Why don't I hear more about The Kinks? This album is years ahead anything The Beatles or the Stones had at the time

I’m a big Kinks fan but it’s impossible to discuss them here because the anti-beatles brigade are so obsessed about trashing the Beatles they can’t have a serious discussion about any other 60’s album without turning it into a dick measuring contest.

I used to listen to this alot and the extra songs were great (similar to the who's sell out record with those tracks). I didnt really like the tracklistong of village green though so my definitive version had a different tracklisting with a fair few tracks replaces with others not on the original LP. Cant remember what the tracklisting was though. Might have to look it up again. Great record though.

Prog and grunge are a bit of a stretch but there’s no doubt that the kinks were proto punk. The drums on this album sound live and are redlining the whole time, the kinks were one of the first bands to really distort the hell out of their guitars, and they got banned from America because all of their shows devolved into drunken arguing and eventually fighting

But it wasnt years ahead musically at all. I dont really hear the future genres in it that you noted. Wicked Anabella is abit dirty but other bands were making similarly dirty songs around the same time. Ill give you that its abit more of a concept album than sergeant pepper.

i disagree with this proto punk thing people say about bands. its not innovative to play simple aggressive music. there have been bands that have done it for as long as there has been music. yeah bands from the punk explosion are obviously going to be abit more influenced by bands that are more aggressive and simple, but those bands didnt really innovate or do anything first. Its natural to play music like that and a band playing like that doesn't necessarily make it a special influence or protopunk.

I have no idea what they sounded like live in those days. for instance the small faces were a pop band and they sounded like this live in 1966 youtube.com/watch?v=0VVqLj8uBpQ

in any case, many bands were fucking around with distorition and feedback and for the kinks it hardly sounded different on record than for dozens of other rock bands, I wouldn't call them proto punk on the base of "you really got me"

great album but
quite literally this

You could easily argue that it’s “better” than what the Beatles or Stones were doing, but it’s not “ahead” of anything in 1968, and that’s by design. The entire theme is nostalgia for old fashioned England and the reason it didn’t sell when it was released was because it wasn’t even trying to be ahead of its time like all the other pop albums.

Great album literal 10/10

Don't just go off of You Really Got Me. They got a subversive streak that carries across albums. Village Green is calling out what England was becoming. Muswell Hillbillies takes on posers acting like they live the life of the country music they love when they've never even been to the American west.

Playing loud and aggressive is one thing, playing it proficiently. You wouldn't have The Clash, The Jam, The Ramones without the Kinks

Musically, maybe so, but conceptually that alone is novel in a music scene that chases the new pop trend or covers the same Muddy Waters songs. Subverting the charts

You Really Got Me is one of those watershed moments in music history. Nobody in 1964 sounded like that, Can't Explain basically is a riff on it and the Stone started dirtying up their sound (which was basically just r'n'b and blues) after You Really Got Me. Sure some unknown garage band was probably playing heavy metal in bumfuck wisconsin, but You Really got Me topped the charts.

The rest of the influence of Kinks is limited to mostly only Uk-bands (for obvious reasons) and mostly in that witty, lavishly arranged pop-rock, stuff like XTC, Blur, The Jam, but even David Bowie surely has ti pay something back to Ray Davies.

The prog influence I just don't agree, prog was an offshot of the psychedelic culture of dilating the rock song formula (something wich the Kinks stereed quite far from), plus some peculiarly british post-Beatles baroque pop (Stuff like The Nice, Procol Harum)

You and several others are right, prog is a stretch, I just keep humming Mr Blue Sky to the piano intro on Do You Remember Walter, but a riff isn't enough to call it influence. A Day In The Life by the Beatles has a similar piano riff as well

>You wouldn't have The Clash, The Jam, The Ramones without the Kinks

Im sure thats true but I wouldnt say that means that the Kinks are protopunk. Anyone in music inevitably grew up listening to and liking past bands that would influence, but I dont think that means the Kinks had some especial essence of punk because a couple bands who liked them were punks.

eh well their sound wasnt ahead but it didnt necessarily sound old. I dont feel like thats related to them not selling well on this album. Something else also didnt sell that well either. Maybe they were just seen more as a singles band then I dunno.

Who would you consider protopunk? I think of it as a time frame of one band paving the way for another. Butterfly effects that branch off into different subgenres. It's not like Joe Strummer heard the Kinks and immediately came up with London Calling, but there would be no London Calling without Joe Strummer having heard the Kinks

Tons of classic albums weren't big sellers. The market was largely singles as it was, you can't gauge it's importance by where it got on the charts

Kinks are my favourite band but the reason they're not talked about enough is because once people know them, it's pretty hard to argue that their albums are GOATest. So it just becomes people circlejerking about Ray Davies being "modern shakespeare" which might be true but it's not that interesting to talk about. If you wanna know why this album is the greatest - it's cos it's the only album of the 60s that dares to look back in time, not forward.

If you like the kinks especially this album, listen to the pub band generation lindasfarne or housemartins...if you like the theme of the album try looking at tea for the tillerman.

Why is every Kinks thread derailed with discussion about The Beatles. I don't listen to much The Kinks, but Sunday Afternoon is most soulful song from that Psych Pop era.

yeah fuck those sellout fakes beatcucks and rolling cucks the kinks is where it's at

>grunge, punk, prog
lol what

Yeah but Im just saying that Kinks inspiring Joe Strummer makes them protopunk anymore than Ravi Shankar is protopsychedelic. Theres no such thing as proto-punk. Theres no reason why punk should be the centre of gravity to define any of those bands. It seems to me that literally anything abit subversive is labelled protopunk.

All I said was that I didnt think its sound was why it didnt sell well. Not sure what you think I implied.

I agree it shouldn't sum up the band entirely but it's fair to say they're proto-punk along with many other labels. It's not ALL they are, but it is part of what they are. Iggy & The Stooges - garage rock, but Iggy's the godfather of punk for a reason

I hear heaps of punk in You Really Got Me.
Lots of people consider The Kinks and The Who proto-punk.
Though really I think The Stooges were the first band other than MC5 to truly capture a punk sound.