A kung fu fighter in a disco

Ticked eleven on the first run through. Man, this was hard! I love some of these songs so much but CANNOT STAND 'Dedicated Follower Of Fashion' or 'Autumn Almanac'. They are two blights on an otherwise awesome back catalogue.

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I feel the same way about "Lola"!

I ticked "Victoria" cos of the Fall cover <--- LOL indie

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jauntyalan.livejournal.com

ditto and ditto. OMG. ha ha lex on holiday then?

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nicolars.livejournal.com

I almost ticked it, but I felt like I'd be too much of a Corny Indie etc. if I did.

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catsgomiaow.livejournal.com

Tho Victoria by Teh Fallz > Victoria by Teh Kinkz.

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haha SNAPX0r

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carsmilesteve.livejournal.com

so very indie...

having got it down to 8 decided that as ADAAOTN is the same song as YRGM it would haf to fall.

what's wrong with autumn almanac?

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It sounds like Brian Cant in an episode of Playschool!

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carsmilesteve.livejournal.com

and, bad thing why?

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koganbot

Did "Death Of A Clown" never chart? Or was the single under Dave Davies name?

Heavy Metal invention would go the Yardbirds, whom the Kinks were dedicatedly aping in many ways and who really were a lot heavier than the Kinks.

"Autumn Almanac" (what a weird choice for a single) does go all toothless and mumbly - I realize that that's deliberate, but still don't like it - but "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion" is hilarious, this giant twisting silly putty of a song. And as Chuck said, in stuff like that and "Sunny Afternoon" - bright, goofy, nasty - the Kinks were inventing a whole new way to hate.

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Death of a Clown and the bizarre Susannah's Still Alive ("she sleeps with the covers down hoping that somebody creeps in") were both Dave Davies, though they often appear on Kinks compliations.

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koganbot

"Death Of A Clown" was also on Something Else, a Kinks album proper (at least in the U.S.). "Mindless Child Of Motherhood" (!!!) is actually my favorite of the Dave songs. No, make that "I'm Not Like Everybody Else." Or "Love Me Till The Sun Shines." Or....

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...is a very good album indeed, and being bookended by Face to Face and Village Green Preservation Society only serves to show what a roll they were on artistically, even as their sales apparently dropped away. Funny Face is on it too, isn't it? Dave must have been in Ray's good books that year.

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koganbot

Yeah, "Funny Face," "Death Of A Clown," and "Love Me Till The Sun Shines."

I'm waiting for Dwight Yoakum or some other honky-tonk guy to cover "Harry Rag."

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skyecaptain.livejournal.com

So many favorites not on here! Would have ticked "Sunny Afternoon" in a flash. Really like "Autumn Almanac," though probably for the same reasons

koganbot hates it.

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skyecaptain.livejournal.com

OMG I just overlooked it. Vote switched.

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Nearly impossible to whittle down, but went by instinct. For me, no one in Britain could touch The Kinks in that 65-70 period for songs that were fully innovative pop, with clever lyrics and an interesting take on the world and crucially on sexuality. Their swings between full on rock, social commentary, near-novelty singalongs and wistful pop are the winding paths of a still almost unmatched career. I can't believe there are so few songs here, but that's the way it goes I suppose: everyone ought to own AT LEAST a Kinks best-of collection - better than any Beatles, Stones or Who record.

Better than virtually any other record, maybe.

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carsmilesteve.livejournal.com

is ray and damon crucifying "waterloo sunset" on the white room on youtube?

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I bet it is - it's even on a Ray Davies tribute album which is otherwise unimpeachable!

The only thing I can say for that performance is that when Ray Davies turns it into Parklife, Damon is visibly mortified for a second.

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Werk have unblocked Youtube for me!!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS4SMs1r6jo)

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nicolars.livejournal.com

Gah, I thought I had erased that from my memory.

Damon ruins everything.

