The music of Ray Davies and the Kinks may be one of most undeserved gifts bestowed on America. Our reaction to the Kinks was abysmal, once you consider the quality of the music that the band presented. In actuality, England didn’t show the band much appreciation either. A lesser band surely would have given up the ghost in the face of such ignorance, but the Kinks plodded on…and on and on and on, outlasting 98% of their contemporary competition.

Why was America so late to the game for appreciating a catalog of songs that, in retrospect, is one of the most consistently excellent of any band, English or otherwise? You could blame any number of things, but most likely it’s a combination of overtly English subject matter, a nearly willful self-destructive streak, and plain old bad luck. Songs about “Afternoon Tea” or “Harry Rag” (Cockney slang for ‘fag’ or cigarette, thus a song about tobacco addiction) could not resonate with an audience incapable of deciphering the author’s intent, and the Davies brothers practically invented the storied legacy of warring siblings, but it surely could not have helped matters that the Kinks found themselves banned from entering America, or even appearing on television.

Inter-band arguments were legendary in the Kinks, and not limited exclusively to Ray and Dave Davies. During one live performance in Australia, a violent exchange between Dave and drummer Mick Avory actually caused Avory to flee the scene, thinking that he had actually murdered Davies during the ‘performance’ (in actuality, he knocked him unconscious with his hi-hat stand, resulting in numerous stitches to the head). Such antics led the American Federation of Musicians to prevent the band from entering the United States. Looking back, it’s not so hard to understand that America could have been so narrow-minded and insular, as it’s obviously difficult to appreciate something that you don’t know.

The violence associated with the Kinks stands in direct contradiction to the gentle, introspective nature of “Something Else”. Taken as a whole, the refined brilliance in these pop songs is nothing short of stunning. “David Watts,” “Death of a Clown” and “Waterloo Sunset” are compact mini-masterpieces of songwriting. Each deserved to be a hit in its own right, but the album’s real strength comes from its overall consistency. The band abandons the ‘stomp-rock’ energy of their earliest hits, opting for observational vignettes with vivid characters. “Two Sisters” and “Situation Vacant” are stunningly concise and yet descriptive and fully realized, like reading a collection of short stories. Over the course of thirteen tracks, the quality never sags. The Kinks may have been neglected in the late sixties, but they never sounded better.

September 1967 - Billboard Charted 153