The kinks

From Punkopedia - The Punk, Hardcore, and Indie Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
[[Image:|200px]]
Music genre(s)
Homebase
Years active
Current Status
Notable Records
Label(s)
Website

Contents

[edit] History

(1963-1966) Formation and first years The Davies brothers were born at Muswell Hill, north London. Ray Davies (b. Raymond Douglas Davies, 21 June 1944; vocals/guitar/piano) studied to be a theatre director at Hornsey College of Art and gained experience in music as a guitarist with the Soho-based Dave Hunt Band in 1963. Ray and his brother Dave (b. 3 February 1947; guitar/vocals) had been playing skiffle and Rock & Roll together. Ray's Schoolmate Pete Quaife (b. 31 December 1943, Tavistock, Devon, England; bass/vocals) joined them and they formed a band (with Quaife's friend John Start on drums). The band went through a series of lead vocalists at this time, the most notable being Rod Stewart. Stewart performed with the group on at least one occasion in the spring of 1962 (when they were called The Ray Davies Quartet), but was soon dropped due to complaints about his voice from then-drummer John Start's mother as well as musical and personality differences with the rest of the band.

The band went under many names between 1962 and 1963 including "The Ray Davies Quartet", "The Pete Quaife Band", "The Bo-Weevils", and "The Ramrods", before the band settled on "The Ravens" in the summer of 1963 and recruited drummer Mickey Willet. A December 1963 audition with Philips Records ended in rejection, but eventually a demo tape landed in the hands of American record producer Shel Talmy, who helped them land a contract with Pye Records in early 1964. It was during this time that The Ravens changed their name to The Kinks. Before signing to the label, drummer Willet left the band. The Kinks invited drummer Mick Avory (b. Michael Charles Avory, February 15, 1944) to join the band after seeing his advertisement in the magazine Melody Maker. Avory's previous experience included one gig with the Rolling Stones, but his background was in jazz drumming.

The first single from The Kinks, "Long Tall Sally", was a cover of a Little Richard song, but because The Beatles had also covered it with enormous success, The Kinks' version was overlooked and failed to chart. The Kinks' version, though not without charm, suffered from an obvious splicing of different takes. Nevertheless, the band received a lot of publicity through the efforts of their managers Robert Wace, Grenville Collins, and ex-1950s showbiz star Larry Page. Their second single, "You Still Want Me", also failed, while ignominiously shifting a minuscule number of units.

The third single "You Really Got Me" entered the charts at No.1 in the UK and made the top 10 in the US, boosted by a performance on the UK television show Ready Steady Go!. With a loud, distorted guitar riff, achieved by Dave's slicing of the speaker cones in his Elpico amplifier (referred to by the band as the "little green amp"), which gave the song its signature, grittier guitar sound. "You Really Got Me" provided a blueprint for hard rock, and served as template for heavy metal. The group's fourth single, "All Day and All of the Night", another hard rock tune, was released late in 1964. It rose to No. 2 in the UK, and hit No. 7 in the US. In 1965, The Kinks recorded "Set Me Free", and "Tired of Waiting for you", featuring a repeated bass guitar riff on both songs.

The group released three albums and several EPs in the next 2 years. They also performed and toured relentlessly, which caused tension within the band. Some legendary on-stage fights erupted during this time as well. In the most notorious incident, at The Capitol Theatre, Cardiff, Wales in 1965, the normally placid drummer Avory hit Dave Davies with his hi-hat pedal and assaulted him on stage.Avory later claimed that it was part of a new act in which the band members would hurl their instruments at each other.

Following the summer 1965 American tour, the American Federation of Musicians refused permits for the group to appear in concerts in America for the next four years, cutting the Kinks off from the main market for rock music at the height of the British Invasion. Although neither the Kinks nor the Union gave a specific reason for the ban, at the time it was widely attributed to their rowdy on-stage behaviour.

The group made its first tour to Australia and New Zealand in January 1965 as part of a "package" bill that included Manfred Mann and The Honeycombs. A stopover in Mumbai, India on the way to Australia led Davies to write the song "See My Friends" (released as a single in July 1965). This was a prominent early example of crossover music and (along with The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood") was one of the first pop songs of this period to display a direct influence from the traditional music of the Indian subcontinent. According to Ray Davies' book X-Ray he was inspired to write "See My Friends" after hearing the songs of local fishermen during an early morning walk.

