40. Scattered (1993)
The quality of Kinks albums declined precipitously from the late 80s: you sensed their hearts weren’t really in it. Even so, Ray Davies couldn’t stop himself writing the occasional gem: from their final studio album Phobia, Scattered is a sweet, sad reflection on the Davies family’s complexities, powered by jangling guitars.
39. Rosy Won’t You Please Come Home (1966)
The decision of Davies’s older sister Rose to emigrate to Australia “devastated” him: it lurked in the background of Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) but took centre stage on this track from Face to Face: evidently heartfelt, it twists and turns, deploying everything from pleading to mockery to secure her return.
38. You Can’t Stop the Music (1975)
Originally the soundtrack to a Ray Davies TV special, Soap Opera nearly broke the Kinks: some members assumed it would be their last album. There’s certainly a sense of finality to its closing track, impressive though it is: despite the title, it sounds like a eulogy for rock’n’roll, spiked with personal bitterness.
37. Two Sisters (1967)
As an example of how out of step the Kinks were with the burgeoning counterculture in 1967, the harpsichord-led Two Sisters is hard to beat. Loving domesticity and parenthood trumps free-spirited bohemia: formerly jealous of her unencumbered sibling, the married sister ends the song delightedly running “round the house with her curlers on”.
36. I Go to Sleep (1965)
Never released by the Kinks – a demo version is on the deluxe version of Kinda Kinks – the fraught ballad I Go to Sleep was the most sophisticated song Ray Davies had written by this time. The most famous cover is by the Pretenders, but the best is the 1967 version by German singer Marion Maerz: lushly orchestrated, echo-laden, girl group-adjacent, magnificent.
35. Lavender Lane (1971)
Belatedly excavated for the 2013 deluxe edition of Muswell Hillbillies, Lavender Lane’s failure to make the cut in 1971 seems baffling. It’s fantastic, a broadside against what would now be called gentrification that pivots between nostalgic sadness and fury, aimed at “the old school tie and all the la-di-do-dahs”.
34. I’m Not Like Everybody Else (1966)
In the hands of the Chocolate Watchband, who covered it in 1968, I’m Not Like Everybody Else is a classic screw-you garage band sneer. The Kinks’ original has a menacing power, but feels more complicated and personal, its emotional temperature shifting from defiant to faintly distraught.
33. Living on a Thin Line (1984)
From the largely ho-hum Word of Mouth, this is an atmospheric, ominous and pessimistic survey of Thatcher’s Britain from the pen of Dave Davies – “there’s no England now,” he dolefully concludes – subsequently rescued from obscurity and brought to the wider audience it deserved by its inclusion on the soundtrack of The Sopranos.
32. (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman (1979)
At their height of Britpop, it was common to compare Damon Albarn’s brand of social satire to that of Ray Davies, a fairly obvious influence. More bizarre is how much this impressive single from 1979’s Low Budget sounded like Blur’s Girls and Boys: disco beat, slashing guitars, mannered Cockney vocals.
31. Too Much on My Mind (1966)
Easy to overlook amid the waspish character studies and social satires of Face to Face – the Kinks’ first entirely superb album – Too Much on My Mind feels like Ray Davies’s most personal song of the era: a plaintive depiction of a man teetering on the verge of a breakdown. Understated, but quietly devastating.
30. Till the End of the Day (1965)
The last of the Kinks’ riff-heavy garage rock anthems – although the fantastic She’s Got Everything belatedly slipped out as a B-side in 1968 – is more sophisticated than its predecessors: check the harmony vocals. But it’s just as thrilling, and – curiously for the Kinks – snottily optimistic in tone. But if you flipped the single over …
29. Where Have All the Good Times Gone? (1965)
… you got the first – but definitely not the last – example of Ray Davies in contrarian mode. The 60s are fully swinging, the Kinks are at the centre of the action, and yet he’s riven with angst, complaining that things ain’t what they used to be, suggesting his parents had it better.
28. This Time Tomorrow (1970)
Not all of Davies’s scabrous music business satire Lola Vs Powerman and the Moneygoround Pt 1 has aged well, but This Time Tomorrow still rings out: detached from the album’s concept, it ceases to be a song about touring, and instead becomes a hugely affecting study of a life turned aimless.
27. Death of a Clown (1967)
Dave Davies’s aborted late 60s solo album was doomed by the Kinks’ gradually declining commercial fortunes rather than a lack of strong material, evidenced by Death of a Clown, rhythmically jaunty but hauntingly eerie: a compelling solo hit that wound up on 1967’s Something Else By the Kinks.
