The Kinks' diminishing importance over time?

the beetles

 

Thank goodness !!

 

You want a full blown analysis?

O.K. Here goes.

Let's start at the beginning. Ray Davies is not and never has been as cool in a wide scale sense as JL, PM, GH, MJ, the two Keith's RD and JE. His closest parallel on this scale would be PT but he's less troubled than Pete therefore appears a lot less interesting.
He's not as loveable as RS who may have been less cool but I'm sure he's cooler than BW and CW.

The garage band kids may have loved Ray's songs but how did the feel about the band as individuals or more to the point, rock stars?

When Pete was writing his opera, it was about a deaf dumb and blind kid who became a life coach and guru, Ray's main subject was the death of the English way of life. Which is cooler to the typical teen at that time or anytime? PM had maybe one one song per album that the Grannies would love; Ray made a whole album for them and it's a pity they never heard it.

I haven't even brought up how the Kinks got banned from appearing live in America for beating the crap out of the Brother's Gallagher. This is my fantasy, let me roll with it.

Not sure when the ban was lifted or when the Pretenders Gallagher recovered, but when they switched record companies they were faced with a lot of minions that still thought Elvis was going to save the world. RCA not realizing that had they marketed Bowie correctly they would have had their cake and eat it too gave the Kinks a home for five years. More importantly, can you name a major band in the '70s who released that many mediocre albums in a row?

Every Kinks fan and the band themselves owe a huge bit of gratitude to, of all people, Clive Davis. The man basically told them to cut the bullcrap, and thankfully they did. This was the Kinks of my callow years and Ray was writing about Comic book Heroes rather than Celluloid ones. Actually, the celluloid ones were fairly abstract in my mind, but Captain America and Superman were concrete even though Ray dealt with them allegorically. Gallon of Gas may have been trite but it was reality.

To this day I love the live version of Lola as much if not more than I do the original.
Ray was playing the game and if he had done this all along we wouldn't having this thread now would we?

He then remade All of the Day and All of the Night and inserted Lola as the secondary lead. The other kids may have been singing, "Paranoia will destroy ya" I was singing "I'm not content to be with you in the daytime"

They then had a video that could have been made for any of their songs in 68-69 and staggeringly it became a hit. Then again Come Dancing is undeniably catchy. The problem is that MTV made everything seem disposable. That's another nail in the coffin..

After that they used the opening chord for A Hard Days Night and every time I heard it I thought the Beatles were coming on. Then they switched record companies again and basically disappeared. They made three studios and another live album. The average person wouldn't know that unless they looked on Wiki. They also wouldn't know they broke up either. That's how much they vanished.

How well are they thought of today by the average person who wasn't alive while they were a going concern can be quantified by streams. Seriously, can anyone look up the information about how many streams each of the big four had in the 2020? Right now that info would be majorly skewed. I'm sure the Kinks while in last place has some play in that arena.

I think if they put out a deluxe box of just about any of their albums from Face to Face to Muswell, and marketed it correctly, they may be surprised at how many they sell. I'm not talking the double discs like Castle / Sanctuary put out. I'm talking full out multiple versions of Waterloo Sunset and possibly a Blu-ray. Their Koch / Velvel SACDs sold fairly well I'm assuming. In this sense nobody was thinking big enough. Hell, it's the music geeks who buy these sets anyways. I know there was a "best-of" box released a couple of years ago but by that time I already rolled my own.

I don't know if this matters but the rock writers that were championing them (and the Who as well) were some of the ones I disliked the most, the Mendelssohn's and Marshes of the world.

This doesn't really began to measure their true importance though. As far as their contemporaries go in terms of influence, the Kinks share the cab of a pickup with the Beatles, the Stones and the Who. Who cares if I prefer the Yardbirds over them? I don't expect you to. The Yardbirds are sharing the bed of that pickup with the Animals, the Zombies and the Hollies, and the DC5 are holding on for dear life to the tailgate. Let's put it this way, the reason I have more Kinks studio albums than I do Who studio albums is simply because the Kinks released more albums. Do I like them more than the Who? Maybe or maybe not, but they are surely not less important.