The band's stylistic changes were first evident in late 1965, with the appearance of singles like "A Well Respected Man", "Dedicated Follower of Fashion", and their third album The Kink Kontroversy. These demonstrated the progression in Davies's songwriting, from hard driving rock numbers towards social commentary, observation, and idiosyncratic character study, all with an increasingly English flavour. The satiric single, "Sunny Afternoon", was the biggest hit of the summer of 1966 in the UK, topping the charts.

Prior to its release, Ray Davies suffered both a nervous and physical breakdown from the pressures of touring, writing, and ongoing legal squabbles. He spent several months recuperating, during which he wrote several new songs and pondered about the band's direction. Quaife also left the band for much of 1966 after an automobile accident. After he recovered, he decided to step back from the band. Mick Avory's friend John Dalton replaced Quaife, but Quaife decided to return at the end of the year. This caused a little tension as Avory was more used to Dalton's style of playing.

"Sunny Afternoon" was a dry run for the band's Face to Face. One of the earliest concept albums, Face to Face displayed Davies' growing skill at crafting gentle yet cutting narrative songs about everyday life and people. One of the songs from the album, "Session Man", was written about notable session musician Nicky Hopkins, who often joined the band in the studio playing keyboards, mellotron, and harpsichord. Hopkins had first played with the band during The Kinks Kontroversy sessions the year before. He would play on the band's next two studio albums (and would also be featured on numerous live BBC recordings with the band) before joining The Jeff Beck Group in 1968.

The great social commentary single, "Dead End Street", was released at the time of Face to Face, and became another big UK hit. It failed in the US only reaching #73 in the Billboard

(1967-1972) 'Golden age' In May 1967, The Kinks returned with "Waterloo Sunset" (which reached No. 2 on the UK charts), an emotional single with the melancholic observer spying two lovers meeting and crossing over Waterloo Bridge in London. The song was rumoured to have been inspired by the romance between two British celebrities of the time- actors Terence Stamp and Julie Christie -[citation needed] though Ray Davies denied this in his autobiography. The songs on their enduring 1967 album Something Else By The Kinks expanded the musical progressions of Face to Face, adding English music hall influences to their sound. Dave Davies scored a major chart success with "Death of a Clown," co-written with Ray and recorded by The Kinks, but released as a Davies solo single (although confusingly also released on the Something Else LP). Later, the Rolling Stones would remark that Face to Face and Something Else were both serious influences on their own albums of the late 1960s.

After a disappointing commercial reception for Something Else, The Kinks rushed out a new single, "Autumn Almanac," which became another hit in the UK. But their next single, "Wonderboy", released in the spring of 1968, stalled at No. 36 and would be the band's first single not to make the Top Ten since their early covers.

Throughout 1968, Davies continued to pursue his deeply personal songwriting style, while at the same time rebelling against the heavy demands placed on him to keep producing commercial hits. At the end of June The Kinks released the single "Days," which made #12 in the UK. It was a Top 20 hit in several other countries in the summer of 1968 -- although it did not chart in the USA -- and it is also notable as the last recording made by the original lineup of the group.

Their next album, released in the autumn of 1968, is now widely regarded as a masterpiece, but at the time The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society failed to sell strongly. A collection of thematic vignettes of town life, it was assembled from songs written and recorded over the previous two years, but the album's deliberately understated production contrasted with the extravagant style then in vogue, and it did not have a popular single ("Starstruck" was released as a single in North America and continental Europe but failed to chart anywhere but Holland). Although it was commercially unsuccessful, Village Green was embraced by the new underground rock press, particularly in the US, where The Kinks' status as a cult band began to grow. Village Green is now widely considered one of the best rock records of the era. An album track, "Picture Book", was featured in a popular Hewlett-Packard television commercial in 2004.

Original bassist Peter Quaife resigned in March 1969 to form his own band Mapleoak, and was swiftly replaced by John Dalton. The American ban upon the band was finally removed that same year. Yet the band had to now adapt to an American concert scene that had changed radically in their absence — when The Kinks returned to the US their shows were at first held in smallish venues such as the Fillmore East. It would take several years of extensive touring in the US between 1969 and 1972 before the band developed a disciplined stage act that would generate positive reviews and draw crowds to larger concert venues.

