poptimists | The Friday Canon: THE KINKS

Entry tags:

canon

The Friday Canon: THE KINKS

These lads from Muswell Hill invented heavy metal! Sort of. Out of 21 UK Top 40 hits, you get to pick your favourite SEVEN....

[Poll #1028678]

Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry: (link)
1. Virginia Plain
2. Love Is The Drug
3. More Than This
4. Street Life
5. Dance Away
6. Let's Stick Together (Let's Work Together)
7. All I Want Is You
=8. Avalon
=8. Pyjamarama
10. Jealous Guy

OMD: (link)
1. Enola Gay
=2. Joan Of Arc
=2. Souvenir
4. Tesla Girls
=5. Maid Of Orleans (The Waltz Joan Of Arc)
=5. Messages
7. Genetic Engineering
8. So In Love
=9. (Forever) Live And Die
=9. Locomotion

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

Tho Victoria by Teh Fallz > Victoria by Teh Kinkz.

I feel the same way about "Lola"!

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

haha SNAPX0r

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It sounds like Brian Cant in an episode of Playschool!

"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....

and, bad thing why?

"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.

The Stones' "2000 Man."

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.

...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.

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)

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."

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!

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.

= 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.

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."

"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.

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

The Doors "Hello I Love You"

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

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).

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!

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

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

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.

Deserve more ticks:

"Till The End Of The Day": Crunches and crushes every bit as much as "All Day And All Of The Night" but has soaring melody and beauty besides.

"Dead End Street": Is plaintive and sorrowful and then suddenly it's electric and thrilling, inadvertently makes a fierce party out of despair. (That's true of scads and scads of rock 'n' roll, mind you.)

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

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.

Absolutely, making it an even more incredible transformation.

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.

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

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

until = 'til = till

OMG I just overlooked it. Vote switched.

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).

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

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

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

Damon ruins everything.

Lola deserves more ticks for being the greatest case of censorship ever. It's obviously about getting sexually involved with a transvestite, but the BBC banned it for mentioning Coca Cola, so they quickly rerecorded it to say 'cherry cola', and the BBC then happily played it.

Only rival: the BBC didn't ban Walk On The Wild Side because none of its senior people, nor the DJs keen on banning things, knew what "giving head" was.

I feel like I should possibly like The Kinks but I don't. I have yet to find one of their songs which doesn't immensely irritate me and neither, to be honest, have I ever heard anything by them which wouldn't be 800% better if done by The Wombles.

I suspect this makes me some kind of philestine but there you go.

well, there's no song on earth that couldn't be improved by The Wombles, so I'm with you up to a point ;)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

The Friday Canon: THE KINKS

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Waterloo Sunset

Greatest Kinks imitation

no subject

Something Else

Re: Waterloo Sunset

Greatest Yardbirds imitation

Re: Waterloo Sunset

Re: Waterloo Sunset

Sekrit best Kinks alBUM (after the first couple)

Re: Something Else

It's By Your Side Time

Re: Greatest Yardbirds imitation

Not so good Kinks imitation

Re: Sekrit best Kinks alBUM (after the first couple)

Re: Waterloo Sunset

Lola

no subject

no subject

Re: Lola

The two most underrated here

Re: Lola

Re: Lola

Re: Lola

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject