Songwriting genius: Ray Davies. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
The strangest musical conversation I have had in a while was in Los Angeles, where someone said to me: "The Kinks, weren't they a one-hit wonder-type deal?" For me, it's bizarre how the Kinks are generally only known as only a singles band. Only now - thanks to Wes Anderson putting them to the foreground of the soundtrack to The Darjeeling Limited - do people finally seem to be investigating the band's albums.
How did the Kinks' albums become so underrated? After all, Ray Davies is CBE certified as a songwriting genius, the master of the English vernacular in song. His band were the original proto-mod electric punks, influencing the Who and the Rolling Stones. The warring Ray and Dave Davies were the original notorious rock'n'roll brothers.
The Darjeeling Limited made great use of the music from Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One, one of my favourite Kinks albums. The album was written at the time Ray Davies had almost given up in music and started life as a jobbing actor on the TV film The Long Distance Piano Player. By 1970, the Kinks were at a low commercial ebb. They had released two of their greatest albums, The Village Green Preservation Society (1968) and Arthur (1969), both sounding like a magical and quintessentially English sea of calm in the context of the revolutionary 60s. Yet they flopped.
Ray Davies spilled out his feelings of rejection on Lola Versus Powerman. The album contains some of the most biting songs ever about the music industry. Top of the Pops mocks the illusionary nature of stardom, Denmark Street attacks the random nature of the music publishing industry and on Moneygoround Davies ultimately wonders where all his cash has gone. One barbed pop song after another, the album could be seen as the first in a long tradition of albums given over to complaints about the music business. Fortunately, Davies' sense of melody and humour mean that even at its most baleful, it's never a tedious listen. His ability to find hope in the direst of anxious situations - Strangers and This Time Tomorrow are songs of hope - ultimately elevates Lola Versus Powerman from cranky poison pen letter to classic.
Ironically, the release of Lola as a single saw Davies having his first big hit in three years. Yet even this hit somehow confirmed the Kinks' reputation as a singles band. When the band released arguably their last classic album Muswell Hillbillies in 1971, the concurrent release of yet another Kinks single compilation easily outsold it. However, Davies will always persevere. During punk, the Jam and the Pretenders sat at his feet in an attempt to learn the Davies songwriting skills. Later on, Damon Albarn, Noel Gallagher and the Libertines all wrote under the influence of the Kinks. Perhaps someone needs to piss off Ray Davies more often.