Before their return to the US, The Kinks recorded another album - Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). As with the previous two albums, Arthur was soaked with British lyrical and musical hooks, having been conceived as the score for a proposed but never realised television drama. It was a modest commercial success and was particularly well received by music critics in America, where it was favorably compared to the rock opera Tommy by The Who. Much of the album was inspired by Ray and Dave's beloved sister Rosie, who had migrated to Australia in the early 1960s with her husband. Rosie was a significant musical influence on the brothers in their youth, and she inspired numerous Kinks songs, including "Australia", "Rosie Won't You Please Come Home" and "Come Dancing".

The band added keyboardist John Gosling to their permanent line-up while recording the follow-up to Arthur. Before that, veteran keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, along with Ray, had done most of the session work. Gosling debuted with The Kinks on "Lola" (1970), a clever account of a confused romantic encounter with a transvestite that became a hit in both the UK and the US. The song originally contained a reference to "Coca Cola", but the BBC refused to play it as this was considered a violation of their advertising policy. The single then had to be hastily re-recorded with the offending line changed to "cherry cola". The album Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One was their most successful since the mid-1960s. The album also featured the group's final UK Top 10 hit, "Apeman."

In 1971, the band released Percy, a soundtrack album to a film of the same name about a penis transplant. It is generally regarded as a lesser effort. The band's US label, Reprise, declined to release it in America, precipitating a major dispute that contributed to the band's departure from that label.

In 1971, the band's contracts with Pye and Reprise expired. Before the end of the year The Kinks signed a five-album deal with RCA Records and received a million dollar advance. This helped fund the construction of their own recording studio, Konk. Their debut for RCA, Muswell Hillbillies, was soaked with country influence and is often hailed as their last great record, though it failed commercially. A few months after the release of Muswell Hillbillies, Reprise released the double-album compilation The Kink Kronikles, which actually outsold Muswell Hillbillies.

1972's double album Everybody's in Show-Biz consisted of half studio tracks and half live tracks recorded during a two-night stand in New York's Carnegie Hall stand. The record featured the ballad "Celluloid Heroes" and the catchy "Supersonic Rocket Ship", their last UK Top 20 hit for over a decade. "Celluloid Heroes" was a bittersweet rumination on dead Hollywood stars in which Ray Davies admits that he wishes his life were like a movie, "because celluloid heroes never feel any pain/And celluloid heroes never really die." The album was a commercial failure in the UK, but more successful in the US. The record was a transitional piece between the band's early 1970s rock material and the theatrical incarnation in which they would immerse themselves over the next four years

(1973-1976) Theatrical incarnation In 1973, Ray Davies dived headlong into the theatrical style, beginning with the rock opera Preservation, a sprawling chronicle of social revolution, and a more ambitious — if less successful — outgrowth of the earlier Village Green Preservation Society ethos. In conjunction with the Preservation project, Davies expanded The Kinks' lineup to include a horn section and female backup singers, essentially reforming the group as a theatrical troupe. Preservation: Act 2 was the first project recorded at Konk Studio. From this point forward, virtually every Kinks studio recording would be produced by Ray Davies at Konk.

Ray's marital problems during this period would prove to adversely affect the band. Coupled with the band's abuse of drugs and alcohol and some members' antipathy for their new theatrical incarnation, the band's output remained uneven and their already wobbling popularity eroded further. Notable songs from this period include "Daylight", "Where Are They Now?", and "Sweet Lady Genevieve", as well as the more rock-oriented "Money Talks".

Preservation: Act 1, closer in spirit to vaudeville than to rock opera, was released in late 1973 amid generally poor reviews, although its live performances fared better with the critics. Preservation: Act 2 appeared in the summer of 1974 to a similar reception. Davies soon began another musical, Starmaker, this time for the Britain's Granada Television. After a broadcast with Ray Davies in the starring role and The Kinks as both back-up band and ancillary characters, the project eventually morphed into the thematically complex if uneven concept album The Kinks present A Soap Opera, released in the spring of 1975, in which Ray Davies fantasised about what would happen if a rock star traded places with a "normal Norman" and took a 9-5 job.

In 1976, The Kinks recorded their final theatrical work, Schoolboys in Disgrace, a backstory biography of Preservation's capitalist overlord Mr. Flash. Compared with the previous three albums, the songs on Schoolboys were more independent from the album's concept and featured a harder rock sound. With its funky beginning and emotive lyrics, "No More Looking Back" was considered a stand-out track by fans, and the straight ahead rocker "The Hard Way" became a Kinks concert fixture for the following decade. Some of the songs were performed at the Dutch Pinkpop festival, where a blind-drunk Ray Davies raced through an embarrassing golden oldies set, to the amusement of the equally inebriated crowd.