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koganbot

Oh, and between '65 and '69 there were another thirty or forty Kinks songs just as good as these. And then Ray's melodicism and brain seemed to suddenly wink out. By '73, poof. I remember buying Preservation Act One and Goat's Head Soup within a week of one another and being stunned, two hero groups having taken themselves down to negligibility in an instant. (Wasn't utterly surprised, though, given that Dylan and the Airplane and sundry lesser heroes had already turned down their lights.)

"See My Friends" is actually a plural, though given that the friends are all imaginary and that the lyrics are about a million times more suicidal than that Sean Kingston thing, "See My Friend" isn't so inaccurate.

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Blame everyhit for the lack of plural there.

I first heard 'All Day And All Of The Night' covered by The Stranglers! I couldn't understand a word Hugh was saying ("Olé, an orrava-rye") but loved the tune. 'Till The End Of The Day', whilst grammatically reprehensible (Ray is not ploughing anything grrrr) I found brilliant for practising quick guitar chord changes. When I first heard it I couldn't believe any normal human could write a song that good.

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koganbot

"All Day And All Of The Night" (I ran out of ticks, apologies) has the matchless bit of bad diction: "The only time I feel all right is by your side." I remember my brother cringing when he first heard it.

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anatol-merklich.livejournal.com

'Till The End Of The Day', whilst grammatically reprehensible

Er? Till is absolutely correct here, I'm pretty sure?

until = 'til = till

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I am being 1x enormo-pedant, not to worry! Some people are more bothered by it than others (http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-unt1.htm).

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"Waterloo Sunset"'s lionisation during the Britpop years made me really sick of hearing it, though it's been a few years now since I have so maybe the aversion's faded. It would have felt like wilful contrarianism to not tick it though.

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jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

I managed to persuade myself there are 7 better Kinks songs. Probably would have been my 9th tick, however.

(btw what happened to the Pop Open reveals? I hope you're not waiting on me or something. I did send something to LOP gmail as promised on Wednesday evening)

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No, I got them fine! They'll be going up in a very short while. I would have put them up yesterday but I was working from home and my internet connection went wonky - thanks for doing them so promptly!

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koganbot

I do think "Waterloo Sunset" is slightly overrated (though easily in my top seven on this list). Not as forceful as it should be in its mini-rave-up, and in making the theme of "See My Friends" more explicit, it becomes somewhat pedantic (Ray did like to clonk you over the head with the irony pot, didn't he?). But gorgeous gorgeous melody, gorgeous gorgeous harmonies, a tendril of exquisite, dark smoke.

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I think Waterloo Sunset is my fourth or fifth favourite here. I think it is good enough that even Britpop couldn't kill it (unlike eg Imagine, which wasn't great to start off hence constant lauding of which made unbearable).

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koganbot

The Stones' "2000 Man."

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koganbot

The Kinks' "Milkcow Blues," which builds itself around a riff lifted from James Burton on the Ricky Nelson version! Both of which - well, not specifically, but the style, and "Smokestack Lightning" and "Susie Q" etc. would be just as pertinent - are in the ancestry of John Shanks' great riff in Ashlee Simpson's "Boyfriend."

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koganbot

And "Milkcow Blues" has Dave singing lead, so maybe that's the greatest Dave song.

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jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

= Low Budget (1979)

The follow up 1980 live LP, One For The Road is also great. Here's the best evidence to support Kat's claim that they invented metal.

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My 'sort of' claim! I was referring to the knifing up the amplifer business and popularising the distorted guitar sound.

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jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

erm, yes I know you were. My point was them doing that in 1980 at the height of NENWOBHM = case closed, m'lud.

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koganbot

The Doors "Hello I Love You"

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This seemed to get played a lot on TOTP2 (along with Bowie's 'Starman'). I can safely say I had NO IDEA it was the same band that did 'You Really Got Me'. What a difference a decade makes!

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Not even a decade! Six years... Compare that with the relative stasis of pop's contemporary high-water mark - Baby One More Time to Toxic, also six years apart.

Shows how quickly things were moving then, or how they've slowed down now.

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Indeed. I wonder if having more widespread colour telly had anything to do with it? :)

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Well the jump happens in the first three years of those six really - the gap between "Autumn Almanac" and "Lola" isn't huge to my ears.

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