, and the highlights are Stop Your Sobbing, You really got me and So Mystifying.
Fun fact: It has Jimmy Page on guitar and Jon Lord on piano.
September 15: The Kinks released Something Else in 1967
Something Else by The Kinks, often called just Something Else, is their fifth UK studio album. Two hit singles are included: “Waterloo Sunset” and “Death of a Clown”. In 2003, the album was ranked #288 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Something Else is sentimental (of course), sarcastic and hip but at the same time lush and romantic, it has some of the best songs Kinks ever recorded.
“No one can penetrate me. They only see what’s in their own fancy, always.”
– Ray Davies
Raymond Douglas “Ray” Davies, CBE was born 21 June 1944. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for The Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave. He has also acted, directed and produced shows for theatre and television.
Ray Davies is one of my favorite british songwriters, he really is up there with lennon/mccartney and jagger/richards. He is that good!
Ray Davies’ influence on british music is large and important. It really bacame vissible during the britpop period, but I can hear his way of talking about the english way of live in today’s pop and rap/hip-hop also. They might not know why they do it the way the do, but we do, it is the way Ray Davies thaught them through his songs .
While almost every other songwriter working in a rock band at the time was talking about altered states or sticking it to squares, Ray Davies developed a vocabulary of traditional English life, and even mocked Carnaby Street fashion on “Dedicated Follower of Fashion”. The Kinks were culture without the “counter” prefix, a rock band that anomalously acknowledged the dignity in the middle-aged woman who went out and bought a hat like the one Princess Marina wore, the one that adopted the mannerisms of music hall without pastiche or irony, the one that sang about tea and gooseberry tarts and favoring neighborhood life over new patterns of development.
– Pitchfork (Joe Tangari)
20 Century Man (Storytellers, vh1):
Awards
On 17 March 2004, Davies received the CBE from Queen Elizabeth II for “Services to Music.”
On 22 June 2004, Davies won the Mojo Songwriter Award, which recognises “an artist whose career has been defined by his ability to pen classic material on a consistent basis.”
Davies was also a judge for the third annual Independent Music Awards. His contributions helped assist upcoming independent artists’ careers.
Davies and the Kinks were the third British band (along with The Who) to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, at which Davies was called “almost indisputably rock’s most literate, witty and insightful songwriter.” They were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005.
On 3 October 2006, Davies was awarded the BMI Icon Award for his “enduring influence on generations of music makers” at the 2006 annual BMI London Awards.
On 15 February 2009, The Mobius Best Off-West End Production in the UK for the musical Come Dancing.
On 7 September 2010, Davies was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award at the GQ Men of the Year Awards.
On 26 October 2010, Davies was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at his AVO Session concert in Basel; the concert was televised internationally.
My fav Kinks song – Waterloo Sunset (live):
Here’s a great documentary about Ray Davies, The World From My Window (2003):