26. Sitting in My Hotel (1972)
Songs in which rock stars complain about life on the road seldom elicit much sympathy from the listener – there are, far, far worse jobs, after all – but Sitting in My Hotel is among the few exceptions: a heartbreaking piano ballad that perfectly expresses a sense of homesick dislocation.
25. Mr Pleasant (1967)
Sometimes, Ray Davies could sound like a grumpy reactionary, sometimes like a revolutionary, seething with class rage. It isn’t entirely clear what Mr Pleasant has done to incur Davies’s wrath, beyond being middle class, but his downfall is brilliantly, wittily depicted, to a jolly music hall-inspired backing. The evident delight in Davies’s voice is quite unsettling.
24. Sweet Lady Genevieve (1973)
As Ray Davies’s theatrical ambitions got more elaborate, his songwriting genius seemed to flicker more fitfully: the Kinks’ 70s concept albums can be a longwinded slog. But persevere and you’re occasionally rewarded with a song like the gorgeous Sweet Lady Genevieve, entirely up to the standards he’d set himself. Perhaps the Kinks’ great lost classic.
23. 20th Century Man (1971)
It isn’t entirely clear if the character in 20th Century Man is a character, or an expression of Ray Davies’s increasing alienation and the precarious state of his mental health. “I don’t want to be here,” it offers. He would attempt suicide two years later. Ironically, the music that misery is set to is utterly charming.
22. Victoria (1969)
Victoria deals in the sort of ambiguity that had become one of Davies’s most striking trademarks. Is it a nostalgic celebration of a bygone era, or a biting satire on empire? Probably both. Whatever it is, it’s a great song, blessed with a wonderful middle eight and an exultant brass arrangement.
21. See My Friends (1965)
Depending on who you believe, the sound of See My Friends was either inspired by a brief stopover in Mumbai, or the raga-influenced playing of folk guitarist Jon Mark. Either way, it was a hugely innovative pop single, both for its droning sound and its (admittedly oblique) lyrical treatment of homosexuality.
20. Come Dancing (1983)
The Kinks’ only UK hit in the final 22 years of their career concerned their fraught origin story – the death of Ray Davies’s sister Rene in a dancehall, the same day she gave him his first guitar – and featured a sound that recalled their mid-60s hits: the synth hasn’t dated well, but the song itself is sweet, sad nostalgia.
19. Big Black Smoke (1966)
Sixties London not as the swinging epicentre of the world, but a dark, forbidding nightmare, ready to swallow the unwary, including the song’s increasingly speed-addled protagonist. Ferociously performed and emotionally complex, as empathy for the girl’s frantic mother battles it out with a certain native Londoner’s relish at her grim fate.
18. Better Things (1981)
The Kinks’ unexpected early 80s elevation into hard-rocking, arena-packing stars in the US sailed over British audiences’ heads. If their albums from that era aren’t up to 60s standards, they have their moments, of which Better Things’ unexpectedly optimistic – and richly melodic – reflection on a collapsing marriage is the most stellar.
17. Celluloid Heroes (1972)
Kinks fans can argue all night over whether 1972’s Everybody’s in Show-Biz represents their last soup-to-nuts classic album. Less contentious is how great its highlights are, as evidenced by Celluloid Heroes, an impossibly weary rumination on celebrity and posthumous reputation, provoked by a visit to Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame.
16. Dead End Street (1966)
Outside of the world of folk, mid-60s British pop wasn’t big on social realism or protest, which made Dead End Street’s depiction of working-class poverty, complete with mournful french horn and shouted chorus, all the more striking. It had more in common with contemporary TV dramas than it did the rest of the charts.
15. Shangri-La (1969)
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) was a much thornier exploration of Britishness than the preceding year’s The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. The lengthy, episodic Shangri-La’s melody barely conceals a lyric livid about conformity, limited aspirations and social mobility, a country “too scared to complain”.
14. Picture Book (1968)
It’s hard to pick out individual tracks from The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society – it works best taken as a whole – but Picture Book’s interrogation of memory (“those days when you were happy, a long time ago”) is particularly great: sentimental but irreverent, and genuinely affecting.
