The Kinks Albums From Worst To Best — stereogum.com

Sep 24th '14 by Timothy & Elizabeth Bracy @ 11:59am17 Comments In some ways, the story of the Kinks feels familiar: In 1962, four working-class London teenagers besotted with American R&B and country music unite. Their initial creative exertions hold a thrilling mirror back to their inspirations overseas, supercharging the sounds of Little Richard, Hank Williams, and the Ventures with the riveted anxiety of a post-war youth culture on the brink of full-blown combustion. Then there is the indelible, Old Testament-worthy tale of the Brothers Davies — Ray and Dave — two extraordinary talents whose nearly diametrically opposed personalities frequently brought them to blows or worse. These are the origin stories, the mythic ones, which condense real truths into easily accessible shorthand. However, as with everything pertaining to the Kinks, the actual truth is far weirder and more fascinating. It is a thirty-year story of personal and creative highs and lows worthy of the Dickens characters they often dressed as. It is replete with astonishing displays of depravation, cruelty, love, compassion, and need. Most of all, it is the strange, ever-contradictory tale of a band with a legitimate claim to being rock and roll’s all-time best, but who are rarely included in that conversation. In the fifty years since their inception, there is essentially no rock and roll-adjacent genre or subgenre over which the Kinks do not possess a legitimate claim as crucial progenitors: punk, heavy metal, American indie, Britpop, alt-country, glam, pub rock, you name it. Every last one owes a massive debt of gratitude to the boys from Muswell Hill.

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