The Kinks signed with Arista Records in 1976, reborn with the encouragement of Arista's management as an arena rock band, stripped back down to a five-man core group.

Rock was also in a back-to-basics trend at this time, spearheaded by the Punk movement and the emergence of late 1970s "supergroups". One of the biggest bands of the time, Van Halen, achieved their breakthrough hit with an arena rock remake of "You Really Got Me", which in turn greatly boosted The Kinks' commercial resurgence. The band soon reappeared on the record charts in what would prove to be their most successful commercial period.

(1985-1996) Fall in popularity Word of Mouth was the last Kinks album for Arista Records. In early 1986, the group signed with MCA Records in the United States and London Records in the UK. Their first album for the new label, Think Visual, (1986) was a moderate success, and holds interest as a result of songs like the ballad "Lost and Found", "Working at the Factory," which equated making records with blue-collar life on an assembly line, and the title track, an attack on the very MTV video culture the band seemed to be enjoying so much during the earlier part of the decade. During the Think Visual sessions Mick Avory patched up his friendship with Dave Davies and played on Dave's composition "Rock 'N' Roll Cities". Avory was asked to rejoin The Kinks but declined, desiring a break from the non-stop schedule of recording, touring and performing. The Kinks followed Think Visual in 1987 with another live album, titled The Road, which was a mediocre commercial and critical performer. In 1989, The Kinks released UK Jive - an out and out commercial failure. MCA Records ultimately dropped them, leaving The Kinks scrambling to find a label deal for the first time in over a quarter of a century. Longtime keyboardist Ian Gibbons left the group during this period, disappointed with the band's sudden lack of success, and was replaced by Mark Haley.

In 1990, their first year of eligibility, The Kinks were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame alongside The Who, Simon and Garfunkel, The Four Seasons, The Four Tops, Hank Ballard and The Platters. Mick Avory and Pete Quaife were on hand for the award. When receiving the award Ray Davies looked out at the audience and said, "Seeing everybody makes me realise rock 'n' roll has become respectable. What a bummer." The prestigious induction, however, did not bring back The Kinks' stagnated career. In 1991, a compilation from the MCA Records period, Lost & Found (1986-1989) was released to fulfill contractual obligations and their MCA period officially ended. The band signed with Columbia Records and released the 5-song EP Did Ya, which, despite a new studio re-recording of the band's 1968 British hit "Days," failed to chart.

The Kinks' first album for Columbia, Phobia (1993), was released and recorded by the band as a four piece. Following the departure of Mark Haley after the bands sell out performance at the Royal Albert Hall, London, Gibbons rejoined for a US tour and again became part of the band. The record was critically well received, but yet again a commercial failure, only managing one week in the US Billboard chart at No. 166. As usual, no impression was made on the group's home country chart in the UK. The album contained a disproportionate contribution from Dave Davies and an at times overzealous heavy rock sound. But Phobia had moments of interest, including the call and response duet "Hatred," in which the Davies brothers sent up their fractious reputation as brawling brethren. One single, "Only a Dream" narrowly failed to reach the UK chart, climbing to No. 79. "Scattered", the album's final candidate for release as a single, was announced and TV and radio promotion followed, but the record could not be found in the shops. Several months later a small number appeared on the collector market.

Following this failure, the group was dropped by Columbia in 1994. In 1994 the band released the first version of the album To The Bone on their own Konk label in the UK, a live album recorded partly on the highly successful UK tours of 1993 and 1994, and in the Konk studio before a small invited audience. Two years later the band released a new improved double CD live set in the USA, still called To The Bone, which now consisted of two new studio tracks ("Animal" and "To The Bone") paired with effective new treatments of many old Kinks hits. The record drew respectable press but failed to chart in either the US or the UK. After the Hall of Fame induction, The Kinks decided to make some moves in the "unplugged" direction and softened their live performances, giving sensitive treatment to little-played songs from their early career such as the aforementioned "Days" and "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" from 1966.

In 1995, Dave Davies co-composed the soundtrack to horror filmmaker John Carpenter's remake of the 1960 alien invasion classic Village of the Damned.

