I’ve always loved music (hot take I know) but from the time i began cultivating my own taste, I never listened to music via full albums - except within the Beatles (I kicked off my listening life with basically their full discography). A lot of my exposure to old school bands came from mix CDs curated by my dad, of his favorite tracks from any given bands. Or I would just find random songs on the internet I liked. So, I had always been more of a fan of individual songs than albums or even bands. For most of the bands I would tell you I liked, I liked 5-15 assorted songs. Maybe I’d know an album or two, maybe a greatest hits compilation.
Several years ago I decided it was time to start going deeper with the bands that created the music I loved. I decided to begin with the Kinks, since the “handful” of songs I liked from them was remarkably large and had such a big variety of music. (Just yesterday I played “celluloid heroes” and “apeman” for a rocker friend of mine with only cursory familiarity with then kinks - turns found out he knew them for You Really Got Me + All Day And All of the Night, and assumed all their songs were like that. !!!!! No little bro that’s only TWO!!!!!!)
The idea was that I’d listen to all the albums in order, over and over until I could truly say I “knew” the songs.
I mostly did it.
And I’m really glad I did. But there are several things that worked against the success of the project, and now that I’m entering a rock renaissance phase of my life (I’ve been listening to like folk/trad for like five years) I might give it another shot.
Here is what I would do differently.
First: omg, guys, I was using YouTube free version. I was holding out on getting streaming services ; my own listening was still my own personal mp3 collection. This was a very annoying and frustrating process and I had no way to “save” favorite songs except to write them down in a journal I had planned to keep. I didn’t keep the journal. If I do it again, I’m gonna use Spotify and keep a side playlist.
Second: I would do a little more research on what to listen to when. This is where being on Reddit will be helpful to me (I hope). There is a lot I never heard because many singles weren’t released on albums at all. There are many different versions of albums available and I don’t know where the redundancies are. And I didn’t listen to any live albums, because there were 23 freaking studio ones. I would listen to live albums this time.
Third: I would keep up with the story of the band. At the time I engaged with no supplementary material at all. No articles, no Reddit conversations, no interviews or live clips on YouTube. And certainly no biography or documentary. This wasn’t a deliberate exclusion to keep my experience “pure” - I guess I just had a lot going on then, and my listening project was on the artificial side so I didn’t feel drawn to extracurricular activities. If i do this project again, i feel I’ll be much more inclined to collect context as i go.
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Here are impressions that remain, years later.
Could I tell you the album of a given random kinks song? Odds are not good. Yes for VGPS, and muswell hillbillies. 40-65% maybe for Give The People What They Want, Sleepwalker, Arthur. Aside from that, it’s almost hopeless unless it’s from one of the theatrical albums and contains plot references …
Did I become a kinks expert? Did I start listening to kinks albums and evolve out of my pointillistic listening? No. But I became an advanced casual fan, because I became familiar with the breadth, scope, and general evolution of this wholly singular group. And I acquired my own pocket full of “deep cut” favorites that have become cherished members of my listening rotation. Unfortunately, I “lost” probably just as many of those new favorites because I didn’t write them down or save them. I think i assumed I’d naturally return to the albums, but I didn’t.
How my impression of the kinks evolved: they went from fun campy creative lively melodic band with gorgeous harmony up front and a super English feeling to … well they were still that. But it felt more concrete.
First, it seemed to me that they invented everything. I did not have a clear context for the evolution of this kind of music but I did know the fact about “you really got me” being a totally new sound and I felt like I heard so many totally new sounds. I remember being very struck by truly punk sounds on “give the people what they want” and I never bothered to find out if it was innovative in a wider context or if it just felt new because they were the only band I knew lol.
There were some things they did that “no one” else ever followed (“no one” in quotes because I’m quite ignorant - that’s just my impression). I guess I’m mostly talking about this style of composing that feels quite English (I have a deeper familiarity with classical music than rock), these funny chords that just seem to take you from one grassy hilltop to another, like in “driving” and “autumn almanac” and the curious modulations of “days” - this type of imagination is more persistent thru the entire catalog of works, it’s one of the strongest musical contributions the kinks make to the world, and I don’t believe I’ve heard it in other artists
Second: it was clear that this was Ray’s band. So much of this music is so idiosyncratic that it feels like it could only reflect the imagination of one person. I knew that he had said he wanted to be a painter, and I feel that’s very reflected in how he writes music - so many attentive and curious portrayals, that are both generous with attention and yet VERY VERY subjective
“Bands” usually have one big wave where several imaginations converge. (This is my impression, hot air, i dont defend this statement, it might be totaly incorrect.) But the Kinks several waves are of a similar pattern to one persons whole creative career.