13. Oklahoma USA (1971)
Muswell Hillbillies is a curious, fascinating album, packed with great songs drenched in Americana but lyrically rooted in north London. Oklahoma USA is its highlight: its tune among Ray Davies’s prettiest, the lyrics both wistful and sharp – its dreams of a more glamorous existence in Oklahoma are fuelled by the Hollywood musical rather than reality of life there.
12. Lola (1970)
The subject of some controversy in recent years, Lola’s depiction of a brief, confused dalliance with a trans woman was more or less uncharted territory for pop in 1970, a topic no one other than Lou Reed had ventured to touch. It seemed to energise Ray Davies, pulling one of his greatest tunes out of him.
11. David Watts (1967)
Partly inspired by the Kinks’ encounter with a gay Midlands promoter, this story of schoolboy rivalry is liberally sprinkled with homoeroticism. Does the narrator envy Watts’s wealth and accomplishments or is his fascination sparked more by Watts’s lack of interest in girls? The music fits perfectly: relentless, agitated, but deliberately mannered.
10. Dedicated Follower of Fashion (1966)
The Kinks, Marianne Faithfull subsequently opined, were “creepy and silent” and seemed “fearful of everyone”. Perhaps Ray Davies was taking notes, which would explain how perfectly he skewered the affectations of 60s hipsters here. Best moment: when the lyric slips into contemporary journalese: “This pleasure-seeking individual always looks his best.”
9. God’s Children (1971)
If you want an example of Ray Davies’s contrarian nature, consider God’s Children. Easily one of his finest early 70s songs – spellbinding melody, intriguing lyrics about the advance of technology – and he stuck it on the soundtrack to a sex comedy about a man rendered irresistible to women after a penis transplant.
8. A Well Respected Man (1965)
The song that introduced a sharp brand of social satire into 60s British pop and inspired a legion of contemporary imitators – Semi-Detatched Suburban Mr James, et al. But no one else was as nuanced a lyricist as Ray Davies: listen to the verse about the protagonist’s ghastly mother, and you can virtually see her.
7. You Really Got Me (1964)
After 60 plus years, You Really Got Me is so familiar, it’s hard to picture the jolt it must have delivered in the summer of 1964, its distorted riff, unhinged guitar solo and Ray Davies’s vocal – alternately impassioned and slightly camp – sounding nothing like anything British pop had thus far produced. It still rocks.
6. All Day and All of the Night (1964)
That rarest of things: an attempt to follow up a huge hit with something similar that improves on the original. Cut from the same cloth as You Really Got Me, it succeeds by dialling everything up: it’s tougher, heavier, more exhilarating, and the mid-chorus key change is a masterstroke.
5. The Village Green Preservation Society (1968)
The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society flopped on release: perhaps a rock band singing in praise of the George cross and virginity was too confusing amid 1968’s revolutionary tumult. It was correctly reassessed as their masterpiece. The opening track demonstrates Davies’s songwriting firing on all cylinders: funny, sharp, provocative, warm.
4. Sunny Afternoon (1966)
How good a writer was Ray Davies at his zenith? Good enough to draw a pen portrait of a dissipated, abusive aristocrat and somehow manage to elicit a sense of empathy from the listener, helped by the irresistible melody and the song’s timelessness: its story could have been written in the 1920s but it’s not a nostalgic pastiche.
3. Autumn Almanac (1967)
At the close of the summer of love, Ray Davies was to be found lovingly hymning the mundane life of a suburban gardener. Far more than a mere dry run for The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, Autumn Almanac is a lovely song: no snark or cynicism, just warmth and empathy.
2. Days (1968)
That Days failed to make the UK Top 10 tells you everything about the Kinks’ waning commercial fortunes and nothing about the song itself. In a just world, anything blessed with a tune this beautiful, so suffused with equal part sadness and reflective warmth, would have been No 1 for weeks. A masterpiece.
1. Waterloo Sunset (1967)
Critic Robert Christgau called Waterloo Sunset “the most beautiful song in the English language”: certainly it’s among the greatest singles of the 60s, quite possibly one of the greatest pop songs of all time and a remarkable example of the songwriter’s art. On top of an extraordinarily beautiful melody, the lyrics are perfectly balanced between love for London, affection for the lovers meeting outside Waterloo Station and aching sadness: ever the outsider, Davies looks on at it all from a distance, and complains about the cold. It’s his best song, but it isn’t head-and-shoulders over everything else he wrote, which says a great deal about his brilliance.
• The Kinks: Brothers, by Ray Davies, Dave Davies and Christian Furr, is at the Gibson Garage, London, until 6 September