The band's name and profile rose considerably in the mid 1990s, mainly due to the British rock boom called "Britpop" by the UK press. Several of the most prominent bands of the decade, including Blur, Pulp, Suede and Oasis, acknowledged The Kinks as a major influence on their careers and proclaimed themselves as among The Kinks' most admiring students. Blur frontman Damon Albarn and Oasis' chief songwriter Noel Gallagher especially stressed that The Kinks were one of the bands that made the biggest impact on their songwriting as well as their development as artists and musicians. Sadly, all these accolades made little difference to the commercial viability of the group. Rumours of a final break-up began to unfold.

Ray Davies took to his familiar role as a touchstone for yet another generation of British rockers, and acted as Britpop's "godfather" in a manner reminiscent of his relationship to The Jam and The Pretenders in the late-1970s. His intricate autobiographical novel X-Ray was published in early 1995, while the Britpop hysteria was at its peak in the UK. Not to be outdone, brother Dave Davies responded with his memoir Kink, published in the spring of 1996.

[edit] (1997-present) Disintegration and solo work The Kinks performed the last time in mid-1996. Band members are tight their own solo projects with Ray and Dave releasing acclaimed studio albums. Talk of a Kinks reunion has circulated (including an aborted studio reunion of the original band members in 1999), but both Ray and Dave Davies have shown little interest in playing together again. One of Ray's projects has included a choral work commissioned by the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, performed but never recorded.

Despite all the post-break-up activity (or lack of thereof), the old ties could still bind. In 1998, Ray Davies released the solo album Storyteller (a companion piece to his autobiographical novel X-Ray) which celebrated his old band and his estranged brother. Before becoming an album, Storyteller began life as a cabaret style show in 1996. Seeing the programming possibilities inherent in Ray Davies' music/dialogue/reminiscence format, the American music television network VH-1 launched a series of similar projects featuring established rock artists, titling their show "VH-1 Storytellers".

In the autumn of 2005, The Kinks were inducted into the "UK Music Hall of Fame", where all of the original band members were present again (indeed, they are now the only major British Invasion band whose original members are all still alive). The award was given by long-time Kinks fan and friend of Ray, The Who's guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend, who expressed his wishes to see The Kinks reunited in 2006.

In August of 2007 The Ultimate Collection, a compilation of material spanning the bands' entire career, reached #48 in the UK Top 100 album chart and #1 in the UK Indie album chart. 


Reunion

In January 2006 Ray Davies said for an interview for Rolling Stone that he had recently met with former bandmates, including Dave. Since the meeting, Ray is considering reforming the band for a reunion record. He said of the meeting: "I met them all again last week and we had dinner. I hadn't seen them all in ten years. And I realized there was a chemistry there. At the end of the day, bands can have fights, argue all the time, battle through mishaps, brawls and lawsuits, and still come out with a string of great albums.[10]

In October 2006 Ray Davies said that he was confident the two would work together again. He told BBC 6 Music: "I'm trying to track down my brother, see how he's doing. Maybe he could guest on a few tracks (Ray is recording his second solo album). But we'll see," as well as "I spoke to him before I went on my last tour in America, and he's really on the mend. He's playing again, so it's a good sign."

[edit] Discography

The Kinks (Released in the US as You Really Got Me) – 1964, #3 UK, #7 US
Kinks Size– 1965, #13 US
Kinda Kinks– 1965, #3 UK, #60 US
Kinks Kinkdom– 1965, #47 US
The Kink Kontroversy– 1965, #9 UK, #95 US
Face to Face – 1966, #12 UK,
Something Else by The Kinks – 1967, #35 UK,
The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society – 1968,
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) – 1969
Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One – 1970, #35 US,
Percy (soundtrack) – 1971
Muswell Hillbillies – 1971, #100 US,
Everybody's in Show-Biz1 – 1972
The Great Lost Kinks Album – 1973
Preservation: Act 1 – 1973, #177 US,
Preservation: Act 2 – 1974
Soap Opera – 1975
Schoolboys in Disgrace – 1976
Sleepwalker – 1977
Misfits – 1978
Low Budget – 1979, #11 US,
Give the People What They Want – 1981, #15 US,
State of Confusion – 1983
Word of Mouth – 1984
Think Visual – 1986
UK Jive – 1989
Phobia – 1993
To The Bone (1996) 