All this being said, the chances of me making it through the 65 pages of a thread that refuses to die are pretty slim. I will try though.

 

I take it you never got off on that revolution stuff, what a drag

 

BTW I didn't mention the Kinks "Englishness". In a world where Harry Potter exists it is a moot point and it was before Harry snogged Cho and Ginny.

 

There were indeed mega boxes of VGPS, Arthur and the Lola album just as you posit on their respective 50th anniversaries in 2018. 2019 and 2020. The VGPS one in particular garnered fairly widespread acclaim and even restored them to the UK album charts with a non comp album for the first time in 51 years.

 

Dang, I still want those drugs. You're always cool by me Mark!

 

Let's not forget those anti garage rockers Herman's Hermits covered Dandy.
Just to highlight a Michigan band

 

This x 1000

 

This thread is good for bringing up more important groups than the Kinks. Please don't retire it.

 

Mate, if we always agreed it would be pretty dull

By the way, saying it is a lesser Beatles album for me, doesn't mean I don't like it

 

No importance
You Really Got Me is the first real proto-metal, and punk. It also introduced distorted guitar to the pop/rock scene in a major way.
See My Friends introduced a Raga styling to pop music before the Beatles... it actually very likely inspired The Beatles.
Face To Face was one of the first albums to use link tracks.... typically due to Pye, the band's idea was slightly hobbled......
Ray Davies is pretty much Pete Townshend's biggest inspiration.
The British punk/new wave bands all drew inspiration from the Kinks.
The Britpop movement is very much an extension of the Kinks, and Oasis and Blur would both label The Kinks as big influences.

It's fine to not like the band. It is even fine to hate the band, but their influence is far greater than you seem to acknowledge.

 

I had no idea, I remember seeing the 2 discs of Village Green. I never saw a box and I'm someone who frequents record stores more than just a little bit. It's a wonder I made it through 2020

 

I can say the same about Let it Be and many people seem to be thinking the same thing over 467 pages.

 

So the Kinks invented hard rock/metal with a cut up amp speaker. Fine. But why didn't they run with it instead of doing cynical soft rock stories about British society? They were important for about 15 minutes. They could have been important for years.

 

I did this same merry dance on this very thread with Chemically Altered 3 years ago… the kindest way I can put it is we had to agree to disagree. Another way I could put it is Kinks wise (for all I know he’s a fantastic poster when it comes to other music subjects) he has a history of being a thread crapper looking for attention and to wind people up.

 

I jumped into the last couple of pages (without reading the 64 or so prior) and had to scroll up to re-read the thread title after reading your post because I’d forgotten what the point was!

 

Link for the box here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kinks-Village-Green-Preservation-Society/dp/B07GJ397BS

 

Interesting deflection on why some edgier groups influences took off stateside with up and comers.

 

Just your post here supports my point. However it is just one of the things that contribute to the illusion that the Kinks have diminishing importance.

 

I looked on Discogs. Village Green isn't the one I'd get and to be honest it would be Face to Face and Something Else that would be instant purchases for me.

 

They were important, you just didn't like where they went ......

 

A lot of it is the reason Tom Petty stated:

 

Wow.

 

The Kinks would still be an important band if they called it quits after the American ban of 1965 or the Greatest Hits album of 1966.

And then there are the Golden Age Pye albums, which if you are honest, are as interesting as contemporary releases by the Stones, the Who, or even that phenomenon known as Los Beatles.

And then there is Lola. Incredible song in every way.

And then there are the idiosyncratic, eccentric and downright whacky concept albums/musicals of the RCA 70s. These are works inspired by genius, and if you are a citizen of Daviesland they are absolute works of genius. The kind of genius that transcends album sales and is beyond commercial success.

And then there is their "Comeback Period" on Arista. Personally, I find this period the least interesting, but the Legend of the Kinks becomes complete and full circle with this period. From revolutionary hitmakers, to outcast outsiders, to cult band, to successful cult band, to hitmakers once again. As biographer Jon Savage said, a "perfect career trajectory".