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The Kinks and Their Bad-Mannered English Decency

Mark Doyles biography of the Kinks might complement a seminar in British culture. Its tone and research prove its intent to articulate social critique through music for the masses.

                                      
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Mark Doyles biography of the Kinks might complement a seminar in British culture. Its tone and research prove its intent to articulate social critique through music for the masses.

Three CDs of obscure, left field British folk-pop? Who needs that? The answer my friend, isn't blowing in the wind... the answer is you.

New York City's the Dig finds contemporary commentary in a Kinks classic, marrying it with images from the inimitable James Kerr Scorpion Dagger.

A self-described “oral history jukebox” gives behind-the-scenes details about popular songs and the historical circumstances that shaped pop culture as we know it.

Persona -- the “I” of the song -- has evolved, broadened, and expanded to more fully represent a diversity of experiences as well as emotional, political, and cultural orientations.

The 183rd most acclaimed album of all time is this week's Counterbalance, a pastoral 1968 masterpiece from the Kinks. God save little shops, china cups and virginity.

Like that lady who dreams of an Oklahoma where Shirley Jones and Gordon McCrea dwell, we can fantasize of an England where our neighbors lead rich and eccentric lives and invite us over for a friendly spot of tea.

In a better world, "The Way Love Used to Be" would rank alongside "You Really Got Me", "Waterloo Sunset", and "Lola" as one of the Kinks' crowning achievements.

Woods perform a jangling and bright take on the classic Kink's tune, "God's Children".

If 1967 characterizes a high point in rock music, it also initiated an explicit realignment of what was possible in the genre -- for better or worse.

The prolific Ty Segall is back with another great album.

Comeblack is guaranteed to leave fans of classic Scorpions scratching their heads, and those looking for an introduction to the group are advised to search elsewhere.

Who hasn’t sat through those holiday parties with the cozy but yawn inducing classics of Burl Ives playing ad nauseam? I can help with that.

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Ray Davies' latest album is part tribute compilation, part vanity project. Mark my words, no one will be discussing this a year from now.

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This batch of lo-fi home recordings is Stoltz's best effort to date because it perfectly fits the image his fans have had of him all along: A music lover holed up in his bedroom, knee-deep in a pile of instruments, smiling back at posters of Ray Davies and David Bowie.

Great Big Sea is, at its heart, a party band, and there is pretty much one thing that its music is a soundtrack to in Canada: drinking your face off.

This utterly abominable hatchet job makes an unforgivable hash of one of the great bands of the British Invasion.

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Pete Townshend is selling (his soul), but who's buying? Not I.

How to capitalize on one of the few successful movie soundtracks of the past decade? Re-release it a year later with some "b-sides!"

The last quintet of choices show how the blues reclaimed its basis for a dozen hard rock hymns, argued for the importance of following one's singer/songwriter muse, and proved that not every significant sound coming out of the UK was Beatle-based.

Resist adult life with the Kinks' backward-looking Village Green Preservation Society.