Live albums

1968 – Live at Kelvin Hall
1980 – One for the Road #14 US
1986 – Come Dancing with the Kinks*
1987 – Live: The Road*
1994 – To the Bone UK*
1996 – To the Bone US*
Note *: indicates an album that contains both live and studio tracks


Compilations 1966 Greatest Hits! #4 UK, #50 US,
1966 Well Respected Kinks #5 UK,
1967 Sunny Afternoon #9 UK,
1970 The Kinks ["The Black Album"]
1971 Hit Collection
1971 Kinks Greatest Hits
1971 Golden Hour of The Kinks #21 UK,
1972 The Kink Kronikles #94 US,
1973 Lola
1973 The Great Lost Kinks Album
1973 Golden Hour of The Kinks Vol. 2
1974 Lola, Percy and the Apeman Come Face to Face With the Village Green Preservation Society... Something Else
1975 The Pye History of British Pop Music: The Kinks
1976 The Kinks' Greatest: Celluloid Heroes
1977 The File Series: The Kinks
1978 20 Golden Greats #19 UK,
1980 Spotlight on The Kinks
1980 You Really Got Me
1980 Second Time Around
1981 Hit Station
1983 The Kinks Collection
1983 Candy From Mr Dandy
1983 Dead End Street: Kinks Greatest Hits
1984 20th Anniversary Box Set
1984 Kinks Kollectables
1984 The Kinks: A Compleat Collection
1984 The Kinks: A Compleat Collection - 20th Anniversary Edition
1985 Backtrackin': The Definitive Double-Album Collection
1986 Come Dancing With The Kinks: The Best of 1977-1986
1987 The Kinks Are Well Respected Men
1987 The Kinks Hit Singles
1988 Kinks-Size / Kinkdom
1989 25 Years - The Ultimate Collection
1989 Best of The Kinks 1964-65
1989 From 64 to 70
1989 PRT Collector
1989 The Kinks Greatest Hits
1989 The Ultimate Collection #35 UK,
1990 Fab Forty
1990 The EP Collection
1991 The Complete Collection
1991 You Really Got Me
1991 Lost & Found (1986-89)
1992 The Kinks
1992 The Kinks Story Vol. 1: 1964-1966
1992 The Kinks Story Volume 2: 1967-1971
1992 The Kinks - The Collection
1992 The EP Collection Vol. Two
1993 Gold (Greatest Hits)
1993 The Definitive Collection: The Kinks Greatest Hits #18 UK,
1994 Preservation - A Play in Two Acts
1994 The Best of: 20 Classic Tracks
1994 You Really Got Me: The Very Best of The Kinks
1995 The Story of the Kinks
1995 Tired of Waiting for You
1996 The Kinks
1997 Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 Pop Legends
1997 The Very Best of: 25 Original Recordings
1997 The Singles Collection
1998 God Save The Kinks, Vol. 1
1998 God Save The Kinks, Vol. 2
1998 God Save The Kinks, Vol. 3
1998 Limited Edition Compilation: Music From the First Four Velvel Reissues
1998 It's The Kinks
1998 Limited Edition Compilation 2
1998 The EP Collection
1999 Greatest Hits
1999 Limited Edition Compilation 3
2000 You Really Got Me: The Best of The Kinks
2000 The EP Collection Vol. 2 (box set)
2001 The Marble Arch Years
2002 The Ultimate Collection #1 UK indie (2007)
2005 The Pye Album Collection (10 CD box set)

