Kinks

During the '60s, The Kinks recorded brilliant song after brilliant song, but in the early '70s they got caught up in the rock opera craze and lost a lot of steam. Last time I saw them perform (at The Roundhouse, London 1977)  they seemed old and tired.

The best band of their time, they kept coming back and kept being great. Despite the inner turmoil, they always produced great singles and most of the albums are filled with hidden gems. For all these years, no band has been as consistantly brilliant.

I quite enjoy the Kinks.

The Kinks were part of the original British Invasion, are members of the R&R; HOF, and the creators of a ton of great songs.  And here is a brief list:  "Tired of Waiting for You", "Well Respected Man", "Dedicated Follower of Fashion", "Sunny Afternoon", ""Victoria", "Lola", "Waterloo Sunset" and "Autumn Almanac".

Cool music

To quote The Kinks: "Holes in my socks and I can't find my shoes. It's no surprise that I'm singing the blues." It's the first thing I thought of :) I love this band, though.

I love the kinks so i should know that ray is the lead singer and dave is the lead guitarist though some times it does seem the ther way around (except the guitar part).

I am a great fan of The Kinks. Ray Davies is acknowledged by many of his contemporaries and critics alike as one of the finest songwriter/lyricists. Pete Townshend of The Who cites Dave Davies'guitar riff on You Really Got Me as influencing The Who. Davies wrote songs which addressed what he saw as the fickleness of fame, The absurdity and importance placed on fashion, overblown egos and self importance of those within the music industry. He also wrote about issues which affected the British working class, and was possibly the first pop artist to write a hit song about a transvestite (Lola). Quintessentially English, The Kinks never did crack America in the way they should have. Their back catalogue contains many outstanding songs: "Waterloo Sunset", "Days", "Supersonic Rocket Ship", "Celluloid Heroes", All Day and All Of The Night (blatantly ripped of by The Doors: Hello, I love You), Apeman,Dedicated Follower Of Fashion",Dead End Street,Sunny Afternoon and See My Friends, to name but... Read more

As a part of the generation that grew up having nightmares about attacks by thermonuclear weapons, I always appreciated the Kinks for its faux calypso song. "Apeman," "I think I'm sophisticated 'Cause I'm living my life like a good homosapien But all around me everybodys multiplying Till they're walking round like flies, man. So I'm no better than the animals sitting in their cages In the zoo, man 'Cause compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees I am an ape man I think I'm so educated and I'm so civilized 'Cause I'm a strict vegetarian But with the over-population and inflation and starvation And the crazy politicians I don't feel safe in this world no more I don't want to die in a nuclear war I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an ape man I'm an ape man, I'm an ape ape man I'm an ape man, I'm a king kong man, I'm ape ape man I'm an ape man 'Cause compared to the sun that sits in the sky Compared to the clouds as they roll by ... Read more

The single most underrated of all of the British Invasion acts, and while some of their later music was a bit generic, their astonishing records of the 60's and early 70's were some of the best of that timeframe. This act has at least a hundred 4 to 5 star tunes that aren't even played on mainstream radio, and in Ray Davies they simply had one of the all-time best and deepest lyricists in rock history.

First of all: Ray Davies sings, Dave Davies plays lead guitar. Jim Morrison and Lou reed looked up to the songwriting skills of Ray Davies and rightly so. Ray Davies can portray characters in a song a breath them to life with a few simple words, and a few simple chords. But who can forget Dandy, Mr. Pleasant, Walter, Johnny Thunder etc.? To me Ray Davies is one of the greatest songwriters ever.

One of the most underappreciated, underrated, bands ever. Their garage rock definitely invented Punk. Their 70's concept albums deserved a better response.

Another band I listened to a lot during my high school years. It was easy to be disenchanted with all the modern music groups of that era!(the 80s)Maybe I should go get this cd...

a great rock band and a fantastic singles group. some of their mid-60's tunes outsdue the Beatles and The Stones. Brilliant very British Rock. I'm a big fan of late 60's Kinks, Village Green Kinks.

great group in their day, different sound that stood out from the rest.....

half of their songs were great and the other half were just hard to follow

The Kinks were the least heralded of the main four acts of the British Invasion; however, there were legitimate reasons for this. They were not as consistent as the Beatles, they were not as diverse as the Rolling Stones, and they were not as Americanized as the Who. Nevertheless, neither the Beatles nor the Who created as basic and popular, short, core guitar riffs that still remain the envy of contemporary artists today (eg You Really Got Me and Lola), though the Stones have these in spades. The Kinks were handicapped in large part because the group was banned from entering the United States from 1965 to 1969, resulting in the Kinks being more British than the other British Invasion acts. The Davies brothers were also more fun and whimsical in their songwriting than Lennon and McCartney (for instance) which made the Kinks strictly a singles band (notwithstanding their largely failed attempts at a few rock operas). This would suggest that the casual fan should be easily satisfied... Read more

a great band that started punk rock

The Kinks were the shizbamnittle.

The most underrated group of the British Invasion the work through the 60's and early 70's was very good.We all should have a Waterloo Sunset.

Tragically under-rated band, probably because of only just a few breakthrough radio hits in North America. Their musical catalogue is worth re-discovering, and Ray Davies should rank right up there with Lennon-McCartney and Jagger/Richards.

My brother had to drag me to go see them live in the mid 80s. It was a tremendous show. Love em.

What was the appeal of these guys!!? They couldnt play, sure as hell couldn't sing they were ugly, and basically just not talented. The one thing they may have had was energy in a kind of half baked punker way but I still cannot keep from changing the channel when I hear them. AS a musician I try to find something somewhere but these guys just plain suck and always will.

All Day and All of the Night, You Really Got Me, LOLA, a great band all-around.

From garage-rock to quirky rock, they've always been good & interesting. If only VH1 showed more "Where Are They Now?" episodes about the Kinks and other artists that we actually care about (they tend to show more episodes about the insignificant one-hit wonders.) "Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls, it's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, except for Lola..."

Great band all around!

Classic band.

creative, witty, innovative.

Some of you kids, have to research what decade these bands succeeded in. What happened is rock started to die. First came the theatrical bands, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of invention, Alice Cooper,Kiss etc. Then the priority of music was to be loud, the more watts the better. Some where along the line the muscians started telling you they were great, instead of the fans. Then the coup de grace for rock and roll was Woodstock and the video. Woodstock brought the commerical profits of concerts,(tickets for the original site at Woodstock, 3 days cost 18 dollars it was at Walkill, N.Y.) then of course the video, were you decided if you liked music by wathcing it instead of listening to it. It is why music is in such dire straits today.

O.K. so they peaked more than three decades ago. Wow they wrote so many great songs that are totally forgotten now.

What happened to this band? It seems like other "classic rock" bands of the 70's and 80's, like the Doors, Who, Stones, etc, were still able to fill stadiums into the 90's, while the Kinks started playing barbacues and stuff.

Great lyrics, interesting concept albums, excellent in concert as well.