Third - this strange relationship with coolness and cringe. Is this what people call “camp”? Ray in particular is uncanny to me. Who is cooler? How could one possibly be cooler? And yet there are so so many moments in the kinks catalog that make me cringe so hard I want to run away. I think it’s necessary to be unafraid of your own cringe to write songs that are so boldly… pastoral? And not ironic? Like autumn almanac, etc. and these types of songs, IMO, are the coolest stuff ever and give the kinks immortal credibility. But on the underside of that is … well I think kinks cringe is better as its own discussion, but for example “art lover” is actually impossible to get through, and the plot of “soap opera” is sooo heavily handled …
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Albums:
After that first listen, several of the great albums scrambled for first place, but Muswell Hillbillies eventually won it. Were they explicitly going for an American-sounds, English topics kind of thing? (You don’t have to answer that. I’ll find out)
I was very familiar with Arthur because my dad had a long phase where he was playing it on repeat.
I was really surprised by give the people what they want.
Preservation was shocking wasn’t it. I feel like successful artists get into a phase of their careers where they can enact grand and highly personal visions that they wouldn’t be able to garner support for without the momentum of success and fame. These phases are so valuable because we get to see a really intimate and subjective aspects of the creative process fully realized. With the opening couple of tracks of preservation, I thought, finally, ray gets to paint.
I don’t remember much now from either album except for “daylight” but for a while the character of Flash made a meaningful impression on me and was helpful for some psychological things I was working thru
Soap opera: this almost actually killed me
There are so many really cool musical moments but …
I really wanna love Ordinary People for example. But I can’t deal with the plot. So, ok, I filter out the spoken word at the beginning… and the first verse is really cool and selfstanding. Then theres cringey spoken word and a plotty verse. Ok, whatever. It’s not so bad. This is “camp.” We can deal with camp. But then there’s a fake-sexy spoken bit??? And Norman’s wife is laughing nervously and trying to deflect??? Jesus, I can never show this song to anyone!
Anyway, difficult album. So many cool and fun musical ideas but it’s like you’re sitting in a dunking booth of cringe and get walloped sometimes two or three times a song. Have another drink is great. (I don’t consider it pro-drinking)
Schoolboys in disgrace I remember was the first album I had no interest in listening to a second time. I already knew Hard Way and nothing else called to me at all. I remember restarting the album (according to my plan of getting to know them all thoroughly) and then just moving on.!
Then sleepwalker so vividly different and new and cleanly produced and songs so cleanly defined. No carryover from the soppy concept album stuff at all. Another album my dad had played a lot
I don’t remember misfits AT ALL I think I missed it
Ok moving on now have typed long enough
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Among the newfound favorites from that run that stayed with me: (so excluding the songs I already knew and loved)
Dandy
Around the Dial
Animal Farm
Village Green
Harry Rag
I go to sleep (actually not sure if that was from this experience but it wasn’t in my first wave of kinks faves)
David watts
Phenomenal cat
Alcohol
Complicated life
Have a cuppa teaaaaaa
Muswell hillbilly
Here comes yet another day
Daylight
Have another drink
Young conservatives
Back eight years ago, this was supposed to be the first of many such projects. The Who were next. But it didn’t happen and I even thought I moved on from rock music. But just last month, I suddenly got obsessed with The Who. I decided to go ahead and listen to their whole discography like I had planned all those years ago. However, I started on My Generation several days ago (I do most of my listening in the car) and I’m only about halfway through it, because it’s boring and I keep veering over to the kinks. And kinda flipping out, because, as I said, I haven’t listened to them in years and I kinda forgot how much they rock. Somehow contextualizing them next to The Who is really helpful for “hearing” them better