Singles

Release date Title Chart Positions
UK Singles Chart US Billboard Hot 100 US Mainstream Rock Australia Belgium Canada Germany Netherlands New Zealand Sweden 7 February 1964 "Long Tall Sally" #1291
17 April 1964 "You Still Want Me"4 4A
4 August 1964 "You Really Got Me" #1 #7 #2 #4 #39 #23 #11
23 October 1964 "All Day and All of the Night" #2 #7 #18 #12 #22 #17 #18
15 January 1965 "Tired of Waiting for You" #1 #6 #24 #3 #27 #18 #6
19 March 1965 "Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy" 2 #17 #28
May 1965 "Set Me Free" #9 #23 #2 #12
30 July 1965 "See My Friends" #10 #111 #26 #19
14 August 1965 "Who'll Be the Next in Line"2 #34 #25
19 November 1965 "Till the End of the Day" #8 #50 #25 #34 #4 #3
October 1965 "A Well Respected Man" #13 #18 #20 #8 #3
25 February 1966 "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" #4 #36 #13 #11 #11 #1 #1 #6
March 1966 "Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight"5 #7
3 June 1966 "Sunny Afternoon" #1 #14 #12 #14 #1 #7 #1 #2 #2
November 1966 "Dandy"5 #2 #1 #3
18 November 1966 "Dead End Street" #5 #73 #11 #28 #5 #5 #4 #12
5 May 1967 "Waterloo Sunset" #2 #6 #8 #7 #1 #7 #14
1967 "Death of a Clown" 7 #3 #31 #5 #3 #2
1 July 1967 "Mr. Pleasant" 6 #80 #3 #12 #2
13 October 1967 "Autumn Almanac" #3 #5 #13 #6 #17
January 1968 "Susannah's Still Alive" 7 #20 #18 #27 #10 #18
5 April 1968 "Wonderboy" #36 #29 #6
28 June 1968 "Days" #12 #17 #28 #7 #11
July 1968 "Lincoln County"7 4 #15
January 1969 "Starstruck"6 #13
January 1969 "Hold My Hand"7 4
28 March 1969 "Plastic Man"4 #31 #17
20 June 1969 "Drivin'"4
July 1969 "The Village Green Preservation Society"3
12 September 1969 "Shangri-La"4 #27
12 December 1969 "Victoria" #33 #70 #57 #33
12 June 1970 "Lola" #2 #9 #4 #2 #2 #1 #1 #5
20 November 1970 "Apeman" #5 #45 #5 #19 #9 #14 #5
April 1971 "God's Children" #53 #21
December 1971 "20th Century Man"3 #106 #89
5 May 1972 "Supersonic Rocket Ship" #16 #111 #29
24 November, 1972 "Celluloid Heroes"
April 1973 "One Of The Survivors"3 #108
June 1973 "Sitting In The Midday Sun"
21 September 1973 "Sweet Lady Genevieve"
16 November 1973 "Where Have All The Good Times Gone"4
April 1974 "Money Talks"3
July 1974 "Mirror Of Love"
November 1974 "Preservation"3
November 1974 "Holiday Romance"4
April 1975 "Starmaker"3
1975 "Ducks On The Wall"4
1975 "You Can't Stop The Music"4
January 1976 "I'm In Disgrace"3
1976 "No More Looking Back"4
2 April 1977 "Sleepwalker" #48
1977 "Juke Box Music"
December 1977 "Father Christmas"
22 July 1978 "A Rock 'N Roll Fantasy" #30 #30
1978 "Live Life"
1978 "Black Messiah"4
28 April 1979 "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" #41 #71 #43
1979 "Moving Pictures"4
1979 "Pressure"4
August 1979 "A Gallon Of Gas"3
September 1979 "Catch Me Now I'm Falling"3
30 August 1980 "Lola (Live)" #81 #69 #1
October 1980 "You Really Got Me (Live)"3
October 1981 "Predictable"4
31 October 1981 "Destroyer" #85 #3 #35
28 November 1981 "Better Things" #46 #92 #12
19 November 1982 "Come Dancing" #12 #6 #17 #36 #6 #25 #18
20 August 1983 "Don't Forget to Dance" #58 #29 #16 #20 #38
August 1984 "Good Day"4
December 1984 "Do It Again" #41 #4
March 1985 "Summer's Gone"3
November 1986 "Rock 'n' Roll Cities"3 #37
22 December 1986 "How Are You"
1987 "Lost and Found" #37
1991 Did Ya EP #48
January 1997 The Days EP #35

Note 1: "Long Tall Sally" did not chart in the US until late 1964, after several other Kinks singles had charted.
Note 2: "Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy" and "Who'll Be The Next In Line" were respectively the A-side and B-side of a UK/European single. This single was released several months later in North America, with the A-side and B-side reversed.
Note 3: U.S. releases. "The Village Green Preservation Society", "20th Century Man", "One Of The Survivors", "Money Talks", "Preservation", "Starmaker", "I'm In Disgrace", "A Gallon Of Gas", "Catch Me Now I'm Falling", "You Really Got Me (Live)", "Summer's Gone" and "Rock 'n' Roll Cities" were US single releases. While some of these were also released as singles in other territories, none of these were released as singles in the UK.
Note 4A: UK releases. "You Still Want Me", "Lincoln County", "Hold My Hand", "Plastic Man", "Drivin'", "Shangri-La", "Where Have All The Good Times Gone", "Holiday Romance", "Ducks On The Wall", "You Can't Stop The Music", "No More Looking Back", "Black Messiah", "Moving Pictures", "Pressure and "Good Day" were all UK/European releases, and were not released as singles in the US.
Note 4B: "You Still Want Me" was the intended second U.S. single, backed with You Do Something To Me. Both of these tracks, along with both sides of their first U.S. single, were issued as a bootleg EP with very little value.
Note 5: European releases. "Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight" and "Dandy" were released as singles in continental Europe only.
Note 6: "Mr. Pleasant" and "Starstruck" were released as singles in continental Europe and North America only.
Note 7: "Death Of A Clown", "Susannah's Still Alive", "Lincoln County" and "Hold My Hand" were solo singles initially credited to Dave Davies. All have subsequently been reissued as Kinks tracks on various Kinks albums.

[edit] Members

Current Members:
Past Members:

[edit] Other Projects

  • Ray Davies was awarded the rank of Commander of the British Empire, or CBE (the rank below Knighthood), by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004, for "services to music." On January 4 of that year, Ray Davies was shot in the leg while pursuing a thief who had snatched the purse of his companion in the French Quarter of New Orleans. This experience influenced the writing of his first official solo album (which he had begun to work on in the late 1990s). Titled Other People's Lives, the album was released in early 2006 to critical acclaim. Populated by Kinky character studies, though somewhat more musically eclectic than the band's late period albums, Other People's Lives suggested that Davies' musical instincts were slightly more wide-ranging when released from his brother's heavier-rock lead guitar histrionics. Despite widespread praise, many critics noted the absence of the old Davies-Davies-Avory ragged glory on some of the more full-out rock compositions. Amazingly, 'Other People's Lives' gave Ray Davies his first top 40 album chart success in the UK for almost 40 years. As of 2007, Ray is preparing to release his second full solo album in October 2007 with the title Working Man's Cafe.
  • While a member of the band Dave Davies released three solo releases: his self-titled Dave Davies in 1980 and the less successful Glamour in 1981 and Chosen People in 1983. After The Kinks' demise, he toured and released solo albums, such as Purusha and the Spiritual Planet (1998), Fortis Green (1999), and Fragile (2001). In 2003 Dave Davies released the critically acclaimed concept album Bug, based in Davies' belief that he was contacted telepathically by space aliens in the 1970s (the incident is also the subject of "True Story", a track from Chosen People). On June 30, 2004 Davies suffered a stroke in an elevator at the London offices of the BBC, where he had been promoting Bug. Davies was hospitalised and released shortly afterward, though he is still recovering as of early 2007. Davies released a new studio album, Fractured Mindz, in January of 2007.
  • Since leaving The Kinks in 1984, Mick Avory has engaged in little session work or touring. However, he remains a manager of the Konk Studios and keeps in touch with the Davies brothers. Avory, along with former Kinks' supporting players John Dalton and John Gosling, perform in Europe as The Kast Off Kinks (with non-Kink singer/guitarist Dave Clarke). They are occasionally joined by Ray Davies' first wife Rasa (who replicates the back-up vocals she contributed on Kinks tracks of the mid-to-late 1960s) as well as Pete Quaife. In 2004 Avory joined a "supergroup" of 1960s British pop veterans called The Class of '64 (the name refers to the year of the British Invasion music breakthrough). Besides Avory, the line-up consists of Chip Hawkes from The Tremeloes, Eric Haydock from The Hollies, and features guitarists "Telecaster" Ted Tomlin and Graham Pollock. The band tours internationally and has recorded both an album of hits from the primary band members' pasts and an original single. In 2007 the band members of Haydock, Avory, Pollock and Tomlin left the band and then brought in Martin Lyon of Love Affair and are currently touring under the new name of THE LEGENDS OF THE SIXTIES.

[edit] Links

[[Image:|200px]]
Music genre(s)
Homebase
Years active
Current Status
Notable Records
Label(s)
Website

[edit] History

[edit] Discography

[edit] Members

Current Members:
Past Members:

[edit] Other Projects

[edit] Links

Retrieved from "http://www.punkopedia.com/content/The_kinks"
Personal tools